Archive for the ‘ Activities ’ Category

Dreams and the desert of reality

As I sleep in the upper berth on the twenty hour train ride to Jaisalmer, I wake to a massive cacophony of English language wasted energy.  Two English women, a mother and daughter team, are trying to fit three massive bags into the smallish compartment area while shouting and complaining at each other at high [ READ MORE ]

Amritsar

hen the bus pulled into Amritsar, I could see that I was finally back in India.  I had left the mist-capped mountain retreats, the hummus-peddling tourist restaurants and I was back in the land of cycle rickshaws and dhabas.  Also, I had been traveling with people since Leh, so I was on my own again, [ READ MORE ]

The Dalai Lama’s Home in Exile

spent one week in the city of McLeod Ganj near Dharamsala in the state of Himachal Pradesh.  The primary draw of this place is that it is the home of the Tibetan government in exile and contains the monastery of the Dalai Lama. In 1950, China invaded Tibet with 30,000 troops, overwhelming its meagre defenses.  [ READ MORE ]

Paragliding over Manali

spent about a week in Manali.  This is quite a great place to get caught up.  I stayed in the Dharma Guesthouse in a room with a private balcony and the views in the morning and evening over the valley were breathtaking. I was completely lazy here.  My one major event was the day I [ READ MORE ]

Mountain Roads and Mortality

hope that the hardest of my travel in India is behind me.  The road from Jammu to Srinigar was crazy.  The road from Srinigar to Leh was worse and the road from Leh to Manali was washed out due to rain and early snow.  It was the most insane. The scenery was fantastic.  We travelled [ READ MORE ]

Kashmiri Mountains Continued

Please read the previous post if you haven’t.  This is a continuation of that post: Anyway, at the end of the fourth day, we got to camp and as we were setting up, the Army told us we couldn’t camp there and we had to hike another click and about 300m up.  I was done.  I [ READ MORE ]

Kashmiri Mountains: Beauty and Discomfort

  The mountains of Kashmir must be the most beautiful in the world.  They are covered in forest to the tree line, grasses and greenery beyond.  Shepherds herd huge flocks of sheep and cattle through the hilly parts and gypsy huts dot the many rivers and lakes. The closest mountains I could compare them to [ READ MORE ]

14 hours? It felt like 4.

My flight from Chicago to New Delhi was 14 hours long and I was worried that it would be awful, so I used some extra miles to upgrade to business class. It turned out the flight was almost empty so I had a whole row to myself.  Not that it matters because these international business class [ READ MORE ]

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