Ordered to rest for a couple of days, we got to know our fellow travelers at Jigmet Guest House pretty well. Christian and Clear from Los Angeles killed any illusions we had about being unique. They are also on a round-the-world trip, taking digital photos along the way and of course they have their own travel web-site. Fortunately, our itineraries are not identical although they do cross paths.
Many of you have written to us suggesting that we are on a very long vacation. Ladakh didn�t feel like a vacation at all, more like a taxing trip to the moon. It was Earth stripped of all its elements: there was no air to breathe, the soil in the desert mountains was all but barren rock, water was scarce with almost no animals around, and electricity was only available four hours a day. Under the circumstances we still loved our time in Leh. In this Buddhist community we were so impressed by recycling programs, ecological laundry methods, and a municipal ban on plastic bags that we actually felt like we were on a vacation from the rest of India.
Finally able to breathe again, we could embark on our long awaited trek. Surrounded by snowy peaks we stopped along the way in remote farmhouses where women made cheese by means no westerner has witnessed since the Middle Ages. On the third day, we triumphantly reached Stok La at 4.900 m.
Moving on we hired a jeep for the two-day ride to Manali along the world�s second highest motorable road. We were anxious to leave the highlands since this road closes down with the arrival of snow in September. The ride was pure adventure with an ice-cold night spent in a deserted tent camp. When the jeep met an army convoy on a thin serpentine climb our driver carefully balanced the vehicle on the edge of the abyss. Avoiding at all cost to look down, we concentrated on the amusing road signs instead, featuring slogans such as �Mr. Late Better Than Late Mister� or �Darling, I Want You But Not So Fast!�
We were relieved to cross the last mountain pass into the Kullu Valley. The marijuana that grows freely has attracted a strange breed of travelers. There were European sadhus (holy men) with mandatory dreadlocks and faces painted with ash, American hippie girls who greeted us with the Indian �Namaste!� and a Japanese Pokemon-looking girl who was laughing at invisible dragon flies in her chicken sizzler before walking straight in to a closed door. The locals are profiting, such as the old woman washing clothes by the river who revealed stuffed plastic bags in her fake bosom and offered: �Smoke, smoke?� When we could no longer stand the very sloooooow service in the restaurants (what were they baking in the kitchen?) we moved on.
In Shimla, a colonial hill station straight out of a Merchant Ivory film we rubbed shoulders with the Indian upper classes as they strolled along the Mall eating ice cream.
On our way back to Delhi a headline in the newspaper caught our full attention: �America Attacked�. We made sure our next hotel would feature BBC and CNN; like the rest of the world we couldn�t believe our eyes. Relieved to have left the Central Asian mountains when we did, we knew that from now on the world and our travels would never be the same.
from India II
