It's hot hot hot! We are hiding out in our air conditioned hotel to escape the heat which threatens to reach 48 degrees this week in Amritsar. Amritsar is the spiritual centre for the Sikh religion and is 32kms/20 miles from the Indian Pakistan border. Amritsar has a very turbulent recent history featuring the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 where hundreds of protesters died at the hands of the British army. Amritsar also suffered many atrocities during the Par...

Dharamshala is the residence of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile. His Holiness decided to take a trip to the U.K while we were there. He was apparently gigging at the Royal Albert hall with Russell Brand. Dharamshala has a cricket stadium and recent matches have been televised across India showing the hills and snow-capped mountains behind. This has led to boomtime in the place - attracting more and more Indian tourists to Dharamsala and McLeo...

We had been warned that Manali was very busy and touristy, but nothing prepared us for the gridlocked traffic that chokes central Manali. Central Manali is most popular with the Indian Tourists coming up from the plains to escape the heat. Each family has its own or a hired 4WD so the town is in a state of constant gridlock, polluted with car fumes, beeping horns and it's very unpleasant to walk round. We had already decided to stay in Old Manali which was up the...

Decided not to wait for pass to open. We took the 280km 280Rp 10+ hour trip from Kaza to Peo. We set off 07:30 with the rare luxury of seats for the whole journey! It is a measure of the trip/driver when you count the numbers of sprayed vomit down the side of the bus! We were, as ever, the only Europeans on the trip. The rickety old 50s bus rattled through the road-cum-track shaking us to bits. We passed under the amazing Dhankar Monastery high in the Himalayan p...

It has been a while since we last blogged, we have been without mobile phone or internet/wi-fi. Please check out our recent stuff. The track from Kaza to Kibber went via Ki, some 25km. Seeing the Monastery lit in the evening sunset was stunning, seeing the Asian Fox glancing back at us, so near was incredible! After several photo opp. stops we saw Kibber in the distance in the evening blue sky. We crept up on the village (with 80-100 houses) and checked in at Nor...