After our happy day walking around Kalpa we were up early and in the jeep enroute for Nako. The scenery got more spectacular and almost surreal as the day progressed. We were held up just outside Kalpa whilst they cleared a landslide from the road - there had been rain on and off all night and it had made the roads even more unstable. We stopped for coffee in a small dhaba at Jangi where we met a group of three Canadian cyclists who were on their second day of cycling through Spiti and ounward over the high mountain passes to Leh. Though we had seen many motorcyclists doing the same trip these were the first group of cyclists we had met. One of the group was an inexperienced rider and she was already ill and ... read more

Our jeep arrived early in the morning to collect us for our trip - it was much bigger then we were expecting and our driver Sanju seemed a very nice man. Thankfully he proved to be very friendly, very religious and with a quiet personality. The drive from Shimla took us through heavily forested valleys and hills terraced with gardens of vegetables including cauliflower and beans. It was very pretty scenery and we passed many little villages, most which appeared to be quite poor. The ladies were no longer wearing sparkly, brightly colored saris but were now dressed in loose trousers, knee length split long sleeved tunics with sleeveless wool flannel jackets over the top. The jackets were grey or brown and the tunics in a range of muted colors. On their heads they wore brown ... read more

Chamba is a fascinating town set in a valley on the edge of a rushing river. It took one hour on the bus to get here from Khajjiar and it was a scary trip! The bus arrived from Dalhousie absolutely packed and had about a dozen young men sitting on the roof - all singing and whistling - in very high spirits and looking forward to day out on the field in Khajjiar. Just as we were leaving Khajjiar, as were walking through the forest to the bus stop (our hotel was set amongst the trees) we disturbed two baby snow leopards playing. What a thrill that was! The area is a forestry and wildlife reserve. The bus trip to Chamba was all down hill and the bus conductor stood at the back of the bus ... read more

Five hours by train from the chaos of Delhi railway station bought us to the northern city of Amritsar, the holy city of the Sikhs and the site of the amazing Golden Temple. The Golden Temple is the Vatican of the Sikh religion and houses the Sikh Holy Book. We caught an auto rickshaw to our hotel which was very close to the temple, which is in the center of the old city. As with all the old cities in India, the streets are narrow and very crowded and draped with archaic and frightening jumbles of electricity cables. It was intensely hot, certainly as hot as Delhi had been the day before. Though the hotel was close to the temple we couldn't see it but the streets were full of men wearing colorful turbans, particularly orange ... read more

We left Mumbai early in the morning by train from the massive Gothic inspired railway station for the four hour trip up into the Western Ghats. Our first Indian train trip was enjoyable - you find the right platform and train, check that you actually have a seat by checking the computer printout which is pasted on the side of each carriage and load your bags aboard. The train started right on time - no announcement was made so there was a rush as everybody dived on as it started to move - and we headed out of Mumbai through endless rows of tin shacks and high rises. The fun started once we arrived in the city of Pune, at the base of the Ghats and known throughout the Western World as being the home of ... read more