Back in the USSR! ...err... I mean USA...

I'm safely back and had a nice nap this afternoon. I tried not to sleep too much though, so that I won't have trouble sleeping tonight.
The cats are very happy to have me back and they seem very happy with their interim caretaker.
I plan to drop by the office for maybe half a day tomorrow so that I can get all the updating jumpstarted without having the expectation that I'll be productive. Sorting through email and hearing the project stories from the last 3 weeks should fill at least half a day, shouldn't it?

I'd like to thank you guys in advance for cleaning up the mess you left at my house while I was gone:

I'll catch up with and to MWT's beautiful posts this weekend. (Getting a jump start like that... not fair! ;)

A Hint of Things to Come

We are fiddling around with various errands, including downloading photos, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to post a lovely photo of the girls who performed in the ceremonies at the Tibetan Wedding we attended. Only four of the five girls are shown, but the most important one (important to us anyway), the first on the left, is the daughter of the kind lady who invited us to the wedding.
This photo is by Bret. He and Cheryl are better photographers than I am (meaning a greater proportion of thier photos turn out exceptionally well). I don't lack artistic talent, just the level of patience and persnicketiness (yes, me!) to achieve any great heights of photographic art. So this is a good, but not great photo, of theirs. It does what most of my photos do, tells a story (another reason my photos lack something is that I don't edit as much - mostly because the picture tells a story for me). When I get back to the States, when I post any of Bret and Cheryl's photos, I will most likely put a watermark on them, because the truly beautiful ones are Art.

The End is Near

This is my last night in India! Tomorrow night, I'll be on a plane and coming home. I look forward to seeing my dad and the cats when I get back. I imagine I'll be napping lots and lots.
More stories and photos to come. :)

Waterfalls and Sarees

The area around Manali is a little like Colorado, with pine forests and gushing streams. The town is a little overrun with Indian tourists (who have a tendency to be somewhat boisterous), but we've managed to enjoy ourselves. Mostly we've spent the day hiking (like yesterday we hiked to two levels of a very tall waterfall and one level you could hike behind! :D ) and then in the evening, going to a restaurant (Mount View is one of the best I've ever been too!) and doing a little shopping. Yesterday I got a lovely wool shawl and a saree. I'll need a couple pieces of undergarments, but I hope to model it for you all, at least in a photo if I don't see you in person.
Today I am taking it easy. I have a little bit of a stomach ache and am feeling under the weather. Bret pointed out that it may not be anything I ate or drank, but my body finally reacting to the different diet. He said he had experienced something similar along those lines right at the two week mark. It's not debilitating -- I'll be able to travel on the bus tomorrow, I'm sure (though the movement of the bus won't be particularly pleasant, I'm sure) -- but it's a good excuse to take a break, stay near civilization (and a bathroom), and catch up on my journalling. I also finally had time to read the book I brought (see link to the right). It's a perfect book to read while in Asia, particularly India, where Buddhism, Hindu, and Muslim are all found.

One funny thing about India that I thought you'd find interesting is that because things written with the Roman alphabet are often written phonetically (so that place names will often vary), English words are often written phonetically as well. It is extremely common to see misspellings on shop fronts and in menus. You might select a breakfast item from a menu subcategory "Eegs" or have "Veg Sup". Certain creative spellers I know would enjoy that!

Tomorrow we leave for Chandigarh. Hope everything is going well for you guys!

We Flew Off a Cliff Into a Two Thousand Foot Gorge

(Title courtesy of Bret and Cheryl)

We are safe and sound in Manali now. We arrived a couple of hours ago. As you might have guessed, we DID end up taking two days to travel. The first day we travelled from about 5 am to 7 ish pm (13 hours). Though we were 75% of the way, we stopped in Keylong for two reasons: we knew it would be tougher to find an affordable room at midnight and we wanted to see that last 1/4 of the trip. We are so glad we did. Not only was Keylong a really nice little town (with a very accommodating restaurant that promised our home-sick Brit an apple custard and then came back and embarrassed said "how about a pineapple custard?") but there were some great sights to see during that last leg. (I wish it were more convenient to download photos!)
First, I'll say that our taxi driver was excellent. He was an intense young guy (mid 20s, probably) who obviously knew all the tricks of the trade in driving on a rough road with passengers. He would take the smoothest and/or safest track through the obstacles as he could. Sometimes that was rocks in the road, sometimes a stream, sometimes a herd of goats, sheep, ponies, or other cars. He drove at a safe pace most of the time and we were all very pleased with his performance.
We left Keylong at 5 am, because the taxi driver was worried about "traffic." At first, that seemed like herds of goats and sheep, then just after we went over the last pass to Manali, we understood. Apparently that pass is also the Indian version of a ski resort. No infrastructure, of course. No lifts, no buildings, no parking lots, only yellow and blue tarp tents, with parking along the dirt road and a lot of packed and dirty snow. All the Indian tourists were dressed in "onesie" style snowsuits or fake fur coats, with rubber boots (we saw the rental shops, about 700 of them, stocked with these items further down the mountain). We navigated through the parked cars, and then had to pass waves of cars travelling in the other direction, often on a 1 1/2 width road, and often with ponies (for pony rides) crossing the road in front of us. Then, if we weren't delighted enough, some large flocks of sheep and goats were herded along the same road. I have some great photos and promise to post them.

In Manali, we had a bit of a row with a hotel keeper, but are now safely ensconced in hotel rooms at New Dharma Guest house (link courtesy of Tania's excellent help in a previous post, but not as close a satellite photo as before).

We are not sure if we're going to Nagar (a small mountain town) tomorrow, or staying here for three days, then continuing to Chandigarh. Either way, the clock is ticking away my last week in India.

Hope everything is going well for you guys. Nathan, I have a special stash of chips and beer under the stair, saved for Armageddon. I guess I can get more.

Leaving for Manali

We are leaving for Manali early tomorrow morning (it's 6 pm here now). We'll either do it in one or two days (we're waiting to see what the conditions are like), but either way we should be in Manali by the afternoon/evening of the 22nd. (That'll be the morning of the 22nd for you guys, I think.) If you don't hear from us by the 23rd, then start to worry. I sent an email to "Grabill Family" (aka my sister) with some contact info for the family of the two friends with whom I'm traveling.
It should be a fantastic drive. Wikipedia has some info (a wee bit alarming) as does India Travelogue (though the description is reversed from the direction we'll be going, Leh to Manali). Actually, a Google search turns up quite a few interesting sites, including one about riding a motorcycle on this route.
We're travelling with a pair of Canadians (good looking brothers!) and a Brit. It should be fun, since we're not doing the packed-to-the-gills shared taxi experience.

See you all in Manali!

Glass Half Full

I just passed the halfway point on my trip yesterday. We were lucky enough to make friends with a very sweet Tibetan lady and she invited us to a Tibetan wedding. My friends had been to a Hindu wedding, but this was (according to them) very different. We drank "salty" chai and never ever want to again. They took four tasty things: tea, milk, salt, and butter and made something [shudder] not so tasty with them. It's a cultural thing, of course, and we did at least *try* it.
We just got back from visiting a Buddhist monastary (in Thiksey) and walking 3 or 4 miles to a ruined palace (in Shey). Tomorrow we will go on an overnight trek. It's something we set up with the cousin of the woman who invited us to the wedding. *Much* cheaper that way.
We've also arranged for a shared Jeep (taxi) to Menali, over one of the highest and most spectacular highways in the world. I'm told motorcyclists travel here to drive over it. It's not officially open yet, so I'll probably post a message saying "ok, we're leaving" and a confirming "ok, we've arrived" so you all can raise hell if something happens to us in between (as we will be travelling at our own risk).

This has been a very interesting experience so far, and I'm very fortunate in my travelling companions. I wish I could post pictures, but I think it would be too complicated and expensive (as I am paying 1.5 rupees for every minute I'm online). So, you'll just have to wait.

Until next time!
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Oh, I meant to post something additional:
I've borrowed a friend's GPS receiver and have been wanting to give coordinates and link to an online map, but have yet to find an online resource that uses coordinates (like I think Google Earth does).
Here they are anyway (I'll transcribe them as exactly as I can, but I'm not sure why the E coordinate has a 0 or an O in front of it):
Glacier View Hotel (Leh, India):
N 34deg 10.096'
E077deg 35.007'
Elev. 11574 ft.
(accurate up to 21 feet)
If any of you has any helpful links, post it in the comments. Thanks!

Mountain Retreat

First: For those worried about the news from Jaipur, I am not there, nor are we planning to go there. Interestingly enough, if I had not said "I don't really like cities, could we keep that down to a minimum" we might have been there at the time, and Cheryl says that it did happen in a tourist area where we might have been. Somewhere in a parallel universe, things might have turned out differently.

We arrived in Leh yesterday. It is a wonderful place, especially for someone from Colorado. It's a mountain "city" at 11600 feet above sea level, and has nicer people and less pollution than the cities we've been in. Things have been going well with our travel arrangements and I look forward to telling you guys the stories when I get back.

Hugs to you all!