Week Ten.

It was a great leaving Dehli, the areas I saw of the city were good and was useful for supplies but by the time I had organised moving on the heat and pollution were starting to get to me. So I skipped my planned day trip to the Taj Mahal and got the train to Simla, capital of Himachal Pradesh. The journey involved changing halfway and getting on a 'toy train' to travel up the mountain. It was a really scenic journey and pretty surreal arriving in cold simla after being in a Desert town less than a week before. I was still finding sand everywhere and having to wrap up well at night was a complete contrast.
Simla is a really nice town, but couldn't spend too long there.It's the high tourist season in this part of India and the place was packed out with native honeymooners and holiday makers. There weren't many travellers about and even though it was great finally being amongst the himalayas, it seemed impossible to find anywhere isolated to relax, there were people and monkeys everywhere. It was also surreal seeing heavy rain, made me a bit homesick. Shimla is a ery 'english' town, it was the summer capital during the British occupancy and it filled with very British looking churches and ol tudor style buildings. It also bought back memories of family holidays as there were ice cream parlours and video arcades everywhere.
After a couple of days of looking around I headed to Dharamsala, home of many many tibetan refugees and heavily influenced by budhism. The area was lovely, you could see snow covered peaks in the distance and even if you just wanted to go and buy some bread it was a scenic trip. I spent a fair amount of time in the nearby village of Bhag Su, a lot less populated and really laidback. There was a similar scene here to Goa, a load of hippies enjoying the scenery and sitting about alot. I participated in this activity too muh myself, in fact I think I reached new levels of dozy laziness. I actually stayed in Mcleod Ganj, halfway up the valley between Dharamshala and Bhag Su. The population seemed evenly split three ways between Indian locals, travellers and Tibetan exiles and everyone seemed to have a smile on they're face all the time. There was a real atmosphere of peace and contentment about the place, and there was a constant soundtrack of gentle pipe music or the standard Bob Marley selection. It was also very sunny there and wandering far into the valley discovering waterfalls and obscure cafes was a great way to spend the day. After about five days decided that I was okay for inner peace, and got the bus to Manali, my final resting place in India. Most people I've met throughout the country are planning on ending up here, and it's perfect for a final holiday before leaving the country. It has a reputation for adventure sports and may go on an organised trek at some point but funds have become tight, so much so that my plan was to stay in the woods. I changed my mind within one second of arriving here, it is freezing. This has it's advantages, as I've heard that many holiday makers have been put off by the unusual cold weather and opted for Dharamsala, which was a bit clogged in spite of the collective calm. So I'm staying in the nearby village of Vashisht and although this is my fourth day here haven't managed to venture out much. Now that I know I'm not going to do much more exploring my lazy holiday mood has kicked in, and that seems to be what this tiny village is all about. Days are spent chilling on a friends balcony drinking chai, staring at amazing snowy views from rooftops drinking chai, or lazing about in hippy movie cafes drinking chai. I never thought that I'd spend any time in India doing what I did in the UK, but it's just too tempting to lay about on cushions choosing films and seeing if they have the DVD. I'm going to be here about two weeks, so there'll be time for exploring and trekking later. For now it's nice just cruising around meeting people (way too easy here) and watching loads of dodgy films. Tonight we've been promised Terminator 2, it's taken three days for them to sort out, and surreally most western travellers I've met here really want to see that film again, and ave endless discussions on why T3 is terrible, so tonight should be THE night in India. Yeah, it's pretty shameful that I'm just sitting about watching films but once this era is over I'll have to go pretty much straight to New Zealand to start working to earn more travelling money so now it's good living the easy lifestyle and eing reminded what goosebumps look like. Everyday I've promised myself I would go exploring amongst the mountains but haven't quite managed it yet, by the way 'I Robot' with Will Smith is really good and worth watching. I supposed I'd better go and sit about drinking chai somewhere, Joy who I met in Jaisalmer is about and I'm going to teach her karem (that sri lankan flicky pool-type game), which should be interested as I'm pretty useless at it. To conclude, life is great here, and you can all be smug that as summer begins in the UK I'm spending my days freezing and avoiding major rain. None of the guesthouses seem to ave hot water, so I wash communally in the natural hot springs they have here, they have separate sections for gender but I've been told that it is possible to see a tiny corner of the female section from the one of the rooftops, so maybe I will do some exploring today after all. Either way, next time I update this log I'm guessing not much will have changed. My one 'event' for today was going to be learning the basics on a motorcycle, something I've been planning the whole time here as it's a great way of getting to know a place. But the loose arrangement I had with Simon (irish guy) was that I'd see him at some point this morning so he could teach me, but reckon I must have missed him, which is probably for the best as tey don't have horizontal roads here. Anyway, as long as I end the day with Arnold Schwartzeneggar it'll be a success.