Alas, here I am, back from the Plains of Silence. Can't remember when I last wrote in here, but I updated the texts for all the pictures - so if you haven't gone through them yet, by all means do! ;o)

Life has been good the last week. Last weekend we all went trekking. We travelled from Palampur (where we live) to McLeod Ganj (where His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama lives) last Friday. We stayed the night at a grubby Tibetan place - several of the girls experienced rooms packed with insects, dirt, and overall bad hygiene. BUT! Pete and I shared a nice and clean room, and when I got up Saturday morning, I was more than ready to 'trek away'!

The trek was really quite good. I quickly found out that my trekking in USA all those years ago had left nothing but experience in my legs. We were all soon moaning and gasping, but af 4-5 hours we arrived at our destination; Triund Camp, 2800 meters above sea level.

Sadly, being in India makes good planning a rare commodity. We were told to get up at 7 o'clock Saturday morning, but we arrived at Triund at 1300 hours, and then had the rest of the day to sit around doing nothing. We could have gone to the snow line, but after too many hours of wasting our time, it ended up us not having time to do so anyway.

But! Hurray, there is always a solution. After a cozy if slightly crazy night of sitting around a camp fire singing corny pop songs and sleeping in a cottage (Simon E with 8 girls AND Charlie the Horny Dog), 6 of us got up early Sunday morning and trekked up to the snow line. I will soon be putting pictures of it on the website, and as you'll see, there wasn't actually any snow at the snow line! What a bummer, you might think (I know I did, when I found out!), but the trek up there was all worth it. ;o) I've now beaten my personal record of round about 2800 meters - the snow line was at 3200, so standing up there, I could think to myself: 'Simon E, you have never been above more people than you are right now!' ;o)

3200 meters is not that much. BUT! (again) I've got it all planned out. Next week (or actually on Friday), me and a group of volunteers from camp are going up to Leh. I think it's close to Kashmir (so cross your fingers, Mum, I might not be home a Xmas anyway! ;o)) and we'll be reaching altitudes of more than 5,200 meters!!! That, on the other hand, is a hell of a lot - it's the highest situated passable road in the World!

I've talked with a German girl, and when she went there, every single passenger in her bus vomited, when they crossed the 5,000 meters! It'll be great to try. ;o)

Okay, I'm off for a banana lassi with the girls at the Taj Restaurant. I hope to get some more guest book messages in here. It's great hearing from you. :-) If you want to send me private messages, there should be some way of mailing me in here... No matter what you find out, it'll be dearly appreciated! :0)

Your trekking fiend, enjoying India in every possible way ;o)

Simon E