Mc Leod Ganj

20.08.2008 to 05.09.2008

We set off from Manali at 7 oclock in the evening... the bus ride was quite uneventful and we arrived at our destination at 05:30 in the morning. We were both half asleep, Yakof still sick, and had no idea where to go given the early hour. We ended up following an indian guy who told us he had rooms for only Rs200. Usually we do not give in to these promises as most of the times they lead to rooms which are far from worth it, but we were too tired to do otherwise. It took us long to reach the guesthouse but the room was very good... nice size, bathroom inside and TV!!... and the bed was comfortable not the usual wooden beds we had to get used to here in India!!! We collapsed in bed and slept for a straight five hours before we woke up and decided to head to the centre for some food. Suddenly Janet realised that she had left her camera on the bus and it was panick... we made our way up the hill in no time, nearly fainting with the exersion!!! We asked the police, the travel agents, the people on the street until at last we found the bus and shot in it. We did not find the camera where we had left it and when we asked the conductors their first answer was negative. After mentioning the camera appeared from underneath a bench and was to us. One of the boys asked us for Rs100 in exchange for the camera... you can imagine Yakof's reaction to that! He grabbed the camera and stormed out.

We spent the first few days in Mc Leod Ganj resting, watching TV and eating good western food! We still needed to recover from all the travelling we had done... six days on the road in a span of 20 days was a bit too much. Eventually we decided to attend some courses. Janet finally did her Reiki, first and second degree, which she had been planning on doing since Nepal, and Yakof did a beginners Hindi course. Both of us enjoyed what we did thoroughly. Janet's teacher, Shivadas, has been practicing Reiki for a lot of years and started yoga from the age of four. Yakof's teacher, Sunil, was a yogi too, but thought Hindi as well. On one evening Shivadas invited us to join him for watching a movie. We ended up watching a short amateur film on Goa and one on Kailash mountain. We liked the one of Goa most.

Mc Leod Ganj is also referred to as "Little Tibet" because there is a high concnetration of Tibetan refugees living here. The most important Buddhist site in the town is Tsuglagkhang or Tsuglag Khang, the Dalai Lama's temple. It has three magnificent statues, of Shakyamuni, Avalokiteśvara, and a statue of Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche). That is the only sightseeing we did during our stay here.

We ended up staying sixteen days here as we really enjoyed everything about the place... our room, the food, the serenity and the people. The only thing which was too much, in our opinion, were the constant strikes and protests done by the tibetans... some of them did not serve any particular purpose.

Once we had both finished our respective course we decided to book an Indian cooking course at a restaurant call The Taste of India. Though we expected to do some practice during the class, which was not the case, we enjoyed these classes and learnt how to prepare quite a number of dishes. Our teacher, Nisha, is a really lovely lady.

On our last day we went for a short walk towards Bhagsu. Though the place is really nice and peacful we still preferred Mc Leod Ganj as it is more central. Our stay in Mc Leod Ganj came to an end. To be honest we were not very enthusiastic about getting on the road again but we had to make a move.

Our next destination... Amritsar.

Back to Manali

14.08.2008 to 18.08.2008

We had a 03:45 wake up call the day we left Leh, luckily the weather was fine. The four of us (the other two being, Mirko and Giulia) set off for a 15 minute walk to the bus stand. The bus trip was very different from the one we had towards Leh... in a negative way.

First of all the minivan was much more comfortable than the HPDTC bus. Though much smaller the seats were somehow more comfortable, and this taking into consideration that we had booked the best seats on the bus. Janet's seat, though push back, kept going up all the time. The time we spent on the road in total amounted to 25 hours, with a staggering 18 hour on the first day... this compared to the 15 hours we had done with the minivan. The amount of stops were excessive... every time someone wanted to pee all the people in the bus went down, and took photos, smoked cigarettes, etc etc. The worst part came in the evening. We arrived at the camp in Keylong at around 10 at night and went to choose a tent. The tents had three beds inside and they pretended us to share the tent with a stranger, which obviously we did not accept since we had specifically told them that we were expecting a 2 person tents before we booked the trip. The tent's linen was all damp as well... unlike the extreemly comfortable tents we had in Sarchu. Both dinner and breakfast were quite disgusting.

The next day the road was in a very bad condition and Yakof was sick with a temperature of a 101. Since we had left Manali there had been a lot

of rain, making the road's state, very poor. At a particular point the road could not be seen at all with the fog!! We also had to stop for around an hour waiting for workers to mend a bridge which had broken down... very nice... though we must say we were lucky as a friend of ours stopped for two hours waiting for a landslide to clear.

We finally arrived in Manali, exhausted, and headed to the same hotel we had slept before we left to Leh. Though we were not planning to spend much time in Manali we ended up spending four nights as both of us were down with the flu!! Janet was quite upset as she realised she had left her ipod in the tent at Keylong. When we tried calling them they said they did not find anything, but from the questions they asked us, we realised they were not necessarily saying the truth. The reason why she was upset most was that , in the i-pods' pouch she had a small elephant Yakof had bought to her, back in Cambodia. But well... We spent some time with Mirko and Giulia in Vashist before saying our goodbyes. We will miss these guys, and would have loved to spend more time with them.

When we were both recovered we headed towards our next destination... Mc Leod Ganj.

Ladakh

28.07.2008 to 13.08.2008

During our stay in Ladakh we visited Leh, Alchi, Thiksey, Shey and Spituk.

Ladakh means "land of high passes". It is a region in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, between the Kunlun mountain range in the north and the main Great Himalayas to the south, inhabited by people of Indo-Aryan and Tibetan descent. Ladakh is renowned for its remote mountain beauty and culture. It is sometimes called "Little Tibet" as it has been strongly influenced by Tibetan culture. In the past Ladakh gained importance from its strategic location at the crossroads of important trade routes, but since the Chinese authorities closed the borders with Tibet and Central Asia in the 1960s, international trade has dwindled except for tourism.

Leh

We found some difficulty in finding an accomodation when we arrived in Leh. Everywhere was either full, booked or not within our budget. At one point there was this monk who offered us a room for Rs300 and given we were in terrible need of a rest, we decided to stay in this guesthouse for the night. Immediately after we settled ourselves in the room we went to look for another accomodation. We found a room at Skyland Guesthouse for Rs200 and decided to move there the following day, especially because Janet fell in love with the hostess of the guesthouse.

Leh is the largest town in Ladakh and stands at an altitude of 3,500 metres. The religion is predominantly Buddhist. The place is beautiful and relatively quiet, though, one of the most touristic places we have been to in India so far. Most of the tourists here come for a short holiday and fly in from Europe, via Dehi. The main reason for their holiday would be trekking as the region is beautiful and offers various type of treks. All of this makes Leh quite an expensive place, compared to the rest of India. Western food, is found on every corner, and souvenir shops and the like, sell their stock at three times the price you would pay from other parts of India. Needless to say we did not purchase anything from here (apart from some nice wood sculptures, typical ladakhi... and cheap).

Leh is one of the places where we really felt at home. The credit has to be given to the owner of our guesthouse, Dol. She took care of us, gave us tea at any time of day for free, and even prepared us delicious ladakhi breakfast. She treated us like family. She was the one responsible for the guesthouse and her daughter Amo, helped her throughout the day. The girl was adorable... always with a beautiful smile on her face. She really worked hard throughout the day... washing dishes in the cold early mornings in order to be ready by the time she had to go to school. Dol also has two sons, a 12-year old and a 14-year old. She has lived in Leh all her life and we were the first Maltese citizens who stayed at her guesthouse (well this practically the case with the majority of the guesthouses we've been to).

In Leh we visited the famous Royal Palace. This was built by King Sengge Namgyal in the 17th century, but was later abandoned when Kashmiri forces besieged it in the mid-19th century. The climb to the palace is breathtaking... both with regards view as well as literally speaking... we were barely able to speak when we got at the top.

During our stay there we experienced two strikes, one due to the opening of the Olympics in China and the other due to elections which were going on in Jammu and Kashmir. In the latter all shops were closed, and had it not been for Dol, we would have "starved" that day. In the evening she made dinner for all the guesthouse which consisted of rice with daal and vegetable together with apple curd for dessert. Some of the best food we have eaten since we have been travelling!! We blessed the strike that day :)

On one of the day we were strolling in Changspa we met Stefan!!! As stated before... India can be so small. We joined him in the restaurant were he was having coffee with another friend of his... Wigi from Scotland. We spent a couple of hours with him and decided to meet in the evening for a drink in a local bar. While in Leh we spent quite some time with Stefan... going for nice walks and visiting Thiksey and Shey. We thoroughly enjoyed his company and hopefully we'll keep meeting him in our travels.

We also made friends with an Italian couple who were staying at our guesthouse... but this part you can read about further down...

Alchi

A few people had recommended us to visit this place so we decided to give it a go. We were at the bus stand two hours before the bus took off to find seats, and even so, the bus was nearly already full. What was most annoying was that there were a lot of places taken with boxes or bags on them. We decided to ignore them and set anyway. The road to Alchi took us four hours in total and we arrived there at eight o'clock in the evening, when it was already dark, We went straight to a guesthouse which was recommended to us by a Tibetan autorickshaw driver, Potala Guesthouse. At first they tried to charge us a staggering Rs800 for a room and we got that down to Rs250.

We spent three nights in Alchi... the guesthouse was quite nice and the village very quite. It is famous for one of the oldest monasteries in Ladakh, mainly known for its wall paintings of the 11th century. The monastery was built by the great translator "Lotsawa Rinchen Zangpo". The wall paintings in Alchi Monastery are some of the oldest surviving paintings in Ladkah and reflect artistic and spiritual details of both Buddhism and Hindu kings of that time in Kashmir.

On the other two days we went strolling around the village for short walks, in one of which we were nearly ran over by two donkeys who were chasing each other (most probably for mating). During this short stay we had to change room. On our second night, due to electricity failure, the guesthouse management switched on the generator. Which was positioned underneath our window, which happened to have a broken glass. We leave the rest to your imagination... the room became like a gas chamber. On the whole our stay was a very pleasant one, especially our return back to Leh, where we had a lucky strike and managed to find transport at nearly the same price as the bus fare, but being the only two passengers in a very comfortable four wheeler :)

Thiksey and Shey

As said before we went to visit Thiksey and Shey with Stefan on the day when there was a total strike in Leh. The day proved to be a very pleasant one. Our first stop was Thiksey Monastery.

Built some 600 years ago, Thiksey Monastery consists of 12 levels ascending a hillside, culminating in an incarnate lama’s private abode at the summit. The Gonpa contains 10 temples, below the monastery itself are chapels and houses of monks stretching down the hillside. There are about 100 monks of the yellow- hat sect of Buddhism. After entering the main courtyard to the immediate right and up several steps is a new temple containing a large Buddha statue. The H.H. Dalai Lama constructed this Buddha, 15 meters tall, in 1980 to commemorate a visit to Thiksey.The statue was made under the guidance, supervision and direction of Kushok Nawang Chamba Stanzin, the present head Lama of Thiksey monastery. The statue is the largest Buddha figure in Ladakh which took four years to construct and is made of clay and covered with gold paint. 

It houses the sacred Kangyur and Stangyur texts. The statue was made entirely by the local craftsmen and represents Maitreya (compassion in Sanskrit) - the Buddha of future. The prophecy made of the future Buddha is that the world will be undergoing such chaos that the future Buddha will teach compassion to the people. Located directly above this temple is a small narrow room used as schoolroom for the local boys. Here the Lamas instruct the children and some are later selected to become lamas. Traditionally, Ladakhi families donated one son to become lamas, although this practise is gradually disappearing. Returning to the main courtyard and going up the steep steps directly across from the new temple, on the far wall will be murals of two Tibetan calendars, with wheel of life. To the right of these murals is man prayer room, which contain racks of books along the left wall. Many of these books are handwritten or painted. Recent addition is done in block printing. In a small room behind the main prayers room is large image of Sakyamuni (the historical Buddha) flanked by two smaller Bodhisattava images. On the left is the eleven- headed Avalokitashwara, a form of the Buddha. On the rooftop is Lamokhang temple where only men may enter. 

Also on top is Thiksey library, containing numerous volumes, including Kangyur and Stangyur.

The site of the monastery from a distance has a particular charm to it... at first sight the building looks quite run down, when in fact it is very well kept.

Our second stop was Shey. Once again we had a walk uphill to arrive at the main attraction... the largest Golden Buddha statue in Ladakh. Shey Palace was not at all impressive, nothing compared to what we saw in Thiksey. Yakof and Stefan opted to climb all the way up to the ruins of the old palace... Janet decided to give it a miss... she had had enough steep climbs for the day. While waiting for them she enjoyed looking at the locals washing and polishing the gold and silver ornaments of the temple. Our new friends

We mentioned before that we made friends with an Italian couple. Their names are Mirko and Giulia. We started chatting initially about their lost luggage. They had flown in Delhi from Italy and had to catch a flight to Leh. In between connections they lost one of their luggages which contained all their trekking equipment!! That left them stuck in Leh, unable to plan anything, for four days. During the same time they were telling their story, their backpack was delivered at the guesthouse safe and sound. We had long chats with them... obviously in Italian... which, helped to brush up our Italian quite a bit. Unluckily, during the time we were in Ladakh, Kashmir was not very safe for tourists, so we opted, half-heartedly, to give it a miss. Upon Stefan's advice, Mirko and Giulia cancelled their flight and managed to get half of their money back. They decided to come down to Manali with us. In the end they opted to go to Amritsar to see the Golden Temple, via Mc Leod Ganj, before heading back to Italy. It is amazing how much we clicked with them and enjoyed our time together. We really hope that we will manage to meet in the future.

So this is the end of our Ladakhi adventure... setting off again for our two-day trip back to Manali...

Manali to Leh...the ultimate road trip

27.07.2008 to 28.07.2008

We decided to dedicate a whole chapter to this road trip, as it is one of the most amazing trips we have ever experienced.

Janet compared the Himalayas to a beautiful woman, wearing rich clothes and adorned with precious jewellery. When looking at her, she takes your breath away... never have we seen anything of such comparable beauty. Slowly and delicately, this lovely woman starts removing her jewellery and clothing, but, irrespective of what garment she is removing, her beauty remains untouched... until she is totally naked. Her beauty remains intact, glowing as ever. Both of her profiles are equally beautiful, perfect and unique. Nothing can spoil her perfection, her eternal beauty. This is the Himalayan range...

The mountains are of a mesmerising beauty. At the beginning of our trip their colour was mostly green. As we proceeded the colours started changing to various other shades, including softer greens, browns, beige, yellows... until they were actually bare at last. But even in their bareness they were breathtaking... the colours of the rocks changing continuously, with different reflections according to the time of day... browns, oranges, reds... we could not stop looking at their magnificence.

The first day we spent nine hours on the road. We had an hour delay in the morning as there was a german guy who did not want to move from our seat. He insisted to be refunded as he had booked a big bus not a small minivan. Eventually, his travel agent came to meet him, and they resolved the matter. The trip was not as bad as we thought it would be and the weather was very favourable, although we felt very lucky to have gone through the road with Ciri before as the weather in the Nathula Pass was much better then. We arrived at our camp in Sarchu by five o'clock in the afternoon.

Sarchu is at an altitude of around 4,000 m and is not inhabited apart from these tents set-ups. Here we found out that, as a couple, we had to pay Rs700 for a tent, dinner and breakfast when we had been told that tents prices start from Rs250 (per tent not per person)!!! Given we had no other choice we had to settle for this arrangement.

The meal was quite nice and, though it was extremely cold, we managed to spend a good night sleep. Janet woke up a couple of times breathless but that was it. The next morning we woke up for breakfast at around seven in the morning. The breakfast was good: chapati, omlette and tea. Immediately after breakfast we set off for the second part of our journey. The weather was good but the road was in a worse state than the first day. Luckily we had a very good driver. He had only two faults. Fault number 1 : he hated having cars in front of him... as soon as he saw one at a distance he would start hooting and pressing the gas to overtake. This fault led sometimes to fault number two : he hated conventional roads. Wherever he could he would take shortcuts, sometimes just making one crazy detour and scaring the shit out of us. Apart from that....he got us to Leh safe and sound on the second day at around 15:30.

Vashist

20.07.2008 to 26.07.2008

Our departure from Kasol was quite unprepared for. We had to leave on a particular day but the night before Yakof got sick, so we were going to postpone the departure. By midday of the following day Yakof was feeling better, so we opted to head to Vashist, as previously planned, to spend Ciri's last week there.

We took a bus and arrived in Manali six hours later. The public bus was not that bad, although we were pretty much squashed throughout the journey, given the amount of people in it.

Once in Manali we booked Ciri's ticket to Delhi ahead and found an auto-rickshaw to take us to the village of Vashist. The ride took us only ten minutes.

Vashist is famous for the sweeping valley views and sulphurous hot-water springs, it is an amorphous jumble of traditional timber houses and modern concrete cubes, divided by paved courtyards and narrow muddy lanes.

Accomodation was not easily found here. It took us four tries to finally find a suitable guesthouse... and we were lucky as he had the last two rooms left. The rooms were quite a bargain... less then Euro 2.50 a night with bathroom attached! Given the first day was quite exhausting due to the trip, we decided to have an early dinner and rest.

Our stay in Vashist was very 'shanti shanti'... peacful. We spent most of our time going for short walks, having long talks and eating. We went to see one of the waterfalls (calling it waterfall is quite presomptous, but well), we visited the hot baths and one of the temples and spend a day in Manali.

We went to see the Hadimba Temple. This temple is one of the most important in the region. This four story wooden temple is located in the middle of a forest called the Dhungiri Van Vihar. From the name of the forest parkland this temple derives its name. This temple was erected in 1553 and is dedicated to Goddess Hadimba. We also visited the Himachal Pradesch museum and Ghatoiktch Temple. The highlight came after though... we had lunch at Johnson's Cafe... and it was wonderful. We spent something like three to four hours there. First we had a platter of cheese. Janet was in tears eating brie!! Yakof had lamb and Janet had fish... sublime... at last someone who actually knew how to cook western food. This was a happy day!!!

Given Ciri's time was limited he wished to do some sightseeing, so we decided to go for a one day trip up to Nathula Pass. The two of us don't usually spend money to go sightseeing but it was a 'treat' from Ciri so we had no problem in going :)

Our departure time had to be at 08:00 in the morning, but, as custom in India, the driver arrived half an hour late and did not even know he had to take us sightseeing, until the guy who booked the tour for us briefed him. So we took off for a very bumpy jeep ride. Although we were very comfortable the road was quite terrifying... we eventually got up to an altitude of 3,500m. What was worrying us most was the fact that this was the same road we would have to travel on our way to Leh... and we could not picture a big bus driving through it. During our ascent we had to stop as there was a landslide. It took around thirty minutes to clear the road and it was incredible how the vehicles were passing, nearly touching each other. At one point, seeing a huge truck approaching on the other lane, the three of us decided it was wise to get out of the jeep... you know just in case there was a hit and run!!

We had around five stops in all during the day but the most impressive was the Nathula Pass in Rothang La. This place is amazing. A lot of people come here and hire a horse for the day to go through the whole pass. We walked just a short part of it... Janet was suffering a little bit from altitude sickness... loss of breath and dizziness. But we have to say it was worth the while to come all the way up as the views were breathtaking! We felt more relaxed on the way down given we knew what to expect out of the road now.

On Ciri's last day we went over to see Elana and Stefan and spent two to three hours at their hotel. They had bumped into each other in Vashist. India can be so small!!! We went down with Ciri to Manali, had lunch with him and went to say our goodbyes at the bus stand. We were very sorry he was leaving... two weeks with him went by so quickly... we will miss him but hopefully meet him in the near future.

So we were back to being just the two of us again....

On our last day, before heading towards Ladakh, we decided to go down to Manali to sleep the night and pick the minibus from there. We met Elana for lunch, once again at Johnson's cafe, as we could not resist the temptation of one last meal there. The place is relatively expensive in India but the food is well worth it. We sad our goodbyes to Elana and prepared for our two-day trip towards Ladakh.

Kasol and the Parvati Valley

15.07.2008 to 19.07.2008

Our trip to Bhuntar was long but comfortable... unluckily Janet was still suffering from stomach pains so the trip was not very pleasant for her.

We arrived in Bhuntar at around 09:00 and caught a local bus to Kasol. Kasol is full of two things... israeli people and charas. You can see ganga growing all over the Parvati Valley, like weed. It grows next to the guesthouses, next to the river, all around the police station !!!!

The first guesthouse we stopped in was suggested by our friend Ska. The owner is an Italian who's married to a local, and he was really welcoming. The rooms were incredibly cheap...Rs50 per night!! But even though the cost was cheap we decided to move as the guesthouse was noisy all day long and, given Janet was sick, she could not bear music full on all day long. Our second stay was gorgeous. We found a nice guesthouse next to the river, surrounded by a huge garden, and, to Yakof's delight, it also had a hot spring!

Out of the three of us, Ciri was the one who loved Kasol most, and we were glad to see him having a good time. Five days in Kasol went by pretty quickly. We did some shopping, ate mostly at the same restaurant, met with Carm who had been staying here for the past three months now, and went for some walks around the place.

Our next stop would be Vashist......

Delhi

08.07.2008 to 14.07.2008

We have not been updating our blog for quite a while now. We have seen many things and covered so many kilometres since then......

The train trip from Gorakphur to Delhi was quite smooth, ignoring the fact that the train had a 5-hour. We arrived at Old Delhi train station early afternoon and were welcomed by herds of people streaming from every existant pathway in the train station. Head straight, we headed towards the pre-paid auto-rickshaw stand and set off to Paharganj, the backpackers area in New Delhi.

Delhi is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. It's population is a stagerring seventeen million! So one can picture the feeling you get travelling with an auto rickshaw during peak traffic hours. Strangely enough we were glad of being back in this chaos... happy to be seeing again all the craziness and noise which only India seems to offer. Still we were dreading the fact that we had to spend a week in this city... but we had to, as we were waiting for Ciri, a friend of ours who was coming from Luxembourg to spend two weeks with us. Over and above that we decided to spend an additional day to meet up with Ska, another friend of ours, who would be stopping in Delhi on his way to Thailand.

So that was it... we spent a whole week in busy Delhi. The heat was unbearable, and our room did not cater for the heat-strucken poor individuals who needed air to breath... for Rs300 we managed to get a room with an attached bathroom which resembled a public toilet (obviously by Maltese standards not Indian... we are not that extreme)!! We baptised the room "Il-Latrina". Given Ciri was going to join us for the last two nights in Delhi we had already put our eyes on a particular room which could accomodate three. What was special about this room was that it had a huge cooler... similar to those used on film sets to reproduce wind... and we wanted that baby all for us....

Until Ciri's arrival we spent our time running some errands which had to be done. We mailed the stuff which we had so devotedly been carring, since Thamel in Nepal. This proved to be quite a tiresome task, as we had to do it twice, given that parcel rules changed, and now a maximum of 10kg per box can be sent to Malta. Given our box was a 16kgs one, it got sent back from the post office and we had to open up everything again to split up everything in two boxes... oh well... as long as they arrive.

We tried meeting the Maltese consulate as they had told us it was possible to extend our Indian visa from Delhi. After a long auto-rickshaw ride to the consulate they did not even let us in....so long for Maltese citizenship rights! At the end it was getting so complicated that we gave up and decided to fly to Thailand to renew our visas from there. Obviously this was no sacrifice to us as we adore Thailand. Another thing we sorted out was all our flights... we booked our flights to Thailand and back to India, those to Malta and those to Australia. This way we managed to get better deals as we booked them in such advance.

Delhi is quite a city of extremes. It is much nicer than Calcutta, as in the latter poverty is much more evident. In Delhi it is much easier to escape the chaos and the dirt.

When Ciri arrived we decided to spend a day sightseeing. We first went to Qutb Minar. Qutb Minar is the tallest brick minaret in the world, and an important example of Indo-Islamic Architecture. In fact it is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The second place we visited was the famous Red Fort. The Red Fort showcases the very high level of art form and ornamental work. The art work in the Fort is a synthesis of Persian, European and Indian art which resulted in the development of unique Shahjahani style which is very rich in form, expression and colour. It is one of the important building complexes of India which encapsulates a long period of Indian history and its arts. Its significance has transcended time and space. It is relevant as a symbol of architectural brilliance and power.

Both places were incredibly beautiful and full of history, though quite expensive to visit at Rs250 per person.

On our last night in Delhi we had a problem with our room. At around five o'clock in the morning Yakof was woken up by Ciri (jumping on our bed) who informed us that it was raining in our room. At first he had thought that his clothes were dripping on him, given we had washed them and hung them over his bed. But eventually he realised that the ceiling was leaking. And so, more asleep than awake, at five o'clock in the morning, yakof informed the hotel manager and we had to change our room and get all our stuff downstairs. Luckily we managed to get a couple of hours more sleep before Ska came. The guys spent the last hours in Delhi together while Janet opted to stay in the room as she was suffering from what is often called, 'Delhi belly'... stomach upsets.

At around four o'clock in the afternoon we said our goodbyes to Ska and set off for our 15-hour journey to Manali... for the first time ever in a luxurious volvo bus, courtesy of our friend Ciri :)

Delhi to Bhuntar to Parvati Valley to Manali to Vashist to Leh....

.....we are still on the go...too much so, to be able to update our blog....but we will return soon....

Gorakphur

And......we're back!!! Back to India, in Gorakphur.

Gorakphur is a busy transport hub, mainly because of its train station. It's an intoxicating place, literally not metaphorically. One really cannot make out the different varieties of smells, but they were a compilation of dust, exhaust, sweat, food, fruit, urine, cowshit and the likes. This place is what we commonly term... a shithole!!!

We do have to admit though that this place has his charm. It was impressive seeing life going by here... herds of Indian entering and exiting the train station; street vendors trying to make their living; buses making their way through people, cows and rickshaws; workers building some kind of pavement submerged in mud and restaurant cooking tasty indian food. All this we could idle our eyes upon from the roof of our hotel, which was just in front of this wonderland.

Luckily enough the room we got here was very civil, apart from the numerous insects inhabiting it, which found their end underneath Yakof's soles. There was also a television in our room which made out three stay here more bearable. Another lucky strike was the restaurant just underneath our hotel. We have to say that, till today, it's the best Indian food we ever tasted! The puri & sabji and panner butter masala were divine. The surroundings were charming as well... we used to seat practically in the street, watching our food being cooked, surprised sometimes by a cow stradling by our side or some rat shooting from one end of the restaurant to the other.

When the date of our departure to Delhi arrived we were quite relieved, though Delhi will be a hell due to the heat.

We had a 4-hours delay on our train and got exhausted by pacing up and down the terminal, especially Yakof with our 20kg bag of stuff bought from Nepal adding to his own 15kg backpack. Once we made it on the train we were glad to have booked an A/C compartment as it made this 20-hour trip so much more bearable.

In between Nepal and India

03.07.2008 to 04.07.2008

We did not manage to sleep at all on our last night inPokhara. The electricity went off and it was unbearably hot. At around 06:00 Ram took us to the bus station where we should have caught the 06:30 bus. Given our bus did not turn up we took the 07:30 one.

To our disappointment, during the trip we found out that our bus was not a tourist bus after all but a common bus. The difference is the following... a tourist bus makes no stops, apart from breakfast. lunch and dinner stops and it's nice and quiet. The price is obviously higher than that of a common bus. The latter stops everywhere along the way to pick people people with the help of two guys literally dangling on the entrance/exit of the bus. All kind of vendors come on the bus, including beggars, and no 'food' stops are done. To add insult to injury we had Hindi musical DVDs ongoing, which, beleive us, are wrist-slashing.

We stopped in Bhairawa for the nights, 4 kms away from the Indian border. We were asleep by six o'clock in the afternoon and only woke up the following morning. We hired a rickshaw to take us to the border and then to the bus station to catch the bus to Gorakphur. Believe it or not, as soon as we crossed the border, we could already feel we were in India once again!

Nepal

21.05.2008 to 02.07.2008

Nepal was an unplanned diversion from our original plans... we were going to head to Varanasi but the heat was too much to bear so we decided to continue towards Nepal....

In all we spent one and a half months here... chillin out and resting. We would have loved to trek the Everest Base Camp trek, but the season was not ideal as it was monsoon. So we decided to spend most of the time in Pokhara.

Nepal is a poor country, but it is rich in scenic splendour and cultural treasures. It's the kind of country that lingers in your dreams long after you leave it.

During our stay here, Nepal's Maoist-led assembly voted to abolish the monarchy and become a democracy. The former king of Nepal has moved out of the Kathmandu palace where his family has resided for more than a century. Political violence (including three fatalities) escalated in the lead-up to Nepal's elections on 10 April, and at the same time as the new Constituent Assembly was sworn in on 27 May a bomb explosion in Kathmandu injuring two people. Currently making the transition from monarchy to republic, the country is on the brink of huge change, and the security situation may remain fragile for some time. On June 26, Nepal's interim Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala resigned and bitter disagreements continue within the ruling Maoist party.

Our first stop was hot Kakarvitta. We arrived at around noon and headed straight to do our Nepali visa... the maximum stay given is two months. It was then just a matter of waiting in the vicinity of the bus station to catch our bus ride to Kathmandu. This ride was going to last approximately seventeen hours and we were definetely not looking forward to it, especially given the reputation of both Nepalese roads and drivers.

We looked out for a place to eat and settled down in a nice hotel for lunch....where we incidentally met Elana again. She had just arrived in Nepal as well but had a diffirent itinerary than ours.

At around 17:30 we set off for our long bus ride, and true to their fame, Nepali roads are in a disastrous state. We made some stops on the way and arrived in Kathmandu at ten o'clock of the following day... from there it was a noisy drive and walk towards Thamel.

Thamel Janet was exhilerated as soon as we start venturing into Thamel's roads... the place was full of beautiful shops... it gave us the feeling of being back in Kho San Road in Thailand. We headed towards a guesthouse where our friend had stayed before and baragained the price of 150 Nepali Rupies for each night... which is approximately 1.50 Euros. Given we were spending some nights here we were glad of being able to do it cheap. As soon as we checked in we immediately shot off to eat a much longed for burger... and we found just the right place. It's incredible how ordinary food back home can taste so extroardinary when you are deprived of it. After our meal we had to go back at the guesthouse and take a nap as the happiness was too much! That same evening we went round a couple of nice clubs offering some good live music.

We ended up spending seven nights in Thamel, two out of which Janet was sick. She got bad stomach from some vegetables she ate and could not eat anything at all. But luckily she had a quick recovery. We ended up not doing any sightseeing and got stuck in Thamel, mostly shoping and eating. It was like heaven on earth for both of us... Yakof for food and Janet for clothes. It was the first real time for Janet, after six months travelling, that she got to do some serious shopping. Thamel was just the perfect place to be. Clothes, incense, perfumes, jewellery, art, and books yet again (even cheaper than India) !!! The same goes for food...pizza, pasta, burgers, chips breakfasts, coffee and everything incredibly good.

Our favourite places was an Italian restaurant Fire'n'Ice for pizza and BK's for chips, though all the restaurants we went to were great. We also met again the Swiss couple as well as Elana on our last day there.

After seven nights in Thamel we decided it was time to head off to somewhere else....somewhere more chilled out than the city.....Pokhara.

Pokhara

Pokhara was our home for a month and we just loved it. The first few days we stayed at a guesthouse in the town centre but, after many missed tries, we managed to find just the perfect place. A beautiful resort in front of the lake. The room was great... comfortable bed, refrigerator, television with DVD player, two windows with lake views... and very clean!!! We striked a very good deal with the owner : just five euros a day and we were also allowed to use their kitchen every now and again to cook some food our our own.

The month spent there passed by very quickly. We spent most of our days at the resort, either watching DVDs, or reading books, or just taking in the beauty of the surroundings. Elana joined us there for a couple of weeks before she headed back to India.

The same day we found our room we met three small kids wondering in the streets. They all took Janet's hands and walked with us. They were talking to us in Nepali which we could not make up at first. Eventually we understood what they wanted...food! We took them to a hotel and ordered them food... twice... which they devoured in no time. The kids here are beautiful but most of them very poor, unluckily.

We also made a friend during our stay there...Kali. Kali is the name we gave to a sweet black puppy which was eventually 'adopted' by all the guests at the resort. He was simply adorable!!! We gave him food, played with him and one time also ended up washing him as he came back to the resort after two days running in the fields. Yakof just loved him... if it was for him he would have taken the dog to India, but Janet knew "better". Many times we let him have naps in our room, though a couple of times we found leeches coming out of his body.

All the staff at the resort were great, especially the owner Bishnu... a lovely lady who has been running this business for the past twelve years.

We did not venture much around Pokhara due to both the continuous transport strikes as well as the frequent rain. Our sufferance from this was minimal as we just loved not doing anything!

When the time came for us to leave we were a bit sad, though definetely ready to get back to India.

Back in Darjeeling

Darjeeling.....we were glad to be back for a couple of days before heading towards Nepal. The day we arrived Buddha's birthday celebrations were on, so the roads were full of people... which eventually dispersed given the heavy rain. We too had to make a quick move because of that and decided to stop for a drink and some warm food before looking for a guesthouse. The rain had no intention of stopping so we decided to head off to find a guesthouse. After many tries we found a room for a very cheap price (fair enough given that we discovered it had no electricity and water). We were just going to spend one night there until we found something better. We then set off straight to the bookshop spending a lot of time there, ending up with loads of books and a nice bill for them. But it is extremely worth it to buy books from India as they are incredibly cheap, even to send them back home via book post. That same day we also found a very nice and reasonable priced guesthouse. The day came to an end, having some nice dinner at the tibetan restaurant and watching Iron Man at the cinema... nice film and nice cinema with reclining chairs. Our stay in Darjeeling lasted another couple of days until Gal (Sofia's boyfriend) arrived from his trek and our books were sorted out for sending. Janet bought the tibetan sherpa bracelet she had seen last time we were in Darjeeling and was very happy hearing from everyone, especially from other shop owners, that the bracelet was special and unique... Yakof also got a nice present... a beautiful silver Tibetan knife. Darjeeling was our last stop in India... now we are heading to Nepal...

Back in Gangtok

Our journey in Sikkim was reaching an end and our last stop had to be Gangtok before heading back to Darjeeling. We checked into the same guest house we had been to the first time we visited Gangtok. After checking in we went straight to an internet cafe to send emails to our parents as we had not spoken to them for quite a long time. We then headed to MG Marg where we had the most delicious cheese roll ever!! Given we had no business in Gangtok we decided to go and get the ticket to Darjeeling for the following day. We picked a taxi to the jeep stand, sorted our tickets and went to Little Italy as we had promised Sofia to take her to a nice place to eat. We spent some hours there, as it was raining hard outside, an extremely pleasant evening, eating pizza, drinking port and beer and listening to a live band. We then made it an early night, as we had to wake up at five o'clock in the morning the following day.

Ravangla and Borong 'Ghost' Hot Springs

We had an early start to catch a jeep to Ravangla as the only one available was in the morning. We made it there in two hours, and given the fact that we were hungry after the journey not having had any breakfast, we decided to grab something from a hotel. The masala tea and the momos Janet ordered were the worse she had ever had... the momos must have been left overs from the day before (hopefully!!!). After this we went to look for transport to Borong hotsprings... which we found immediately. The only catch... we did not know at what time the jeep would leave... given this circumstance we threw our backpacks on the floor and waited patiently until after a couple of hours someone pointed us the jeep which was going to take us to Borong. As time went by the jeep was looking more like a trailer with the amount of food they were putting in it. Janet's bad feeling had been concerning her since the day before and seeing this jeep was no consolation. She felt worse when she had a look at the driver... his eyes were evil. We left the jeep stand at around 12:30 and set off very slowly... slowly given all the weight as well as the driver stopping every couple of minutes to flirt with any girl. The road left much to be desired but at least the driver was driving carefully. Eventually the jeep came to a stop and when we asked where the hot springs where they told us that they were closed because it was low season... it was incredible how not one person gave us this important piece of information... we would have really taken it into consideration. What was worse though was that the driver was going to just drop us there... in the middle of nowhere!!! Thanks to a local girl we managed to convince him to take us back... though we were not sure on what was going to happen. The driver was insisting that he was not going to Ravangla and that we could sleep there for the night and return the morning after....for the price of Rs1000 a night!!! Sofia overheard him saying that the room actually cost Rs800 but he would get Rs200 commission on it... the bastard. We continued telling him that we wanted to get back to Ravangla. Another man came on the jeep and he started talking to Sofia in a mix of English and Nepalese... he told us that the driver was going back to Ravangla, but curiously enough, when the driver came back, this same man told him that Sofia could speak Nepalese and switched to speaking Sikkimese... just telling us that the driver was not going back to Ravangla. We were starting to get a little bit frustrated, even much so when he stopped again for a girl to talk to us. She said he was asking Rs800 to take us back when we had only paid Rs40 each to come one way... after some negotiations we concluded for Rs400... it was either that or being left in the middle of nowhere. Along the road he was stopping to talk to other drivers and telling them we were fools as he was going back to Ravangla anyway and we were paying him. All this he was saying in Nepali but Sofia could understand him. Bottom of the story we arrived safely in Ravangla and paid him the money, after which we learnt that he had to come back to Ravangla anyway (as we had obviously suspected) but as soon as we got there we were surrounded by fifteen man making sure we were going to pay. We eventually went back to Gangtok we reported him and hopefully some action will be taken (apparently from what we had heard, in Sikkim the tourism office takes these matters very seriously) . Back in Ravangla we went looking for a room and settled for the cheapest we could found, sharing between three. The owners were really nice as was the room. We purchased our tickets to Gangtok for the following day and had a delicious Chinese meal and nice hot shower before collapsing in bed.

Tashiding

We arrived in Tashiding early afternoon and were captured by this little tiny village. It is one of the nicest places we have been so far....nothing much happening, friendly people and beautiful surroundings. Our guest house was great too....we only paid Rs100 for a comfortable double room and we could also avail ourselves of a sitting area....the food was cheap and good. That evening we made a very interesting encounter. An Indian guy checked in the guesthouse and we were intrigued by an animal horn he was carrying... so we had to ask him where he had got that from... it turned out that this was not the most interesting thing about this guy. He explained to us that he got that from a dead deer he found when he was trekking and then told us that he was a famuos musician. This was backed up by a portfolio of newspapers cutting featuring him playing in different places around Sikkim and West Bengal and much more, when we had our own private performance. He had a number of musical instruments, ranging from a bamboo guitar he had built himself to a nose flute to other small instruments he could play with his mouth... including a leaf. We spent the night with him playing cards. He was so excited we were spending time with him that he offered us two beers and everytime his phone was rang he was putting Sophia through, given that she can speak Nepali.This made our first night in Tashiding extremely pleasant... we had now to go and visit the much mentioned monastery. Standing in its majestic isolation on the top of a conical hill, with paintings equaling those of the Paimionchi, the monastery is in the heart of Sikkim. Tashiding is the holiest of holy hills in Sikkim and belongs to Nyingma-pa Sect. Tashiding is an important place for pilgrimage to the Buddhist because according to ancient beliefs, pilgrims are cleansed of all their sins if they only contemplate the great sacred chorten of Tashiding (Thongwa -Rangdot). It nestles on the top of a hill that looms up between Rathong and Ranjeet rivers. It is surrounded by a profusion of prayer flags that flutter in the air. There are so many chortens dedicated to Chogyals and some of the religious personalities of Sikkim. Carved skillfully on stone plates surrounding the monastery is 'Om Mane Padme Hum' by the master craftsman -Yanchong Lodil. The monastery was built in 1717 by Ngadak Sempa Chempo during the reign of the third Chogyal Chakdor Namgyal. The sacred ceremony of Bumchu is performed here at midnight of the 14th and 15th of the first Tibetan month. The experience at this monastery was terrific. After the long walk uphill we made ourselves comfortable on the steps of the temple, watching the monks having lunch. There was also a considerable number of locals....but no tourists. As soon as the monks were served they asked us to help oursleves from the food. We did not fill our plates as we were not that sure how the food tasted...but everything was delicious. It was our first meal at a monastery and it tasted really nice. Apparently, from what some locals told us, we were very lucky to have visited the monastery on that day as this kind of celebration happened only once a year.... After our visit to the monastery we headed back towards town... taking a different road by mistake but still making it back in time to the guesthouse before the rain starting pouring. We spent our last evening in Tashiding relaxing and playing cards. On the morrow we were to be off to Ravangla and Borong hotsprings.

Khecheopairi : Sonam’s Village

Pelling’s hotel owner suggested to try and spend a couple of days at the village of the Dalai Lama’s ex-cook. Given that the idea was quite intriguing we decided to go for it… and man we did go for it. The way to reach this place was a steep, supposedly thirty-minute climb (it always takes us more as Janet needs to rest). Eventually Yakof had to get some help for her which came in the the shape of a very strong Nepali man who flew up with Janet’s back pack. The sight awaiting us up the hill was much more than we had expected… the place was beautiful to say the least. There was an entire village perched on this hill with houses scattered here and there and two main buildings which where the guest houses : one owned by the father, Palao, and the other by Sonam, the son. We decided to stay at Sonam’s….the rooms were much nicer and the place quieter. And guess who we found there….Scott the American guy…he had walked all the way from Pelling. In our same quarters there was also a Korean girl. After having a nice cup of tea we went round to have a look at the place. At the other guest house we met a Portuguese girl, Sophia. She had just arrived as well and was waiting for her friend to come as he too had opted to walk it all the way from Pelling. Scott asked Sonam whether we could visit the monastery as, apparently, it was the oldest in Sikkim. It had similair paintings as the monastery in Pelling but older as well as old Tibetan manuscripts. We were told that dinner would be served at seven and we were impatiently waiting for the food to come as we were starving. In the meantime Sophia’s friend arrived….his name is Gal and he is from Israel. He amazingly managed to walk all the way from Pelling in three hours….quite an athlete!!! Before dinner time we spent some time watching the kids playing… it was so nice and quite up here. Dinner time at last… food, food and more food. We had rice, potatoes, peas, vegetable and soup….all very good. After dinner Sophia joined us and she, Scott and Yakof played Monopoly. Needless to say Yakof won the game, as usual. After the game we made our way to our nice hard beds for a restful sleep. Our planned two days at the lake turned out to become five... the place was hard to leave. We had a great time there and everything was very ‘shanti shanti’ as they say in India (peaceful). We drank tea, read books, washed our clothes, played cards and had endless conversations. Here we also decided to change our traveling route. We were planning to make our way to Varanasi after Sikkim, but Sophia and Gal were both coming from there and advised us not to, given that in two weeks time the temperature would rise to fifty degrees celius… not something we could really live with especially given that we were thinking of staying in Varanasi for a whole month. So our decision was taken… we were going to Nepal. Eventually how things turned out Sophia and Gal were going during the same time so we decided to go together. Gal had decided to walk all the way to Darjeeling so we told Sophia that she could join us during the rest our Sikkim stay and straight to Darjeeling, where we would then meet Gal and leave from Nepal. As time went by we were feeling more at home at the village… Yakof playing cards with Sonam and his father, Janet playing with the kids, especially with Sonam’s adorable little girl, Dolma. Sonam also offered Yakof some of their local drink, which shows he respected him. On one of the nights we even had a nice bonfire and we sang songs in Nepali, Maltese, English, Italian, Portuguese and Hebrew. We also visited the lake, for which Khecheoprai is so famous for. This lake is considered to be one of the sacred lakes of Sikkim both by the Buddhists and the Hindus. The lake is hidden in the rich forest cover. It is believed that the birds do not permit even a single leaf to float on the lake surface. The place is very peaceful, unless you visit it when the Indian tourists are around. Our stay in the village went by too quickly… we would not have minded to stay a little bit more but we still needed to see so many other places before Sikkim's permit expired. Next stop Tashiding...

Pelling

We woke up early to catch a jeep for Pelling only to learn that the first jeep leaving was at 13:30 and it was still 10:00. We had no other option then to wait in the Tourism Office. We met Elana again…she had just come back from Rumtek and was on her way to Ravangla.

Our jeep left on time and we arrived in Pelling at around five in the afternoon. On the jeep we met an American guy from Boston, Scott, who had been traveling around for a while as well. As soon as we arrived we tried to check into a particular hotel but the rooms available were too expensive for us. On our way out a man from down the road called us to go and talk to him. At first we were a little bit skeptical for usually when you are called by someone it’s not a good sign…but it turned out to be otherwise. This man offered us a good room for a nice price and we decided to stop there. The main reason why we decided to stop is that the hotel owner really resembled Janet’s dad… a little bit on the darker side perhaps… the Hotel’s name is Daphka Gang for anyone who happens to be in the vicinities. The owner was extreemly kind…he had traveled in Europe and maybe that is what made him different from the usual Indian stereotype. He used to be a trekker and has been awarded the mountaineering institute medal by Tenzing Norgay, just three months before his death. The food here was excellent… he suggested to us what to eat and cooked for us himself. He also drew us a very detailed map to go sightseeing with.

So, the following day, we set off to visit Pemayangtse monastery.

Perched at an altitude of 6840 ft, it is one of the oldest monasteries of Sikkim. Lama Lhatsun Chempo got the monastery built, mainly for the 'ta-sang' lamas (the purest of monks). However, with time, the monastery started serving the entire community. Magnificent sculptures and gracefully decorated paintings adorn the first floor of the monastery. One of the major attractions of the Pemayangtse Monastery is a seven-tiered painted wooden structure, portraying Guru Rimpoche's Heavenly Palace 'Santopalri'. Late Dungzin Rimpoche took five years to finish this structure single handedly. Presently, it is situated on the top floor of the monastery. The Chaam (monk dance) is held every year, on the 28th and 29th day of the 12th month of the Tibetan Lunar Calendar.

The paintings are somewhat…errrmmmm….unsettling. Most of them feature this Guru and even Buddha in lotus position with a female sitting on top of them with her legs around….we still need to understand what is the meaning of such depictions.

We eventually started to make our way down to go to the ruins. We came across a foreign couple who were riding a Royal Enfield and Yakof was a little bit sad as it was one of his wishes to travel in India on a bike but, considering the condition of the roads, this was not really such a good idea. Who knows, maybe once we visit the south it would be a different story.

We never made it to the ruins as it started raining cats and dogs. We stopped for half an hour next to a lake and when the rain was slowing down we made our way to find the police office to extend our Sikkim permit just in case we decided to spend more than fifteen days.

It was funny to see how this office keeps records of crime…everything is listed in different log books depending on the region and seriousness of the crime. No computers have been introduced for the time being. Once done from the office we had to catch a jeep to Geyzing as we would never have made it on foot…..the rain was too strong. Once in Geyzing we were lucky enough to find transport back to Pelling.

Once in Pelling we were welcomed by an amazing sight… after the heavy rain the skies had cleared and in front of us, in all its beauty and majesty, was the Kanchenzonga. Some locals told us we were really lucky to see it so clearly as the past twenty days there were only clouds. Janet could not get her eyes away and she stood by our guesthouse window looking at the mountains, taking photos and sipping tea.

Whilst at the restaurant we met again with the couple who was traveling with the bike. They are both Swiss and had been travelling for as long as we have, but with a bike. They turned out to be really nice guys and we had a nice conversation with them, had something small to eat and made our way back to our room for an early night.

The following day was the last day we were spending in Pelling and we just took it easy. We went for a walk in Lower Pelling and had some nice food for lunch. In the afternoon the hotel’s owner came back with all his family and as promised cooked us a delicious meal with the chicken which he got for us from Siliguri. The food was excellent…we couldn’t have wished for anything better. Our next stop from Pelling would be Kecheopuri lake.

Gangtok

02.05.2008 to 06.05.2008

The drive to Gangtok took us five hours in all, and was a very pleasant drive with beautiful scenery. One thing which was immediatly evident was that Sikkim is much cleaner than West Bengal(which mind you isn't saying much). We were stopped at Rangpo checkpoint to apply for our Inland Permit… the maximum a foreigner can stay in Sikkim is 45 days (permits being given for periods of 15 days which can be extended twice to a total of 45 days) and once these are over you cannot access Sikkim again for the following three months. As soon as we went down from the jeep the driver took off, backpacks and all. We were somehow concerned about what was going on but eventually we found him waiting for us a couple of metres ahead. Once we got to Gangtok we tried to make out the way to our pre-selected guesthouse but could not manage so we caught a taxi. The road to the guesthouse turned out to a very steep hill, which made us really glad to have opted for the Taxi. We checked into our guesthouse and made our way out to start exploring Gangtok, the capital city of Sikkim. This place seemed more like Europe than India, especially the main shopping street, MG Marg. But undoubtedly this was India… We tried having lunch in a "posh restaurant" and were excited to see that there was pasta on the menu. We ordered spaghetti lasagna, which we presumed were in actual fact lasagna…but we were wrong…they were spaghetti disguised in the form of a lasagna. Don’t try picturing them…it takes a fervent imagination to succeed. Janet thought that in Sikkim she would not longer have a problem with people staring at her hair…but she was so wrong… it was actually worse here. This led her to a much suffered decision…removing her braids. It was only a month since she had had them re-done, but the people around us were making her life miserable and so it was. It took us six hours to remove it, but we managed. Yakof also managed to colour her hair the following morning! And the result… amazing… she felt invisible. The stares, giggles, strange looks, all stopped as if by magic and this made the sacrifice worth while and brought a smile back to her face. In Gangtok we met a very nice ozzy girl, Elana. We had seen her before in Kalimpong but actually talked to her for the first time here. We were at a coffee shop, she asked us whether she could sit on our table as the coffee shop was full and we welcomed her to do so. We spent more than an hour talking to her… she is very interesting and so much fun. We both like her way of life… she has been traveling for the past fourteen years and this was her eight time in India. She works every other year and travels in between, seems to be just perfect. We hoped to meet her again during our travelling, especially given that were planning to follow similar routes. In all we had to spend five nights in Gangtok due to Janet's hair and our health (nothing too serious probably just effects of the sudden change in altitude). As soon as it was all over we made our way to Pelling.

Sikkim

02.05.2008 to 18.05.2008

Sikkim is a landlocked Indian state nestled in the Himalayas. It is the least populous state in India and the second-smallest in area after Goa. Today the majority of Sikkim's residents are of Nepali ethnic-national origin who came to the province in the 19th century. The native Sikkimese consist of the Bhutias, who migrated from the Kham district of Tibet in the 14th century, and the Lepchas who are believed to have migrated from the Far East. Tibetans reside mostly in the northern and eastern reaches of the state. We spent around twenty days in Sikkim and we had a wonderful time here. This was the place were Janet decided to cut her braids, where we were lucky enough to stare at a clear sky dominated by the mighty Kangchenjunga and where we stayed with a Nepali/Lepcha/Bhutia community on a hill, amongst other things.

Trekking would have been an option had the weather been nicer, but it was not the case and, given the trek we liked was not an easy one, we decided to go trekking some other time. We visited Gangtok; Pelling; Khecheoprai Lake; Tashiding; Ravangla and somehow Borong....these are our stories.

The Nightmare Loop : Way to Samthar

27.04.2008 to 29.04.2008

Imagine yourself having a very bad dream... a nightmare, and you desperately want to wake up, but alas you do not manage; or when you find yourself in a situation where you feel helpless and lost… thats one way to look at our trek. We set out, back packs and all, to Namco Ropeway, and even for starters, our adventure was illustrating itself to be a tough bone to break. The way down to the actual ropeway was quite steep and although Yakof had no problems whatsoever, Janet was finding difficulties to go down down and balance herself at the same time. After around thirty minutes we finally reached the ropeway. The carriage consisted of a small steel box connected to a steel rope via two pulleys, which passed over the river at a height of around 50m all operated by a skinny but impressively strong guy. The short trip was a mixture between being very really cool (for Yakof) and terrifying (for Janet)…but we made it to the other side in no time. And so our trek started. We asked directions to Samthar Plateau and started walking no map just directions from the locals. So we walked, and walked, and walked, should have been a simple 5 km walk for our first day, but we were soon past that, and were starting to get worried. Nevertheless, when we were asking for directions, everyone was telling us : ‘Samthar, Samthar…yes yes…and pointing straight.’ After around six hours of walking…we stopped to ask a lady where Samthar was, and she pointed out that Samthar was behind the hills, which turned out to be as unbelieveable to us, as it was true. Janet was getting tired and started to get hysterical, especially when it eventually started raining (irony :) ), but we had to keep going. In the meantime, we have to say, that the nature around us was incredible, the most beautiful we had seen till now. But that was not much of a consolation. So we kept walking. On the way we came across three boys who were cutting wood, and at that point we realized that Samthar was indeed still a long way over the hills. We started climbing the hill, until at a point Janet could not take it any more and refused to walk any further. Yakof saw a farm in the relative wilderness and went to try talk to the family which happened to be the same family of the three boys who we had previously met cutting wood. At first our tries at communication were going no where, until eventually somehow our mobile picked up connection, we called Raju (of Sherpa Lodge) and he spoke to the mother who in turn offered one of her sons to walk us to Samthar but Janet preferred to stop for the night, and with Raju’s help, the family was more than willing to accomodate us. The one night stay here turned out to be one of the nicest things we experienced since we have been traveling. Let us start by explaining the Farm in which this family lived. First they had a small shed which seemed to serve as a wardwrobe and a store at the same time. Next to the shed there were two wooden beds. Then there was the main ‘house’. This was basically a brick house with three rooms, two of which were empty, apart a wooden snake lying on the door of one of them, (which the kids jokingly used to scare Yakof). The third room had one table, two chairs, some shelves, a wall clock and a goat, which eventually peed in the room. This last room was the place where we spent the night. This same room led upstairs to, what we assumed, was the family's dormitory. Then there was the kitchen… a nice shed full of pots and pans and vegetables where all the meals were cooked. It was so nice seeing the pot warming on the new lit fire and smelling the nice smell coming out from it! Yakof decided to try to communicate with one of the sons with our phrasebook….no success at all…at first we found it to be quite uncomfortable being unable to communicate properly. We were saved by the bell when the mum called us for coffee. Eventually another son came who understood and spoke some English and we managed to understand that the province we were in was quite poor, Samthar was not that bad and Sikkim was a rich place. He was also telling us that he attended some kind of school, that he liked playing football and that our phrasebook was practically useless. After this short conversation we were served a snack which was the best puri (fried bread) and alu gobi(potato and cabbage stew) we have ever tasted. Seems to be a universal truth… home cooked meals are the best! Eventually the english speaking guy told us he was off to sleep in the forest and that we would be sleeping in the house. At that point we were not really sure what he meant by that. After our snack we went for a tour of the place and found out that this family was really organized : they had chicken, cows, pigs and goats (and also a sweet, roach killer, kitten). They had corn and also a beehive for honey!! At one point Yakof noticed that the mother was peeling corn and so we decided to help her our which turned out to be quite a learning experience. We sat on the porch until sunset and made our way into our room. They set up a bed for us in the "furnished" room, and we put on the mosquito net, which is serving much more to stop bugs strolling on our bodies than actually stopping mosquitos. From the kitchen we could smell nice things happening on the pot…their dinner smelled great…little did we know that was our dinner as well. At around seven we were served dinner…plane rice, with a "boiled/fried egg", and alu gobi…nice, nice and again nice. We did not dare to touch the water though. This family treated us like royalty… we never really expected that kind of hospitality. What was troubling Janet, was this…we were going to sleep in the forest…surrounded by animals…with a kind of roof on our head, from which unidentified flying insects were crawling into our "room." She was therefore "prepared" for any kind of insect assault. In the dim light of the kerosene lamp, we were preparing to go into bed when Janet noticed a big roach strolling on the wall. A few moments later we got scared to death by the kitten who was following another roach….Janet loved the kitten!! Exhaustion fell in and we slept till around 5am. Coffee was already boiling, and we started making our preparations to leave. Unluckily we were given no guide to take us to Samthar but they told us it was two hours away. We left the place at 7.30 and arrived in Samthar…..seven hours later!!!! This second day was much worse than the first. All the road was uphill and getting worse as we went along. Strangely enough, whoever we asked along the way stated that Samthar was just one kilometer away… Indians here have a strange way of measuring distances. The more we walked, the longer our perception of a kilometer stretched itself. Yakof was doing pretty well but Janet was getting more and more tired and her hurt foot was getting worse. It was too much of a strain climbing the hill with weight!! So she had another hysterical outburst, crying, saying how much she hated India and Yakof especially for getting her here. In the end we managed to arrived in Samthar. Looking down we could not believe we had literally climbed a hill at seventy degree climb. The worst thing about all this was that we did not manage to find accommodation and the only place available was ridiculously expensive… so, after all this hard work to get to Samthar, we decided to make our way towards Lava to find a cheaper accommodation here. So this is the end our nightmare trek. It was a unique experience to say the least. The nature around us was one of the most stunning we have ever seen. It has thought us many things…one of them is to never go trekking alone without a proper map cause directions in India are similar to the ones in Italy "sempre in dritto"…

That evening we slept at a place next to Lava and the day after we made our way there. We don't really have to say much about Lava as we did not like the place, mostly because the people there tried to cheat us all the time. We just spent one day there, watching TV and went back to Kalimpong the following day.

The drive back to Kalimpong was the worst we ever had since we have been traveling. The jeep started off and after a couple of minutes the guy sitting next to the driver took over the staring. All the pedals and gear box were still in the former driver control. Never, and again we make emphasis on the word NEVER, in our lives have we seen such a bad driver….and he was just taking care of the steering wheel!!! What made it so much scarier is that the 20 km drive was full of bends and curves down a hill so one wrong miss and….well we arrived safe and sound and changed jeeps to get to Kalimpong. Back in Kalimpong we checked in Sherpa Lodge were we narrated all our adventures and mis-adventure to Raju. We were just spending a couple of days there just to get our laundry sorted, given all of our clothes were filthy, and to get transport to Sikkim. We both needed to get to a place which is nicer than Kalimpong and, from what we have heard all along, Sikkim was the place.

Kalimpong

23.04.2008 to 26.04.2008

It was time for us to leave Darjeeling and move on to Kalimpong. We took off early in the morning and reached Kalimpong at around noon. It took a while to find accommodation, which would fit our budget, until finally we managed a room for Rs200. We were not that happy with our room as it was dirty, and there was no water, so we decided to go in the search of another guesthouse. We managed to find a good-value guesthouse a couple of minutes away from the motor stand…Sherpa Lodge….and we decided to move there on the morrow. Kalimpong was not much of a nice place… but for us it was a stopping point in order to go trekking. What made the place worthwhile was the owner of Sherpa Lodge, Raju, who was very friendly, and helpful. He gave us a lot of information about trekking and always had good advice for us. We did a couple of things in Kalimpong, which included visiting a small paper factory, where they produce paper from Daphne leaves. The final products are really nice, ranging from cards, bags, lamps, notebooks, etc. Kalimpong was the place where we changed a lot of rooms… in two days we changed three rooms!! First time was to change from the first hotel to Sherpa Lodge and following that to a different room within Sherpa Lodge itself. We were given a lovely room but with a 'little' problem, an unpleasant surprise which struck us during the night. Janet was sleeping, when, she suddenly felt something running on her arm. At first she tought it could be her hair but on second thoughts she put on the torch and she saw a small roach running on the mattress in Yakof’s direction. Yakof was woken up, by the ubrupt shouting, only to learn that there were around four other small roaches in the room, together with a big dead one next to the door and another (living one) on its way in!!!! That was the end of our sleep….from 04:30 in the morning we waited for Raju to wake up and we changed rooms. The room was pretty much the same but with a TV… and as long as there were no roaches it would be fine. It turned out that we could not make do without roaches even in that room, though we have to say the maximum we found were three. We spent the days in Kalimpong to preparing ourselves for our trek… bought trekking boots and so on. Our next destination The Trek… and that is one hell of a story….

Darjeeling

15.04.2008 to 22.04.2008

Darjeeling, the "Queen of Hills" and the land of the muscatel flavoured Darjeeling tea. Quoting Mark Twain, "the one land that all men desire to see, and having seen once-by even a glimpse, would not give that glimpse for the shows of the rest of the world combined".

Darjeeling was a beautiful experience for us and we spent seven great days. We left Siliguri very early in the morning, at around 06:00 as Yakof managed to find a shared taxi at a very good price. The ride there took us about two and a half hours, of serene mountain sceneries and bumpy curvy hills.

Once there, we tried to orientate ourselves and after some missed hits we ended up at the hotel we were looking for….Bellevieu Hotel. For once we had chosen a hotel beforehand because we were going to spend our anniversary here and we did not mind spending a bit extra to treat ourselves for the occasion.

The hotel is Tibetan owned and the rooms extremely nice and cosy. We opted for one of cheaper ones….Rs700 which is equivalent to 11.9 Euros. The room was a great luxury for us and we were feeling a little bit guilty of spending this amount of money, but we wanted to celebrate. The room had two great features…..the first one was an old beaten metal fire stove, which we use in two occasions when the weather got a little bit chilly. The other one was a hot shower!!! We had forgotten the last time we had a hot shower, and the feeling underneath the tub was exhilarating….we could not get ourselves out of the bathroom.

The first and last day of our stay were rainy, but during the rest of our stay the weather was pretty nice. We did not push ourselves too much to do a lot of sightseeing but concentrated on what we really wanted to do, ie, enjoy the beauty of the place and indulge ourselves in books and food!!

As sightseeing goes we visited the Tibetan Refugee Centre, the Zoological Park, The Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, the Ropeway, the Batasia Loop and the magnificent Tiger Hill.

The Tibetan Refugee Self Help Center was quite of a walk from our guesthouse, a "small" detail which we had previously overlooked, was our first go.

The Tibetan Refugee Self-Help Centre was started on October 1, 1959. At that time, following the dramatic escape of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, thousands of Tibetans leaving hearth and home, fled into the neighboring countries to live as "free" human beings. When the Centre first started over 34 years ago, there were just four workers. Today the centre is the home of more than 750 refugees.

Given the long walk Janet could not possibly leave without purchasing something. So after browsing the store she came across a particularly nice Tibetan bag which was extremely fairly priced. And that was the purchase of the day. We also toured round their small museum where pictures and stories of the atrocities suffered by Tibetan from Chinese were narrated and exposed.

On the day of our anniversary we visited the Zoological Park and the Himalayan Mountaneering Institute. It always gets to our nerves when we have to pay five times as much the price for Indian nationals to visit attractions….twice would be reasonable, but five times as much is quite a steal.

The time spent in both of these places was great. In the zoo we got to see animals which we had never seen before. Amongst them Janet’s favourites were the snow leopard, the leopard cats and the gorgeous red panda. Yakof’s favourite was, undoubtedly, the Tibetan wolf. One attraction which was catching the eye of most Indians was the rare Maltese, plaited-hair female... in other words Janet. At some points she was getting much more attention than the animals themselves!!! She even got to pose for a photo with a kid. Next in line she will be giving out autographs!

Having spared enough time to the zoo, we made our way to the Himalayan Mountaneering Institute, which at first we thought would be a pretty boring expereince. We were totally wrong, so much so that Yakof considered attending a course himself (which he will not do due to both money and time restraints).

Tenzing Norgay’s ascent of Mount Everest (8848/29,028ft.) along with Edmund Hillary, 1953 provided the desired impetus to mountaineering as an organized sports in India. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, then Prime Minister and a visionary wanted to canalize the abundant energy of the youth of nation into a constructive field of mountaineering and hence planned to open a mountaineering institute(HMI) was founded in Darjeeling on4th November by none else pandit Nehru himself. Within no time HMI became the renowned mountaineering institute in the world. Being the home town of Tenzing Norgay and one of the most beautiful place in Himalayas, Darjeeling was selected as the most appropriate place for this institute.

It's history is fascinating and we spent a good hour going round the museum before deciding to get back to our guest house. On our way back we stopped at a small coffee shop : Hot Stimulating Cafe. Janet had the best Masala tea ever from there and the owner was a really nice lady. She had previously broken her arm which couldn't seem to heal... and yakof spens a sound hour giving her advice. In the end, she told us to leave a note in their journal and we noticed that, a few days before, two maltese had visited the place as well...shoot we were second :)

We ended that day by dining at a very good place, The Park Restaurant, where we ate delcious chicken with cashewnut sauce.

The other two places we visited during the rest of our stay were the Observatory Hill, where we went round a monastery full of cheeky monkeys, and the famous Tiger Hill...

We woke up at 04:00 and went to look out for a jeep to take us to the hill. We ended up in a small van, with all jeeps surpassing us, which was getting quite frustrating as we thought we were going to miss sunrise.

The trip to the summit of the hill is through Ghoom, the highest railway station on the D.H. Ry. The elevation of Ghoom is 7,407 feet from sea level, while the altitude of the top of this hill exceeds that of Ghoom by 1,100 feet. In the fast receding glimmer of the night, we found ourselves standing in front of a magnificent scene, in hush and silence and steeped in frigid cold. It is said that a traveller whose vision has not been entertained with the two sights, the Taj Mahal by moonlight and sunrise from Tiger Hill, has missed a pleasure that does not lend itself to be substituted.

The first rays of the sun shot ahead and shed light upon the twin peaks of Kanchenjunga and gradually painted the whole of its snow body with a beautiful orange colour. From Tiger Hill, just the top of Mount Everest (29,002') is visible, peeping out through two other peaks standing by its side. If you are lucky you get to see it as the weather is most of the time not ideal....and we had that luck!!! The peak that looks highest is that of Makalu (27,799'). These three peaks are seen to the north-west a little left of Phalut. Everest looks smaller than any of its two sisters, although Everest is not only higher than either of them, but the highest peak in the world, the distance in straight line of Everest from Tiger Hill being 107 miles. This phenomenon arises from the fact that Everest is several miles beyond them.

So this trip was a complete success and Janet was even glad that she did not attract any attention (due to the fact that she had, ingeniously, covered her hair with a hood). Nonetheless she was still asked to pose for a photograph by a sweet boy, whose father was friends with a guy who had asked to have her picture taken with his daughter when we had visited ropeway (which was not operational).

After having absorbed a heart-stopping experience, we decided to make our way back to Darjeeling on foot, a nice long walk of 11km. The first few kilometres were simply great! Only the two of us walking in the silence. The bad part came when we started reached the main road and were welcomed by the inevitable hooting of the jeeps. On the way we stopped at Ava Art Gallery. This gallery displays fine art and embroidery work of Mrs. Ava Devi. Her art was amazing. Janet was already considering which one she was going to buy when we discovered that the painting were no longer for sale as the artist had deceased. This was such a let down! We consoled ourserlves by buying two sets of reproduction postcards.

After five hours of walking we managed to reach Darjeeling and we stopped to have some food at Glenary's. We spent the rest of the day gladly doing nothing.

In Darjeeling, we experienced both cultural and culinary pleasures.

We discoved a great bookshop and ended up buying a lot of interesting books, ranging from Sufism, to Zen Teachings to Chakra. We also discovered various culinary pleasures... we were never dissatisfied with the food we ate here, it being western, chinese and indian and its here that Janet discovered for the first time the momos.

A momo is a type of Tibetan dumpling. Momos are made of a simple flour-and-water dough--white flour is generally preferred--and sometimes a little yeast or baking soda is added to give a more 'doughy' texture to the finished product. There are various fillings : beef, chicken, vegetables, cheese and apparently in nepal even chocolate (one thing Janet will make sure to discover once we are in Nepal) These fillings are then enclosed in a round of the above dough, which is sealed in a circular fashion, resembling a pinwheel, though it's also not uncommon for them to be folded in half and sealed. The resulting dumplings are then cooked by steaming over a soup (either a stock based on bones or tomato-based), which is served with the dumplings, as well as chili sauce. They may also be pan-fried or deep-fried after being steamed.

The best momos she tasted were at a Tibetan restaurant (Kunga), where she also savoured tibetan tea (tea with salt and butter)...a little bit heavy and distasteful but she had to give it a try, after all, it was tea!

Yakof, on the other hand, returned to his carnivourous state... and he loved it :)

Our days in Darjeeling passed on quickly, maybe too quickly. After seven wonderful days we decided to make our way to Kalimpong.

For more pictures click here: