The road up the Pin Valley was very dusty as it was only a dirt track and rough in places as the region had only recently opened to tourism. We were traveling through an animal reserve and Jerry was hoping to see an ibex - he didn't! The countryside was very similar, at least initially, to the Spiti Valley (we had just left it I guess) but as we went further in it started to change - there was more colour in the mountains and wild flowers - purple, yellow and white - started to be seen. We stopped for lunch [View Full Entry]

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We spent the next day winding through the stark grandeur of the valley, passing many people improving the roads, including again sadly many women with tiny children beside them. At one stage even Sanju was holding his breath as he drove over a very nasty patch of road made from very loose shale. We know when it's going to be bad now - he prays and the road before is lined with prayer flags for luck. Our evening stop that night was in the small village of Tabo (3050metres) which was founded in 996. It is the oldest Buddhist establishment in [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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We left the Baspa River valley and headed back along the mighty Sutlej River once again. Still amazing mountain views - I guess we will have similar views now for the rest of the trip. We wound our way along the river bank, through some very high gorges and above some very high gorges. Up and down all morning, once again passing dam construction sites and roadworks. Again many young women with babys on their backs breaking up rocks to build the roads. Very sad to see. The tent villages had all the older children ln them doing the daily chores, [View Full Entry]

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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, [View Full Entry]

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As we were not expecting to like Shimla we were pleasantly surprised to find we did! It was a large city, another hill town close to Delhi, and it was spread 3 kilometers over the ridge line of three hills. The traffic was very busy, still holiday season, but our hotel was very close to the main bazaar area so we had no need to battle the traffic once we were settled. The company that we had booked the jeep tour through for our trip to the Kinnaur and Spiti valleys was based in Shimla and they had prebooked the hotel [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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Amritsar has been the highlight of our trip so far but sadly it was time to leave this fascinating city. Our next stop was Dalhousie, another hill station in the foothills of the Lower Himalayan Mountains. There was a train part of the way and then a local bus up the mountain (in total it takes 6 hours to reach Dalhousie from Amritsar) or local bus all the way. Being a pilgrim city it became nearly impossible to get a ticket out - the whole situation wasn't helped of course by it being school holidays in Punjab! In the end after [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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Our flight aboard Kingfisher Airlines left Pune at 7pm and arrived in New Delhi 2 hours later. It was an absolutely massive airport and is still undergoing extensive renovation and runway extension. Once we actually landed it took over 20 minutes for the plane to go along the runway to the terminal! We had a hotel booked in the old part of New Delhi and the hotel had a free airport pickup. Thankfully our driver was still waiting patiently because by the time we found him it was 1 hour later than we had expected it to be. The traffic was [View Full Entry]

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