We took a tatty old bus for 7 hours and eventually arrived in McLeod Ganj. A small village in the mountains just up from the Dalai Lama's residence. Our timing coincided with the protests over China's rule of Tibet. There are a number of tibeten refugess who live here after feeling tibet and they are out in force, everyday chanting from dusk till dawn. It's very sad and more photo's of the trouble in Lhasa get put up around town each day.

The town itself however is beautiful, nice and quiet and with a few smaller villages nearby to walk to and drink tea and eat cake. It's at 1800m and we're barely in the foothills, the 6000m peaks poke out from behind the woodland. After our second nights meal I felt terrible and was promply sick in the middle of the night. The next day wasn't too bad however so we walked up the ridge and got a great view down across the Punjab from a cafe where we hoped to get a cold drink but every bottle was out of date! That night however I had a bad fever and got ill, I spent the next 2 days pretty much in bed. Hannah was an angel, she came back from the shops one day with red paint all over her face, some blokes wiped it on her in celebration of holi day apparently! No I don't know what holi day is either.

I'm starting to feel a little healthier now, I guess it's flu. We strolled up to a lake this afternoon, again with fantastic views and will be catching an 11 hour night bus to Manali this evening..