Trekking through the Himalayas, I've actually done it!!! The bit we trekked through is called the Dhauladhar range which is a southern branch of the main Himalayan chain of mountains. We set off from a little hillside village and then trekked for 2hours 40 mins to Guna Devi a little Temple in the middle of nowhere. Totally deserted but immensely beautiful. We were told there would be people there, so on arrival we weren't sure we'd actually come to the right place but as the sun was setting we had no choice but to set up camp. Luckily a while later a local villager came by for evening prayer and confirmed we were in the right place with that slightly confounding Indian head wobble. The sunset was magnificent! We saw all the colours of the rainbow with the bright evening star hanging above it all. I think it's Venus, feel free to correct me. In the morning we woke a wee bit late. I emerged out of the tent bleary eyed and a bit sore but all was forgotten at the sight of the valley. All I could say was Wow! The photos don't really do it justice but with a bit of imagination you might get an idea of what we experienced. It was completely silent apart from Bird song and crickets. We had a breakfast of oats, honey, nuts and raisins all mixed together with a wee bit of water from my amazing aquapure water filter bottle which we'd filled from a burst pipe. It was then that we started wondering how we would get to Triund, our next stop. The instructions had been ask at the Temple but as there was no one there we had a slight problem. A while later about 10am a family came for morning prayers but although their English was very good they couldn't help as to the direction. Then a few goat herds and shepherds came by with a huge flock of Goats, Sheep, Lambs and Kids but although they knew the way our language barrier managed to block any real help.In the end at 11am we decided to set off and trust in Ganesha or God or Buddha or fate or all of them and started trundling back down the mountain. As my bag doesn't really fit round my waist I carried most of the weight on my shoulders which meant my collar bones became very sore but I kept going while complaining a wee bit ;-) Luckily my headache had passed so our worry about altitude sickness passed. It turned out I'm just not fit... what a surprise! We found a track we thought might be the right one but it was more of a sheep trail than a track. We sat down despairing a wee bit when we spotted 2 specks moving in the distance. We rested behind a rock and drank some coke till the specks became people we could talk to. It was a white tourist and her Indian guide. He informed us that we'd found the right trail but we should go another way so we thanked him and set off right back down a steep valley and up the other side. After only getting slightly lost once more, we eventually made it to Triund at 5pm, 6 hours later. It was worth every huff and puff! We had plenty of time to get our tent up before a Sunset even more spectacular than the previous day at 6:30pm. We sat in one of the the many little huts up there (It's a big field used by lots of tourists for camping and day trips) and ate supper overlooking the whole of Dharamsala and the Kangra valley. It was Awe inspiring! Unfortunately Cait wasn't feeling too good so she went to bed while I sat on a rock and watched the lights far below and Sean chatted to the Indian tourists at the camp fire. It was all a bit too smokey for me. Once most of them had gone to bed I went over for a bit and then we went to bed. It gets very cold up there but luckily we bought some incredible woollen colourful Tibetan blankets. They were our best friends and oh so soft! We slept fitfully in our bright yellow alpine tent guarded by 3 dogs who kept trying to cuddle into Sean on the other side of the tent. I was in the middle so I just got human cuddles from both sides depending who was colder thus I stayed toasty warm:-) In the morning we awoke when the sun struck our tent and caused the inside to glow bright yellow. Breakfast was omelet and fresh bread with hot chocolate at Sunil's hut. He then kindly said he would look after our packs while we trekked to the snow line. We packed up our tent and set off. 90mins later we arrived at "The snow line" unfortunately at this precise moment there isn't any snow there but at 3500m it's still pretty awesome. Cait and I relaxed in the sun on the beautiful meadow while Sean made a dash for the real snow line. As we only had 2 hours Cait and I decided we wouldn't hold Sean back as we knew we wouldn't make and watched him pelt down the mountain alone. 1h 45mins later he comes running back up with a big grin on his face and a bottle of glacier water. He found it!!! I would have felt very jealous but Sean's good moods are very infectious so we all felt good for him. we ended up chatting about our Geography teachers. We love you Mr Pugh! On the way back we had a mini fall out as to which way to go home. Sean wanted to go down along the ridge but Cait wanted to go back the way we came a long the path as she was wearing sandals. We asked Sunil's advice and he said although the ridges was much nicer it would take around 3 hours and we only had just under 3 till sunset so I decided I didn't want to risk it so Sean moped all the way home:-P We arrived home after dark, Cait and I cheated and got the tuck-tuck the very last bit as we couldn't really see anymore and everything hurt. We jumped into warm showers and then watched Sunday night TV feeling very sore tired and contented:-)