The last week or so have been pretty busy so I will summarise as much as possible. We took a jeep from Manali to Leh near the top of India close to the chinese border. The Manali-Leh highway is reputedly the second highest in the World and I certainly felt it. It is easy to see why this route is only open for four months of the year. The road is littered with signs thanking for your patience whilst is is being repaired when in reality, in my mind, it is still being built. The 485km road took in several high passes reaching over 5300m in places. It took just 21 hours of solid driving (although stopped for 3 hours whilst a landslide was cleared from the road - speaking to some people they had been stuck there over night!). It's hard to impress on absent eyes just how collusal the scenery is here. I felt like tiny ants swarming about in our jeeps as we wound our way up and down the mountains. The sharp rise in altitude didn't go down too well with my body, I suffered a bit with acut mountain sickness on the way. Fisrt the pounding constant headaches then eyes feeling like they were ready to explode, then insomnia still wide awake after 48 hours no matter how tired i felt. Then came the nausea and eventual vomiting out the door of the jeep (only just managed to get the driver to stop in time!). Fortunately we had started our final decent to a more civilised 3500m in Leh so it didn't get any worse, yet this is still an experience I'd prefer not to repeat. Which is why I booked myself on a high altitude trek the day after we arrived!

We survived a 5 day trek (after 3 days aclimitisation taking in the sites of the old palace and fort perched high up lording over the town) in the the Ledhaki valleys camping along the way taking in two passes, Konze La (4950m) and, my favourite purely for the name, Dun Dung La (4820m). Our highest camp was around 4500m and no affects of AMS this time thankfully. I can't describe the scenery here, mostly loose rocks, shales and sands the colours would change from reds to yellows and even greens in a matter of feet. The days were only around 5-6 hours walking but much of this was hard uphill slog with the thin air keeping you out of breath at the slowest of paces. Getting up to the first pass was the hardest feeling light-headed most of the way and if we needed proof of how tough it was one of the horses had collapsed and was being held by the horseman to prevent it from rolling back down the mountain. We did have the best horses out of the other groups trekking the same route. We were promised around 4 horses but what we got were 2 horses, 4 donkeys and 3 gorgeous, cute, baby donkeys. And to recover from that mometary lapse of girlyness, I have now added another Ultimate Wild Cleaveland Steamer to my list. To go with the jungles of Latin America and the Sahara desert of Africa, I have now crimped off a length on the side of a Himalayan mountain. This last one I felt was best purely for the magnificant view to go with it!! The trek was awsome and a little more luxurious than I am used to. To go with the guide and horsmen we had a fantastic cook who would also wake us up in the morning with a whole kettle full of tea to be supped from inside our sleeping bags. I am hereby recommending that all MWS trips are now run in a similar manner - I believe it is traditionally the Secretary's job to cook?!! I have taken a whole load of photos of which I will attempt to upload some when I find an internet cafe that doesn't struggle with email!!