Long Road to Leh

On the road to Leh.......

Dusty ride

Tea Break

Passing Lane

Success Downtown Leh

 Amazing ride into the Himalayas on a mini van and 17 hours worth of dust and abuse.

Checking into the guest house

Leh Palace

Over looking Leh valley

 A couple of 16000 ft passes and on 17, 500 ft pass and then into the Leh valley and the Indus river.

Endless Stupas......

Arrival in Leh was like another planet and we're trying to get used to the altitude and then off on a trek into the Markhu Valley/ Leaving tomorrow .....Cheers to all...Jul Le!

Heat, Color &Humanity

Red Fort

 Landing in New Delhi and feeling the furnace at the airport was proof that we weren't in Kansas anymore. Wandering around Old Delhi and it's amazing buildings, swirl of colors and constant jostling with all around us. Of course just dripping from the 90% humidity and 90 deg temp.

Electrical issues ?

Kalka -Getting on the Toy Train to Shimla

on the road to Shimla

 Took a 4 hour train out of Delhi to Kalka and boarded a Toy Train to an old English Hill Station of Shimla at 7000'. Nice change in temperature to only 70 deg in the day. 7 hours in a tiny train, with 103 tunnels and incredible hill country.

Shimla nestled in the hills 

 A town of 200,000 with houses and stores all along the ridge. Above the town was the Monkey Temple where Becky lost her glasses to the bandit monkey.

Monkey temple tail

Becky's glasses bandit brother

Not taking any chances with the bus company...

Waiting for rock slide to be cleared.

Left Shimla for a 10 hour bus right to Manali. Narrow roads and a lot of horn honking and short stops for food and tea.....until a 1 hour wait for clearing of a rockslide that took out 4 trucks. I guess Krishna was on our side.

Manali alley to our hotel.

 Arrived in Manali and town a tuktuk to our hotel...a little too steep for our selves and bags and had to get out at a couple of the corners. Beautiful town with views of the Himalayas. Ended up at a great Tibetan style Guest house.

Tiger Eye Guest House

Forest reserve along side Manali town.

Spending a couple of days in Manali after the bus ride and preparing for the 18 plus hour bus ride tonight to Leh.

Our road tomorrow to Ladakh

Waterfall above Vashist

Hiked a great muddy trail above a little village of Vashist with apple trees being harvested to a stunning waterfall high above the valley. Great day and great food. Today we hang out and enjoy the sun....

View above Manali

Shimla Shakedown

Today's fun: Monkey Attack! We were having a lovely stroll down from visiting the Jakhu, a huge pink monkey temple, an area of course swarming with monkeys. On the way up the hill, it was suggested we rent a stick to keep the aggressive monkeys at bay, and we were also warned (in Hindi) by a lady who said to watch for your glasses. After walking around the statue and enjoying the site & sights, we headed down. Stretch was great with the stick. He just tapped it towards the monkeys and they backed off. That is until the very last monkey...who circled around me and in a flash jumped on my head, snatched my glasses and was up on a statue. We started for him, then thought better and tried to lure him with shiny paper and money. No go. Then a vender nearby said "food" and came over with a bag of peanuts. At this point I couldn't really see what was happening, so Stretch tells me the man threw the peanuts to the monkey, who dropped the glasses right in the man's hands. Whew! Stretch said "how much" and the man replies "ten rupees".  I laughed and asked it the monkey was his pet, but didn't get a reply. So, lesson learned: wear my contact when ever possible, and maybe learn Hindi.

Delhi daze

It's hot here! Two days in Delhi now, and we both are dripping every day. But tomorrow we head north by train to Kalka and Shimla in the foothills of the Himalayas.

Delhi is everything you may have ever heard about - thousands of people either wanting to "help" you or asking for money, crazy traffic, and many buildings in disrepair or in terminal repair. We took a tour yesterday (Friday, Sept 14th) by tuktuk. Our driver was great negotiating his way through the cars, bicycle rickshaws, heavily laden wooden carts pulled by thin sinewy men, motorcycles, and not any cows! I guess they're trying to keep them from roaming the city.

 Our tour took us to the Red Fort, a Shah's residence from the 1600's (we think). Impressive grounds and intricate inlays of white marble and red sandstone. From there it was to a huge market, where we spent hours negotiating our way through blocks and blocks of tight spaces and stalls through the "everything watches", "everything fabric trim", "everything gold and silver", and my favorite, "everything spices", as our driver called the shops.
So tonight, it's beer on the rooftop lounge with thunder and lightning. Ah, it's finally cool!

Hasta Baby...

#3 hrs. till the forever flights...Anchorage - Frankfurt- Delhi....    Thanks to all that have/are/will be helping with this Sojourn...   Namaste'        

 

The Afterglow

Fire still smoldering after a lovely margarita/potluck last night. Thanks everyone for gathering to celebrate and wish us well on our journeys. The hugs and advise I'll hold on to when things might seem a little out of my realm out there. Your friendships and the clear, cool mountain vista this morning reinforce why I love Girdwood so much. Couldn't be a better way to leave; wishing I was going to be here too.

Now to finish packing and working out my clothes details before Stretch keeps me outside playing on the trails!

Where are we going?  Well, the bit we've planned is to leave home for Delhi on the 12th. After a couple days to adjust, we board a train, then travel by bus to take us to the mountainous northern most region of India: Ladakh. Here we plan on trekking and enjoying the Tibetan cultural influence. From there we'll likely come down to Srinagar then Dharmasala.  We'll continue on from there traveling east to Nepal for more trekking, likely in the Everest region. At this point, we'll be ready for some warmth, I expect so we'll journey south into India, possibly making it to the country of Sri Lanka by Christmas. From there Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam are on the agenda.  As you can see, things are a bit loose, but this gives us lots of flexibility to discover and make decisions as we go.

So, follow along and hey, any of you so inclined to meet us somewhere along the way - give a shout and we'll figure something out!

The Dust Cometh

With last night's storm and the snow creeping down the mountain......I'm thinking it's time to "Put on them Sailin' Shoes". 6 more days till the Curry Express........

Termination Dust on Ragged Top