At last we found a PC!!!! Hallelulia!

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Hello from the pair of us! We are really sorry we promised to send regular updates but haven't managed to do that so far. It's not that we couldn't find a cyber cafe, India is full of call centres and electronic cafe's begging for your 30.00 rupees, but in all honesty, we just couldn't be bovered!!!.

It's just too hot and besides we've been so very busy traveling. By the time you arrive somewhere new, you're exhausted because traveling in India is complicated and exhausting. Well who wants to spend all their time in an internet cafe when there's an amazing India to explore out there.

Everyday (according to Elly, we are presently fighting about this point cos we are saddos) I say to Elly, "shouldn't we get on with our travel blog and at least let everyone back home know we are safe and sound". Every time I get the same answer from her. She would look up at me with her blissed out face and say, "crikey, your right mate, strewth, we'll get onto it soon". But soon would never come, we'd continue to sit sipping chai, intoxicated with the smell of incense and either watch the sun come up or go down over the Ganges in hardcore Hardiwar, the temples of Rishikesh, the hills of Shimla or the Dalai Lama's living room in McLoed Ganj, which is where we are now in the upper reaches of the Kangra Valley-Himachal Pradesh (just in case you wanted to know that).

So far our journey has been amazing. Delhi was pretty awful which is where we started. Delhi is the kind of place you just want to get out of. No one really does very much sight seeing in the belly of Delhi. It's congested, seriously you can hardly move around what with 12.8 million people crammed into 1483 sq km's. The poverty level is heart breaking, the stench from urine filled gutters, the squalor and hassle of trying to move around without someone either trying to set you up or rip you off, is so draining. Not our cup of chai so with haste we departed from Delhi swiftly. By Jen.

YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYeeeeeeeeeeeew, were in India man, the hotpot of spirituality, the god of the spices, the deserts the mountains the beaches......the people, the saris the color feels like we are in a techno color dream!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! sipping chia on roof tops giggling non stop with the beautiful Jennifer berry, how blessed are we to be here together...............
First stop after deli was a grueling ten hours on a bus no need to go go to amusement park with the bumpy ride we had, lucky we have done India b4 and were hardcore chicks (NOT) We arrive at a place called Haridwar i soon discover that the name should be HARDCORE, no relief for us here in this colorful mix of pilgrims everywhere being one of the holiest Hindu city in India.
Nest stop Rishikesh im hoping that i can eat mangos here and dribble in a hammock?????? This is where the mother of all life to India, the mighty Ganges river flows from the foot hills of the Himalayas. This is the Yoga capital of the world, I'm in bliss as im a yoga nut. This place is full of seekers of all kinds, sadhus holy men, cows, dogs, me Jen he he anyway lots of people man you get my drift time for me have my 678th chia. I'm checking in to lactose rehab institution of Australia when i get home don't worry.. here's Jen.

Poor Elly she's not in good shape today. Chrumbo she's moaning just like I was the other day. Hungry, fed up, nothing working out, can't write, can't poo, can't nothing!!!! Toilets are disgusting, wants to go shopping etc anything but sit here and WRITE THIS EXCITING TRAVEL BLOG!!!!
I congratulate her for sitting here for the last 30 mins anyway.

Right.......Haridwar for me was great! It was stupidly busy, so many pilgrims underneath you, on top, left and right, seriously you could hardly move but there was a spectacular atmosphere. Exhausting but electric and one of those unique and bizarre moments you will only experience in India.
Haridwar is Uttarakhand's most holiest Hindu sites and pilgrims come from all over in their hundreds to bathe in the fast flowing Ganges. At Har-ki-Pairi Ghat there are thousands of people gathering for ganga arti celebrations, bathing as they wash away their sins and being blessed. We lit the beautiful leaf baskets with flower petals inside and a candle on top for our own special prayer and blessing, which we then cast off down the Ganges. I loved it there, quite special.

Rishikesh for me was quite disappointing. It is a beautiful place in it's own right but it has been so spoilt because of the traffic congesting the tiny road which runs through the center of what is not a town but just a village. So many cars, tuk tuks and tourist jeeps tear through the main drag, pumping out clouds of poisonous fumes. They will not reduce their speed but just hit any dog or cow in the way or any person for that matter. It was grueling to walk up and down the streets in the heat with all that pollution. Rishikesh was filthy, smelt so bad and was so full on it made you want to scream and run away as fast as you could. Thank goodness we were staying in a place called High Bank which was set away from all the madness up in the leafy hills.

Onto Shimla from there. Wow what a completely different cup of tea that was!!!! In 1846 the British Raj took over this quiet, sleepy forest glade and it became their official summer residence. At an altitude of 2205 meters most days you would wake up in the clouds. Both me and El fell in love with this place. Not when we arrived though, after a whole day traveling we had to climb to the top of the ridge with all our gear. We should have let the porters carry our gear up to the top for us but we were tired and failed to appreciate that they were there for a very serious reason. Anyway, idiots that we were we manged to get to the top, both struggling and feeling weak. Even to get to our guest house we still had to complete another 822 DOUBLE steps. We were not amused by this point, shattered and pretty fed up.

We'd spent 3-4 days in Shimla, not wanting to leave at all. It was too perfect, too beautiful and a joy to walk around. The British did a great job with the amazing architecture. We went to see the Viceregal Lodge the official residence of the British Viceroys. This place scream's out British India and still is although now it is very much an upper middle class Indian retreat.
Everyday we would go for amazing walks, we found the most wonderful little India cafe's to sit and sip chai and stuff ourselves with Thali's. We ate so many delicious Indian sweets and tried everything we could. The bazaars were a shoppers paradise. The only thing we brought though was a Shimla shawl each.

It's very tiring writing blogs so I'm going to end this soon. Elly has gone for a shower and can't be bothered to write not that I blame her. It's not the kind of thing you really want to be doing with your time here.

So just to finish off we're in McLeod Ganj right now and it looks like we shall be here until we both split company, which is going to happen because we both have different flight schedules. We're both a bit sad about that because we would loved to have traveled back to Delhi together, then said our goodbyes but it's not going to happen, so that's just that.

Beautiful McLeod is 1770 meters (a bit less than Shimla) but still you wake up in the clouds on some days. This is the home of the Dalai Lama and headquarters of the exiled Tibetan government. It is also a major center of study for Buddhist and Tibetan culture. It looks and feels like little Tibet, with so many Tibetan families living and working here. We just love it here. The people are so humble, so beautiful, so generous. We could stay here for a very long time..................

Anyhow, Elly is off to the hills on Monday to silence her gob in a 10 day silent retreat. That will be total silence, no talking at all, not even at meal times or during the very little free time she will get, which is probably only an hour or so a day. Well, I wish her all the very best. I hope she makes it but she said that if she feels she is missing out on all the fun and can't stand it any longer she will come back down and join me. I take my hat off to her because I wouldn't be able to do it nor have the inclination. Bless her I hope she has an amazing experience.

While Elly is sitting in silence I'm going to do quite the opposite and immerse myself within the Tibetan community here for those 10 days. I'll be doing some voluntary work, including conversational English to help newly arrived refugees and improve their language skills. Also, help out with ex prisoners and refugee, orphaned children-that will keep me busy and out of trouble for a bit. I feel if you come here you really need to do something to help these people. They are so desperate, they all tell you that they need us. We can't forget them once we leave here and they need our efforts and voices and our energies once we return to our countries to help raise awareness about their plight. These people do not beg at all, they all work very, very hard with what little they have and they have done so well to resettle in another country but Tibet is where they all want to be and go home to one day so I hope I will be able to support them and never forget them.

McLeod is lovely, it's small and cosy, beautiful surrounding's at the foothills of the Himalayas and oddly enough it feels like home. Both Elly and I are so comfortable here, we both want to come back in the future to do some voluntary work-I hope we will be able to do that one day.

I'm not much in the mood for writing and apologize for my badly structured blog but it seems like such a slog to sit here and write. I'm going to attempt to download some pictures for you and hope that works and in the future I shall just down load a few photos and a few words just to keep you updated.

Sending you all much love, from the pair of us,

Jen and El xxx

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