A long time between posts! India finale....

Gawd it's been just on 2 months since my last post. Wow time does fly. Am now in Athens, Greece working as a skipper for a local charter co. If ever being at the right time in the right place it happened to me when i rocked into Athens fresh from the highs of Laddakh. Anyway will do a seperate post on Greece soon!

Leh the capital of Laddakh was an extremely captivating to say the least. I seriously couldn't leave and ended up splurging on a flight from Leh to Delhi only 3 days before i was due to fly out of india and 4 days before my visa expired! Apart from meeting the friendly and hospitable locals other highlights included:

1) witnessing the Hemis Tao festival. Where traditional buddhist evil-warding dances were performed. The festival ran for 2 days and featured hundreds of masked dances and tibetan horn and drum playing musicans. As much as it was traditional it was for the tourists with only a handful of locals present.

Staying in the monastery was also a great experience well except for a 2am emergency toilet dash that didn't quite have a happy ending and a certain person was running around looking for a tap (Laddakhi toilets are a whole in the ground sans water, even inside the houses) to wash himself...Enough said on that one! On a more positive note i made some 'monk' friends and got to share an insight into monastery life. It is quite common for at least one family member to become a monk and as it invovles young boys moving out of their homes and into the monastery. A few westeners expressed shock at the boarding school similiarites. However most monks i meet really enjoyed the experience and valued the education!!!...How different to the west...

2) So after serval days of quite meditation and contemplation in magical Hemis it was time for a adrenlian hit..It came in the form of hiring a 125cc Honda Hero and going for a little tour over a 5500m mountain pass! The highest motorable road in the world if u believe the signs and trust me it was damn high! There was snow at the top and the 'road' resembled a creek at times. The little hero performed well apart from a bit of 'missing' near the top as it suffered minor altitude sickness. Pleased to say the rider was unaffected...Think it would have been different if i'd chosen my preferred two wheel option - the bicycle. Zooming down the other side of the pass was magic - sweeping winding curves, no traffic and a stunning mountain backdrop. I took soo many photos. Then it was 3 days exploring the lush nubra valley before returing back over the pace. Though this time the wheather wasn't so kind - snow! By the time i got to the pass my fingers were frozen solid thanks to my woeful gloves. Luckily there was a canteen that i almost rode through the door of where i was able to seek much needed relief from a hot cup of maggi noodles - indian masla flavour of course!!

There is also some great meditation and yoga options in Leh that i checkecd out..Def one place to come back to...

My splurge on a flight was well worth it. Not only did it save 3 days of road travel (flight was only 1 hour!) but flying over the himalyas was beyond words...see pix...Everyone must do this once in their life....Also sat next to the director of conservation in Himalpradesh (an area where i had previously hiked in) so made for interesting converstation.

Delhi was a made 2 day rush but managed to see the national muesum, railyway museum, a couple of temples and made it out to Taj Mahal. I meet some spanish girls when booking my train ticket so had some great travel buddies for the day. I enjoyed the taj but it was so so hot (40+) and we made the mistake of going in the middle of the day thinking we could get back in later...wrong..Oh well still got some great pics but didn't get that sunset pic i'd been hankering for. On that night it was back to Delhi on the super fast train then out to the airport to catch the 2am flight to athens... I was so shattered i actually slept on the plane....

Already have plans to go back to India. It feels like i only scratched the surface of what is a truly amazing, out of this world country!