Four Heavenly Weeks in the Himalayas

It has been six weeks since I posted to the blog! For 10 days I was writing an article and finishing my duties at JNU. For 5 days I was travelling to Pakistan and back. Then for four heavenly weeks, we travelled in the state of Himachal Pradesh, the location of India's Himalayas.

I will write about Pakistan separately--it was a trip full of insights, challenges, and pleasures.

But for now, my mind is on the natural beauty of the Himalaya region. At times we would wake up in the morning, look out the window, and have to think hard to remember if we were in the Smokies, the Rockies, Norway, or the Badlands! Himachal is covered with beautiful evergreen forests, snow-covered peaks over 14,000 feet, bleak, rocky, barren river valleys, a the most winding roads you can imagine.

We travelled only every third of fourth day out of our 27 days on the trip. Our favorite stops were in Kalpa, a lovely village looking up at snowy Kinner Kailash; Tabo, site of a 1000 year old Buddhist temple complex and delicious Tibetan bread; Keh Monastery, reached by hiking down a sheer rock face; Gushaini, on the roaring Tirthan River, and Taragarh Palace, a secluded heritage palace-turned-hotel. As you can tell, almost everything on the trip was "our favorite."

We took a short white-water rafting trip and where one really big wave pushed both Adelaide and Owen into the icy river waters. We ate handfuls of cherries straight off the tree; we built a fire in the fireplace and ate dinner nestled next to it. We found glow-worms luminescing in the dark; we saw at leat 15 species of beautiful Himalayan birds including the Paradise flycatcher, Indian hornbill, red minivet, green bee eater, and more. I'll have to let the pictures do the talking now.