Hey everybody!

Were back from the mountains! After a gruelling but intensely worthwhile 2 week venture on our own we have returned to the safety of Delhi and Grandma Kalra's hospitality.

The adventure started 2 weeks ago today, as the 3 of us were dropped into the chaos of Old Delhi train station. This seemed to signal the start of our travelling experience for real as the masses surrounded us and we were forced to battle our way through the shodilly singposted mele, to find our sleeper train, the Jammu Mail. Fortunately we were succesful and boarded the train with time to spare, and settled into our surrounding for the next 12 hours. The train could best be described as a moving prison cell, as you will see in the photos, but it was comfotable enough to catch a few hours of sleep in between the offers of chai and ice-cream from sellers roaming the cabins.

And so the next morning we awoke in Patankot, in northern Indias Himachal Pradesh province. The contrast from Delhi was immdediately apparent in this tiny town, which seemed only to offer the train station we had just arrived at and the bus stand we had to find. Patankot to Dalhousie was our first taste of an Indian bus journey, and is sure to be one we will never forget. The suicidal driving style of the bus driver along treacherous mountain roads was surprisingly the least of our worries as it seemed more and more passengers were squeezed into every inch of space. (Alex was lucky enough to find a mail bag to perch on by a window, while Arun shared some intimate contact with numerous strangers, who seemed to view his lap as a seat, sometimes 2!)

It all seemed to be worthwhile though as we arrived in Dalhousie and were awe struck by the beautiful mountains which surrounded us on all sides, and the occasional glimpse of the snow capped Himalayas in the distance. We quickly checked into our hotel ('Hotel Crags' which seemed to be owned by a Mr Tumnas style mountain goat, with a slight speech impediment) and headed out for our first taste of Himalayan walking in the hills above the town. But there was a problem. The map we had been given by the tourist office seemed to lack the characteristics of what we wuld call a map at home (e.g. a scale, any landmarks, discernable features or even half of the roads and paths it should have covered, much to Alex's annoyance!) meaning that our first taste of Himalayan walking very quickly became our first taste of being lost up a mountain! But our impecable (ha!) sense of direction was enough to guide us safely back down for a comfortable night with Tumnas at the Crags.