Well, after 30 hours of travel, we made it to Dharamsala from Leh. 13 hours on a jeep to Srinigar, then a 12 hour bus ride to Jammu, before a 2nd jeep ride to Dharamsala which took around 5 hours. Good times, but at least we made it, albeit exhausted and in a bit of pain!
Our time in Leh was wonderful, though Reannon was struck by a bit of altitude sickness. The 2 rupee doctor's visit proved very helpful, she got some effective medicine for around $2, and laid low until our departure. We also got to see our collegiate friends Will & Jeanne, which was crazy, and very fun, though the two meals together was definitely not enough time! They are currently out in the mountains traveling with some nomads, shooting footage for a multimedia documentary - definitely some cool stuff!
We are working on getting all the photos we have taken uploaded, currently only on Shimla, but hopefully the photo site will be fully updated by tomorrow. We are going to start some Tibetan cooking classes tomorrow, a total of three: breads, soups, & momos, which will be fun, but other that that relaxing is our main priority!
Yep, yep, yep....
Oh, Srinigar, in Kashmir, was an interesting experience, we only went through in transit, but Dal Lake and the houseboat scene looked very nice - if you can overlook the immense military presence. Throughout the entire city there was a machine-gun armed guard posted every 10 meters or so, with plenty of additional fortifications, like gun-posts, as well as armed vehicles with machine-guns posted on top. It looks like, and essentially is, an occupied city. It felt like it would be hard, not to mention painfully ironic, to truly relax in such a place. Even if we weren't on our tight time schedule we probably would not have stayed, though it was definitely a beautiful location, too bad India and Pakistan both are willing to fight for it. We think Kashmir should be independent, and Ladakh separately as well, which seems the only reasonable and fair conclusion. Hopefully important global readers will read our blog, and contact us, so we can broker these peace deals, ideally in the same weekend when we iron out the China/Tibet deal! Haha... funny but oh so sad.
Dharamsala is even more rainy than when we were here last time, but compared to the dryness of Leh it is a welcome change. Good thing we can "take it easy" in any weather. We are also focusing on our Korean job search, since we seriously need a job, so we are emailing recruiters, friends in Korea, etc. So if you have a hot job tip for Pusan, please send it to us!
Peace and much love,
Anderson & Liz