Snow

Leh in the Snow

One night it snowed heavily, and the next morning everything was covered - although it burned off before we had change to build a snowman.

A Walk in the Country.

Country Stroll

The other weekend we went for a walk in the countryside uphill from our guesthouse. It's still winter here, and although there's nothing much growing at the moment, it's quite stunning.

Fluffy Animals

Fluffy Ladakhi Animals

All the animals in Leh are a little bit hairier than their cousins on the plains. The cows are small and fluffy; there's domesticated yaks and imposing dzo (a yak-cow cross) with thick tangled coats; and small shaggy donkeys. Event the cats and dogs are hirsute.

All the animals here seem much better cared for and fed than elsewhere in India - although there's very little green stuff to eat at the moment there's large haystacks on top of each house.


I'd really like to see wild yak - apparently they can weigh over a ton and roam in herds higher up the mountains.

Highest Cricket Match in the World?

Last weekend we saw some of the All-Ladakh Twenty-20 cricket competition. This took place on Leh's polo ground, and drew a large crowd. The standard wasn't very high, but there was plenty of action - and this has to be the most magnificent backdrop for a game of cricket.

My hovercraft is full of eels

The Ladakhi language is related to Tibetan. I've found a wonderful phrasebook - and with this I'm sure my Ladakhi will soon by as polished as my Hindi.

As well as giving useful words like "hello", "goodbye", "I'm cold", "turnip", this book has all those handy phrases that every traveller needs:

I will open a bakery shop	ng-a i-ka be-ka-ri ha-Ti-zyik pe-yin-rak
This is a man	i-bo mi yin
Because more than the capacity of a bus people sit in therefore it smells	mi-thep-tang-mang-po gyang-ches-pe Ti-ma tong-nga-rak
Please bring two plates of rice, three naan, one chicken-curry, one meat-curry, one egg-curry with potatoes, one dry cauliflower vegetable.	Das pa-leT-nyis, nan-sum, chi-kan ka-ri-chik, she-spaks chik, a lu-nang-nyam-po-Thul-spaks chik, phul-go-bi spaks-chhu-met-kan-zyik khyong-nga-dzat
There is a stone under my foot	nge skang-pe yog-pa rdwa-zyik duk
Do you have a good book to learn Ladakhi?	la-daks-si skat lhap-ches-la pe-chha-chik yod-da?
If it is really good I'll buy some more copies of the book	kal-Sit ma-gyal-la yod-na ki-tap kha-chik yang nyo-yin-le

"Guide to learn ladakhi language" by Sanyukta Koshal, available in all good bookshops.

Leh

We've moved on again - we've left the plains behind and are now in Leh, the capital of Ladakh. It's very very different up here, and possibly one of the nicest places we've visited.

Ladakh is in the far north of India, beyond the himalayas, on the borders of Tibet and Pakistan. Culturally and geographically a part of Tibet, it's only through an accident of history that Ladakh is Indian, rather than occupied by China.

When we left Delhi it was approaching 40C, but it's still winter here. It snows occasionally, there's no leaves on the trees, it's cold at night, and we're surrounded by snowy peaks. It's very clear however, so it can get quite hot in the daytime. Spring is due in a few weeks time, hopefully.

Ladakh is a high, dry, cold desert with hard winters - but the landscape here is strangely beautiful, very sandy, stunning mountains, solid whitewashed houses and smallholdings with lots of very fluffy animals. It's amazing that people manage to make a comfortable living in such a bleak place.

There's only two roads that lead out of Ladakh - both high mountain passes that are blocked apart from June - October. For the rest of the year, the only way in or out is by flying. This means that there's not the usual goods that you can buy elsewhere in India - the people have always been more self-sufficient (and Carrie can't find a diet coke - in fact any fizzy drink - anywhere - she's started drinking TEA!!).

The people here are a mixture of Ladakhis, Tibetan refugees, Kashmiris, and Indian soldiers (who look very out of place - being posted up here can't be very popular).

Ladakhi people are very friendly & welcoming. They're more easy-going and honest than most people in India. There must be something in that buddhism malarky.

It's very high here - Leh is 3500m above sea level (2 miles up). Carrie & I had rotten altitude sickness for the first few days - we flew up from Delhi, which is practically at sea level. We were well looked after by the guesthouse owners - Tsering and Dolkar - who practically confined us to our beds for the first few days. We're much better now - and can yomp up gompas with the best of them.

We're about the only guests staying at the guesthouse at the moment, and have the best room in the house - there's a panoramic view of snowy himalayas from our bed. We get home-baked ladakhi bread and apricot jam for brekkie, and veg-dhal-rice for dinner.

There's a few more eating options in Leh town - a singaporean cake and coffee place, a few tandoori restaurants and lots of tibetan kitchens. In the tourist season (when the mountain passes open) there's a lot more going on here - at the moment it's quiet, and many things are closed for the winter. But this is nice - it's peaceful, we've got the place almost to ourselves, and Carrie is managing to get her studying done.

Leh

Trekking Weekend

On the weekend of the recent Holi festival we decided to escape the city. We did a 3-day village trek in the himalayan foothills near Almora. We spent the most of the time lost, but had a great, knackering, time. Photos below:

Almora Trek

Nainital

Nainital is India's answer to the lake district.

It's another town founded by homesick brits of the empire - it clings to the steep sides of an alpine valley with a lake on the top of a mountain. It's inaccessible, cooler and cleaner than the plains, and from the town you can't see outside the valley - so there's no unpleasant reminder that you're in India. There's a lot of old architecture left: boarding houses, churches bungalows and boating clubs. They must have thought it was perfect.

Apparently my grandfather was stationed here during the war. I hope he was here for some time - I'd have thought that this was the most pleasant place possible to be stuck.

The town is very popular with Indian tourists now, who enjoy promenading along the mall around the lake; eating well in the good restaurants and tearooms; having a few drinks; and boating on the lake.

Funnily enough, that's what we did too. Most tourists hire a boatman to take them out for a row on the lake. But not us. We chose a pedalo instead, and pootled around the lake for an hour in a giant plastic swan.

Nainital

Living in Suburbia

There's some odd little things we noticed while living in the enclave in Dehradun.

It's surprising how many people come and go to your house - the gardeners, cleaners, laundry wallah and others. There's an awful amount of to-ing and fro-ing - the trust and lawfulness is quite surprising, given the huge difference in wealth between the householders and the staff.

You also get all the regular door-to-door salesmen - vegetables (on a hand-cart), milk (motorcycle with 4 milkchurns strapped to it), and encyclopedia.

The enclave has a night-watchman. The poor guy has to walk his beat all night, continuously blowing a whistle and banging a stick on gates. It's a melancholy sound, but I suppose it's good to let burglars know that he's on the way. Wouldn't want to surprise anyone, after all.

Residents like to have vainglorious name-plaques in front of their house, announcing their name, rank, qualifications and achievements:

Weekends in Delhi.

Delhi is 5 hours on train from Dehradun. That's positively local by India standards. We've spent two weekends in Delhi so far.

The first time was for Carrie's birthday, and she wanted to visit 'Delhi Fashion Week'. Apparently it was advertised in 'Indian Cosmo' and 'Indian Elle', but when we got there we found it wasn't open to the public - only to buyers and media. We tried sneaking in anyhow - we managed to get past the first security guard by mumbling something and pointing inside. Then we came to a receptionist.

Noel	Can we go in?
Receptionist	You need a pass to get in. Where are you from?
Noel	England
Receptionist	No, I mean which company?
Noel	Well, we represent three independent boutiques in the south of England. You won't have heard of them...
Carrie	<Gasp>
Receptionist	Wait a minute, I'll see what I can do.

Then we were handed passes and ushered into the auditorium. There's a catwalk right down the middle with models tottering along on it, we're in the banks of seating with other buyers, across on the other side are all the media types, and just to the left of us, at the end of the catwalk is a huge bank of press photographers snapping away. Blimey!

We saw three shows back-to-back. Carrie really enjoyed it - and I tried to look knowledgable and fiddled with my phone in what I hoped was a business-like way. Looking around there was possibly three or four other tourists who had blagged it, but most were buyers from companies. As well as the catwalk, the audience was worth watching - harrased looking indian journalists; Delhi's answer to Ab-Fab; women done-up-to-the-eyebrows; and some who looked quite a state. I didn't dare take any photos - I thought we'd be slung out.

After the show was over we wandered around the designer's stands. They were mostly interested in selling bulk orders, although some bits were for sale, these were samples, or in size 0. Carrie had a good rummage anyhow.

There's some photos of Delhi below.

Delhi

Mussoorie

Mussoorie is hill station just outside Dehradun. The drive up is amazing - it's only an hour, but you gain 1300m, the views are incredible, and the hairpins on the road terrifying. Still, our taxi-driver is quite old, so he must be doing something right, and he does manage to dodge all the trucks and jeeps whizzing down in the other direction.

It was built by brits trying to escape the indian heat. And it's an wonderfully daft place to build a large town - along a high ridge, hardly accessible even now. There's one main road - 'The Mall' - that runs all along the ridge, and the town clings onto slopes to each side of it. I've really not been anywhere like this before, but it's all strangely familiar - the cast-iron lamp-posts and ballustrades, wooden houses - it's an english spa town in the himalayan foothills.

It's bright, sunny and the air is much cleaner and colder up here than in Dehradun. In fact, you can see the haze of pollution in the valley below. Looking the other way, north, you can make out snowy peaks on the horizon, while the mountain sides are terraced and wooded.

The town is now popular with Indian tourists, and parts of the main street are over-developed like many other places in the country. However, it's not hard to leave this all behind. There's various walks you can take off into sleepy suburbs, where there's tons of grand old bungalows and cottages, and where the people who live there, while Indian, are somehow quite british too.

We'd heard about a shop at the far end of Mussoorie (up on top of a steep hill, of course) that makes cheddar cheese, and we made a pilgrimage to it. We stocked up on cheese, chutney and home-made plum jam. It's funny the things you crave after 6 months in India - we had cheese-on-toast for most of the next week.

Mussoorie