Leh - Ladakh

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Leh is beautiful. It only got opened up to Tourism in 1974, and it has spoiled the place a ton, but there are still many friendly locals who are Tibetan Buddhist. www.isec.org.uk showed me a video (Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladahk) on Leh yesterday which was great. There is a book also which I highly recommend! I could do a lot worse than to come back here after my traveling and try and work as a volunteer. It is quite a coincidence, but they are based in Foxhole - where Dartington College is. The temples, gompas, chortens, and mosques are very nice indeed. Tomorrow I am hoping to Mountain bike to Tikse - which is called "Little Lhasa" by the locals because it has a temple that makes it look very much like the capital of Tibet. The Guest House that I am staying in is called Milarepa, which is the same as the book I am reading - which is a translation of a biography of the Tibetan Saint who is very revered here. The owner's wife says that she will put me in touch with a guru in Manali which would be interesting. My room has views over the snow peaked mountains - Stok-Kangri Massif (6120m high) and the Namgyal Tsemo Gompa. Kunzang is a local girl who runs the place and cooks and tonight she is cooking momos - a traditional Tibetan dish like stuffed pasta shells. This afternoon I am heading to a polo match which is part of the Leh Festival which is on this week.
Plans are to head to Manali next, maybe on Sunday - in Himachal Pradesh. The bus trip takes two days over the mountains - like the one from Srinigar to Leh, but this time instead of sleeping in a town on the way I will be in a tent!
After Manali I will probably head to Dharmsala where the Dalai Lama lives, and then I think Shimla. I will have to do a little backtracking at some point here to take in the Golden Temple at Amritzar, but if I do Shimla first, and then the train to Amritzar, then I can get a train right through from Amritzar to Varenasi - where people bathe in the Ganges, and then get a flight or bus to Katmandu to trek in Nepal. The route looks easier to go from Dharamsala to Amritzar and then Shimla, Amritzar, but trains mean not I think.
Email is not as easy or as cheap as I expected here, but I expect it wil be easier and cheaper later in my trip in India. I am writing this email in Notepad while the cafe tries to get a connection, so I hope I get to send it! It looks like I will buy a floppy disk and put it on - now I am in another internet cafe...
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Leh was lovely, and I ended up staying there for a week before taking the 2 day bus down to Manali in Himachal Pradesh. I bumped into some very nice travellers on the bus: Kaye from the UK, and Mark(Aus) and Mel (NZ). They helped to make the trip interesting and enjoyable. The scenery of the himalayas from the bus was quite amazing, and I think one of the passes we took was over 5000m. The bus driver was great - even took a few shortcuts leaving the road for a while to cut off a few switchbacks - exciting for us passengers.

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