Another early morning and another early bus down to Mandi. Fast and into the mist in the valleys below. What a way to begin your day! Bags off the one bus and onto the top of another but with a roadside cup of masala chai and vegetable samoosas (I never had one that was not good. A highly recommended pieces of Indian bus station or roadside stop cuisine!) in between. Over mountains, into valleys and around the twists and turns we go and Shimla slowly materialis...

After enjoying ourselves, as well has having our hearts ripped out in the Tibetan Museum, in MG we decided that we may need a little pre-Nepal trekking conditioning after the previous day's little stroll to the Dal Lake just above MG. Ok, make that a little more than just a bit of conditioning! But to get there, we needed to get on another India state bus; and to get to the bus station we needed to take a taxi to get there. Since the bus was leaving at 0600, we ...

Here is a little quiz.....just to get those brain cells moving. Just a little mental exercise to get those juices flowing! Come on! Step 1, 2, 3, 4........kick those BC's into shape! Step 1, 2, 3, 4....... Where is Tibet? How big is Tibet? When was it invaded? What was given as the reason for the necessary "liberation" of Tibet by China? What is happening in Tibet now? Are the Chinese doing all the beneficial things they say they are? What do you car...

When China invaded Tibet in 1949, the Tibetans started to migrate away southwards towards Nepal and India. At first, they were just a trickle, but they became a steady stream. They walk over the high Himalayas carrying only what they escaped with and for weeks at a time. When His Holiness the Dalai Lama eventually went into exile in 1959, he and the Tibetan government-in-exile established themselves in Dharamsala (actually pronounced Dharamshala). Ever since th...

We were not sad to see Amritsar rolling past our train windows as we headed for the Himalayas. Well past the city boundaries, the air becomes clear and the land changes to well cared for and maintained farms. Although the land here is flat, you imagine that these farms stretch to the horizons and up to the places where farms just can't go. There is a definite feeling of an un-ending space that is bordered by the snow capped mountain ranges in the north. T...