Breakfast with Angitha today (the others joined us briefly at the end) Our plan for today is to go & see Rishikesh but we both agreed, no more temples! We hired a nice air con taxi for the day as it was hot & humid again (No surprise!). Bought some cold & flu medicine in Haridwar for about $2 but it was pretty weak so only helped a little - better than nothing I guess. Looking forward to getting some Codral tonight. Rishikesh is described as ...

Had a bit of a sleep-in until 7.00am today as I think we've earned it! Breakfast, clean up then packed our bags, said our goodbyes & started the 10 hour drive back down the mountain. The temperature up in the mountains was a little cool so it was good to have a jacket on. This quickly turned into a hot, humid furnace as we descended to lower altitudes (no air con of course)! Everyone felt so hot & sweaty! Urgh ... it was so disgusting! Especially...

Woke to the sounds of someone throwing up in a different room (for a change)! A little later, could also hear the gentle sound of donkey bells on the path outside, which was much nicer! Packed up everything, had breakfast, took some group photos, then headed back down the mountain. Even carrying my pack, it was so much easier going down compared to going up! The km seemed to fly by! Sandeep was in an especially good mood and was dancing with Jagmeet cons...

Josh, the guy sleeping next to me, was up & down quite a few times during the night as he was throwing up & had diahorrea. Poor guy! He decided not to go on the walk to Hemkund Sahib (also spelt "Hemkunt" sometimes but I'm going to stick with "Hemkund" for obvious reasons). Matthew, the husband with the fever also still not good so he & his wife Gloria elected not to go too. Manisha had a cold so her husband, Ahmeh, also stayed behind. I'm feeli...

Was woken up early by one of the 4 other guys in the room. He has a plastic cover on his mattress & seemed to be tossing & turning all night. Found out later he has a fever so that explains a lot! Then the Sikhs started chanting very loudly at about 5am ... and, well, might as well get up! Everyone feeling very excited as today is the day we do the trek we've all been waiting for! I roamed around the village a little before breakfast to take photos...