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Published: August 7th 2007
This travelblog was lost due to server crash, but the text now recovered......
I’ve just realised the last entry written by me was at Christmas so I thought it about time I subjected everyone to some of my trademark waffle!
Well after spending a week in Srinagar we booked a car to take us on the 11 hour 300km journey south to the nearest train station! The road from Srinagar to Jammu travels up and down the side of the Himalayas mountain range and the scenery is stunning. The road reopened to two-way traffic again on the morning we traveled (luck not judgment!) it was only open north or south on alternate days throughout the winter due to huge rockslides!
The evidence of the rockslides were very obvious every few miles and were enough to make us extremely nervous at times. We were expecting a fairly quiet road but it seemed fairly busy with huge lorries zooming past in the opposite direction leaving a 5cm gap between them and us (and a 5cm gap between us and the mile drop to the valley!)
Anyway, however beautiful the scenery 11 hours of looking at it from
the back seat of a (very uncomfortable) jeep was more than enough! We arrived in Jammu
Dal Lake - Srinagar
at 7pm and checked into a cheep hotel to catch a few hours kip. By 7 the next morning we were on the train headed to Pathankot were we arrived at midday. We then had to travel by road for 3 more hours to reach McLeod Ganj. (Phew!)
So here we are……McLeod is in the state of Himachel Pradesh in the north of India, it is in the hills/mountains at about 6000ft and so BLISSFULLY cool….YEAHHHHHH!!!! The weather has been a huge attraction to us from the moment we arrived when there was a rain shower. After 6 months of heat and in the last month humidity we are loving it that you sometimes need a jumper here!! The days are mostly bright and sunny about 30c at night it drops down to around 15. There have been 2 thunderstorms in the 2 weeks we’ve been here. It is a strange experience, they have both been in the early morning and you can watch the clouds rolling down from the peaks over the town bringing huge rain and then
Sunset on Dal Lake
The boat is one of the Shikaras that go to and from the houseboatsdown to the valley and disappearing. Both times within 2 hours the sun is shining like nothing happened.
McLeod
Sunset on Dal Lake
The boat is one of the Shikaras that go to and from the houseboatsGanj is the home of the Dalai Lama, since 1959 when he escaped from Tibet. The town has several Buddhist monasteries and convents and therefore there are many monks and nuns wandering around in their maroon and saffron robes. They seem to have a vary varied life, you can see them in the morning or evening having 'debates' about Buddhism and life in general, but also you see them sitting in coffee shops and restaurants or shopping, or texting on their mobiles. I think the funniest sight so far has to go to the young monk in the Internet cafe the other day engrossed in a game of Doom on the computer!
We have found since arriving here that there is LOADS to do, from yoga and massage to open mike nights to Buddhist teaching to volunteering in the baby centre to well almost anything! Terry is on his second week of an intensive yoga course, I decided yoga is probably not
for me; I'd get kicked out for giggling instead of "Ommmmm-ing"! So I have started a silversmith course making jewelry right from melting down the silver! (Mmmmmmm..... power tools!!)
So anyway, we have decided that we
Tarmac-onoma?
are going to stay here for the next six weeks before heading back to Goa to catch up with Gi and Babu (hi guys!) and experience the monsoon before heading home for a few weeks.
We have been a bit slack with the camera since we got here; we keep forgetting to take it out, but will endeavor to get some more photos of life in McLeod for the next blog.
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