When we got here, we got in touch with Shyamolie’s grandmother (my friend Sara who I am traveling with has a friend from college name Shyamolie) who works up here in the government. She had her driver come and pick us up and we went to here house which is about 30 min from the train station. She has been so wonderful to us! She has put us up in her beautiful house, with huge bedrooms, bathrooms, and sitting rooms for each of us! She had to leave on business unfortunately, but has left us with our own driver and cook for 3 days! We feel so pampered here….it’s not like any of the traveling we have done so far! Yesterday we saw all the views and sights with our driver Vikas. We saw the Viceral lodge, where the British rule used to live when they were here…such an amazingly beautiful building on the top of a hill with amazing gardens all around. We also drove to many view spots around the area and went to the State museum. Last night we went out with Vikas and 2 of his friends for dinner, drinks, and cards. It was great fun!
Aftwer that we just shopped in the mall and going to Christ Church, which is the oldest Christian church in India, with old stained glass windows, meant to be very beautiful.


After Shimla we went to Manali which is a cute hippie town loaded with Israelis. We spent three nights in Manali at a really nice hotel – for free!!!!! The hotel is owned by one of the guys we went out to dinner with (friend of Vikas) and we were pampered the whole time :O) basically everything was free food, room service, occasionally a car. We even had this really nice guy who manages the hotel help us plan out every second of every day (P.S. we called him the wrong name the whole time Rachul? Ratul? To whom it may concern, I appoligize for calling you the wrong name. Thank you for all of your help. Love, Jessica and Sara).
The first day ion Manali we went to Vashisht which has some hot springs and cute shops and restaurants. We spent that afternoon lounging at a little restaurant and walking around Manali- can you say shopping!!! For dinner we met up with an English couple we met named Emily and Danny ( we met them on our 10 hour nauseating bus ride to Manali) at our hotel and then headed off to a very western restaurant named Johnson’s where we met some a group of people who had just completed the Rickshaw run. Rickshaw run = this organization gives you a rickshaw and your drive it from Calcutta to Manali it takes 10- 15 days. We had a great time with that crew playing cards and chatting about life.

The following day we went to Naggar with our English couple friends. Naggar is the home of a famous Russian painter Roerick. The views from his home were lovely and it was nice to see his art work but the visit was a bit anti climactic. We also went to a “castle” aka large house made of stones with wood support beams. Upon returning to Manali we took a nap (both of us have been pooped and getting headaches from the altitude- not fun). Later that night we met up with a young India man named Gino (or something like that) and he taught us how to play the Tabla- an India drum. I got some excellent video footage of the event and Sara and I will be performing at Madison square garden on August 1, 2007 (tickets available at ticket master). For dinner we returned to Johnson’s for a fabulous meal and by fabulous I mean I was able to eat lettuce that would not make me ill. Once again we met up with the Rickshaw Run guys and had a peachy time.

The next morning we met up with two of the Rickshaw people- two guys from England Chris and Dave to go rock climbing. After waiting for an hour and after three cups of tea the car drove us to the rock climbing location which actually ended up being a big rock from which we would descend and not climb. We were a bit annoyed but bargained with the instructor down to a price which made us happy enough to change our plans. So, I repelled. It took approximately 3 minutes but was still quite fun. You should all be happy to know that I decided not to paraglide off of the Himalayas and will save that adventure for a country where they will accept my health insurance. We spent that afternoon in old Manali eating pizza and shopping like animals. Unfortunately we discovered the joys of old Manali a little too late because as we left the area we discussed that we could definitely have stayed there for a few more days.

Around 5:30 we boarded a sleeper bus to Dharamasala along with the manager of the hotel and his family. A sleeper bus has beds where luggage would be stored- the beds are quite roomy and you can even sit up. Sara and I shared a bed and had to brace out selves from rolling off the 10 foot drop or out the window.
We arrived in Dharamasala at 2:30 am where we were met by a car set up by our buds in the India government. After an hour of miscommunication we finally arrived at our lovely guest house and went to sleep. zzzzzzzzzzz

P.S. A Buddhist monk just walked into the internet cafe