What seems like months ago now we said goodbye to our new friend Ayub and boarded the bus going from Srinigar to Jammu. This was by far the nicest bus journey yet but as we arrived in Jammu we realised that whereas Srinigar was all old world charm and relaxation Jammu was all traffic jams and cowshit. We made a split second decision (with grace and poise!!) that even though we'd already been on the road for 10 hours we'd jump on the local bus directly behind us which was leaving towards our next stop.
So, by the time we got off the bus in a dark deserted Dharamsala we'd been travelling for 17 hours, it was 01:30 in the morning and we had nowhere to stay.....Shit. This was a problem because a) we were both shattered b) it was cold c) we had no reservation d) all the guest houses were full. We spotted some people sleeping in an ATM and with no idea of what else to do Matt suggested we do the same. Charlotte calmly disagreed and like mature and reasonable adults we proceeded to discuss our predicament without raising our voices, pointing our fingers or swearing!!! So with divorce and tears on the horizon it felt like divine intervention when the driver of a parked car started flashing the headlights and offered to take us to the next town to find a guest house (god knows what woke him up!!).
This meant that the next morning we awoke to find ourselves in Mcleod Ganj, which is most famous for being the permanent residence of the Dalai Lama - but for us will always be remembered for the evening we hung out with a group of crazy Punjabi guys who insisted on buying us loads of booze and plying us with shishas in the loudest Indian disco in creation.
The next few days were spent wandering around and checking out the town, we tried to visit the Dalai Lama but he wasn't in so I'm afraid we don't have the answer to the meaning of life yet ! Other than that we generally passed our time watching England wallop India in the cricket (much to the consternation of some of the Indians we watched it with).
A couple of days later two of our friends from Leh got in touch to say that they would soon be arriving in a place not far from Mcleod called Bhagsu and that over the following days more and more people from Leh would be showing up. It was going to be a full on reunion with Sean, Johnathan, Flori, Petar & Jimmy. So we headed off to meet them and a short time later we took up residence on the balcony at Bholla guest house that was to be our home for the next 2 weeks.....
...What we didn't realise was that we would literally be on the balcony for 2 weeks as we had caught the tail end of the monsoon season in the "2nd wettest place in India" (we think first place must be the ocean!) which meant that it was liable to be p*ssing down with rain for at least 20 hours each day. Therefore we spent a lot of our time hanging out with our fellow "inmates" playing cards & chess and smoking and drinking on the balcony. Fortunately they were a great group so despite being trapped we still managed to enjoy ourselves.
On the occasions when the sea wasn't trying to reclaim the land by some form of airborne assault we went for walks to the surrounding villages & waterfalls where we noted that when the clouds cleared
It was actually a pretty beautiful place
Then once you got bored of the scenery you could always watch the dogs fight the monkeys and the cows for the best pickings out of the bin. Brilliant !
And of course when the sun was out it meant we could go to the open air pool....
..yes that's right they have an open air pool, God knows why ? but it was the setting for some of the funniest scenes we have witnessed so far because INDIANS CAN'T SWIM! Full grown men in turbans were screaming like girls as they dipped their toes in, fat men in rubber rings far too small for them jumping in the deep end and all of them displaying some of the finest "panicky-doggy-paddle-ohshitohshitI'mdrowning" swimming stroke you will ever see....and for some reason they all do it in knackered brown Y-fronts with saggy elastic !?
Our other main occupation was being asked to be in photo's by the aforementioned crazy Punjabis who were there en masse as part of an annual pilgrimage, honestly we couldn't walk 5 mins down the road without a baby being thrust into Charlottes arms or a random man putting his arms round both of us and smiling as a flash went off in our faces. This got to be so much of a problem for Charlotte that in the end she got our guest house owner to teach her how to say "I'm sorry but I have no time !" in Hindi......however most of the Punjabi papparazzi simply ignored this statement and railroaded us into pictures anyway.
Finally after 2 weeks of constant rain and despite Seans' assurances that "...good weather was coming.." (we know you just wanted us to stay and help you clean mountains you cheeky bugger !) we decided that enough was enough and we were going to get the hell out of there. So we started a mutiny, recruited Petar & Flori to our cause and booked ourselves a bus ticket out of rainsville heading for the (we hoped) sunnier climate of Rishikesh on the banks of the River Ganges......
So, by the time we got off the bus in a dark deserted Dharamsala we'd been travelling for 17 hours, it was 01:30 in the morning and we had nowhere to stay.....Shit. This was a problem because a) we were both shattered b) it was cold c) we had no reservation d) all the guest houses were full. We spotted some people sleeping in an ATM and with no idea of what else to do Matt suggested we do the same. Charlotte calmly disagreed and like mature and reasonable adults we proceeded to discuss our predicament without raising our voices, pointing our fingers or swearing!!! So with divorce and tears on the horizon it felt like divine intervention when the driver of a parked car started flashing the headlights and offered to take us to the next town to find a guest house (god knows what woke him up!!).
This meant that the next morning we awoke to find ourselves in Mcleod Ganj, which is most famous for being the permanent residence of the Dalai Lama - but for us will always be remembered for the evening we hung out with a group of crazy Punjabi guys who insisted on buying us loads of booze and plying us with shishas in the loudest Indian disco in creation.
The next few days were spent wandering around and checking out the town, we tried to visit the Dalai Lama but he wasn't in so I'm afraid we don't have the answer to the meaning of life yet ! Other than that we generally passed our time watching England wallop India in the cricket (much to the consternation of some of the Indians we watched it with).
A couple of days later two of our friends from Leh got in touch to say that they would soon be arriving in a place not far from Mcleod called Bhagsu and that over the following days more and more people from Leh would be showing up. It was going to be a full on reunion with Sean, Johnathan, Flori, Petar & Jimmy. So we headed off to meet them and a short time later we took up residence on the balcony at Bholla guest house that was to be our home for the next 2 weeks.....
...What we didn't realise was that we would literally be on the balcony for 2 weeks as we had caught the tail end of the monsoon season in the "2nd wettest place in India" (we think first place must be the ocean!) which meant that it was liable to be p*ssing down with rain for at least 20 hours each day. Therefore we spent a lot of our time hanging out with our fellow "inmates" playing cards & chess and smoking and drinking on the balcony. Fortunately they were a great group so despite being trapped we still managed to enjoy ourselves.
On the occasions when the sea wasn't trying to reclaim the land by some form of airborne assault we went for walks to the surrounding villages & waterfalls where we noted that when the clouds cleared
It was actually a pretty beautiful place
Then once you got bored of the scenery you could always watch the dogs fight the monkeys and the cows for the best pickings out of the bin. Brilliant !
And of course when the sun was out it meant we could go to the open air pool....
..yes that's right they have an open air pool, God knows why ? but it was the setting for some of the funniest scenes we have witnessed so far because INDIANS CAN'T SWIM! Full grown men in turbans were screaming like girls as they dipped their toes in, fat men in rubber rings far too small for them jumping in the deep end and all of them displaying some of the finest "panicky-doggy-paddle-ohshitohshitI'mdrowning" swimming stroke you will ever see....and for some reason they all do it in knackered brown Y-fronts with saggy elastic !?
Finally after 2 weeks of constant rain and despite Seans' assurances that "...good weather was coming.." (we know you just wanted us to stay and help you clean mountains you cheeky bugger !) we decided that enough was enough and we were going to get the hell out of there. So we started a mutiny, recruited Petar & Flori to our cause and booked ourselves a bus ticket out of rainsville heading for the (we hoped) sunnier climate of Rishikesh on the banks of the River Ganges......
