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.