Kinnaur

I'm close to the top of the Kinnaur Valley and I've loved every bit of it as I've climbed up.

After leaving Shimla I headed to Sarahan, a little village on the side of a mountain. I met several other tourists there and much to my dismay I found out that everyone had the same itinerary planned as I did (albeit quicker with Kashmir etc. tacked on the end). I compensated by taking a day walk out to remote villages where I helped an old lady herd cows, carried a drunken grandad up his steps and sat for an hour talking to an old apple grower about the shock of his first trip to Delhi as a 19 year old.

Wanting to be a little different, I changed my planned route and headed off to a little village in a remote valley and stayed in the family home of someone I met on the bus. I learnt about edible forest fruits, trekked up to an alpine meadow,


evaluated 'Hips Don't Lie' impressions on a glacier (Vengaboys are out and Shakira is in!),


gained a following of loyal dogs,


drank the local apricot brew, learnt to play carrom and chased cows out of apple orchards.

I'm now in Kalpa, a village on a hillside directly opposite towering snow-capped peaks which are over 6,000m.


I've met some much more interesting and positive tourists here and now have a little Italian/Spanish/German possee to travel up into the dry Spiti Valley with. I thought that I wanted to get away from tourists but spending time with people who really appreciate this place is a lot of fun. Jason, I have discovered your German double, he's photograpy, football and Formula One crazy!

And there is so much to appreciate. It's stunningly beautiful, there is fruit growing everywhere and I've met so many lovely people. Tailors who adamantly refuse to take money for fixing my clothes(!), villagers who go to the trouble of preparing rice for me instead of bread, locals who go out of their way to show me how to get somewhere - I've been really amazed.

The area is also fascinating because of the amount of change going on. There are a lot of hydroelectric projects and all the labour (hydroelectric, farming, construction) is done by migrants from Nepal and poorer parts of northern India.


My favourite uni essay was on internal migration in India and I've spend hours listening to people's fasinating life stories.

I head off into the 'Inner Line' are tomorrow, near the Tibetan border (they refrain from calling it the Chinese border here, very fascinating!). From there I'm going to explore the high altitude desert valley and then come back through the Kinnaur Valley, stopping again at places I've liked most.

I should be online again in about a week :)

Monkeytown

I'm in Shimla, the old summer capital of the Raj, and loving it.


The net cafe shuts in fifteen minutes so here is a brief rundown of stuff so far:

Bad times

- Sitting between a guy who stank of urine and another with an intruding elbow on the plane. And right behind a screeching baby. Trifecta!
- Oh, and struggling to lower the faulty footrest and then getting racially insulted in Hindi by the (British Indian) girl in front. I resisted the temptation to say anything.
- A ten hour bus ride in a semi-concious state after not getting any sleep on the plane. Falling asleep and banging my head on the seat in front!

Good times

- Meeting a girl on the bust who used to live just off Seven Dials, literally metres from our place! I never expected to have an in-depth discussion of the relative advantages of my local Tesco, Sainsburys and Waitrose in India!
- Drama at Jakhu Mandir, the monkey temple. As you approach you pass stalls hiring monkey whacking sticks, then a popcorn vendor yelling out 'monkey fruit le lo' who was claiming that food would give you immunity against attack (yeah, right!). Then seeing a monkey jumping on a tough, moustached man (in possession of 'monkey fruit' who started screaming 'save me, save me!'. Note the monkey scarer in the photo below:


- Touring the Vice-Regal Lodge and seeing the table where Mountbatten etc. sat to arrange partition. Incredible! And then having the tour guide offer English translation and hearing the sharp intake of breath (by the group of thirty) when I told her I already understood. Showing off can be so much fun!


Shimla is an incredibly gorgeous place and packed with local tourists. That makes for a lot of fun people watching (esp when monkeys are involved) but I'm heading off tomorrow morning for smaller towns higher in the Himalaya. I think there should be net access in a couple of places so I'm hoping to post again soon. And I'll add photos when I get home.

Things I'll miss

I felt a little bit sad the other day when I realised that I was on my last bike ride to work for more than a month. I'm still loving riding - I get fit, I save money and I get to see what is going on in London.

I cycled down The Mall on the day before the Tour de France and was so tempted to ignore the security guards and do my own little race to the finish line. Maybe not a good idea with all the terrorism hoohah.


The next day, we were walking through Hyde Park and chanced on the tail end of the race. HN got an impressive picture of the last cyclist. I got this picture of super keen spectators.


But there's one thing I will miss more than riding. Mogfa is housesitting while I'm away and she's coming over tonight for an induction. It will mostly focus on plant care. She's feeling a bit of pressure but the weather can only improve so I'm sure they will thrive.

Visa

It's only a week until I fly to India and I went to get a visa on Tuesday. The Indian consulate in London is almost as fun as the one I've applied at before in Hong Kong, where the queue goes out the front door and into the lift lobby.

From what I've heard, Indian consulates all over the world are the same. They function as a kind of disclaimer, warning of the chaos that will ensue when you enter the country.

On the advice of several blogs (thanks Google), I arrived at the consulate half an hour before the opening time. The queue snaked and I only caught a bit of it below. Still, I only waited an hour before getting served.


Checking out the other people in the queue was quite entertaining. There were a lot of young people about to head off on gap years and I couldn't believe how many of them were there with parents.

Let go! If they're going to overseas alone they need to be able to handle the consulate by themselves!

A couple of gap year girls were wearing particularly skimpy clothing and attracted a lot of attention. People were obviously wondering if they were going to modify their attire while on holiday.

I was on best behaviour when I handed in my documents because the lady in front of me had got yelled at for attaching photos in the wrong place. I felt so sorry for her. She was making applications for her whole family and had arranged everything particularly neatly.

I got away unscathed. While I waited for the visa to be processed, I went for a walk across Waterloo Bridge and along the South Bank.

I stopped for a minute, trying to figure out how someone got the t-shirt on this Anthony Gormley sculpture (arms first and then the head).


And went back to pick up my passport and new visa. Yay!

End of term

It's almost the end of term and one of my jobs is very busy. The other is anything but.

Most of my students at the college have finished their courses already and stopped coming in. I've requested a decrease in working hours for the next two weeks. My colleagues think I'm crazy for giving up the chance to be paid for doing nothing. I can't think of anything worse!

Things there really are quiet. When I arrived last Wednesday, the notices on the staff intranet were:

'Would anybody be interested in giving a good home to some baby stick insects?

Stick insects are really easy to look after - they eat bramble and privet. They are completely harmless and only move slowly so they can be handled. They make an ideal first pet!

If you are interested, please ring me on 221.'

'I have a small fish tank (cylinder shaped) to give away. It's brand new with a blue top and base, ideal for a small goldfish. Our fish really wasn't happy in it as he is quite a chunky guy! If anyone can use the tank please let me know and I will bring it in, I'm in L6 ext 221.'

'Did anyone record Cold Blood on TV last night? This is a new series and I missed it. Please let me know. Thanks.'