going south

leh -->spangmik -->leh -->rishikesh

i think i spent too long in ladakh. it was beautiful, as i remembered it to be, but unfortunately much more spoiled than last time. it's sad in places like that, where you can actually see them disintegrating in front of you. delhi is crappy, but it's not sad because it's so crappy that it seems right for it to be that way. one plastic coca-cola bottle is much more upsetting in the wild remoteness of ladakh than a pile of garbage is in pahar ganj. i guess it's all relative. o the wonders of development! but enough complaints... it was a peaceful time, as long as i sat in the huge garden of my far-off guesthouse eating homemade apricot jam and forgetting about the bands of trekkers, travellers and local rubbish strewers. garbage really, really sucks.

then, maybe because i'd been lazy in leh for too long and my mind won't allow such relaxation, i started heading south on the same road i came up on. i left my guesthouse at 9 pm, slept in some random woman's livingroom for a few hours and got up at 3 for my bus. the stars were so bright that night i left.

in the 2 weeks it has been since i headed north there was an explosion of plantlife. from the tanglangla pass onwards the former moonscape was literally carpetted in miniature wildflowers. it seemed like a miracle, and it is, and it's also just what happens. there was one meadow that can only be described as "purple and sheepy". i saw 5 himalayan marmots standing on their back feet all in a row. another highlight was the sighting of a prehistoric condor. 16 hours later i was in keylong. dinner, a little sleep, then up again at 3 and on the road.

things became incredibly green and lush as i continued my descent. it was amazing to see the change from brown, barren, buddhist ladakh into the fecund, muddy, crazy, hindoo himachal. ate a lot of crappy roadside food. looked after a little fluffy black puppy who someone was taking on the bus, tied up under one of the seats. watched the apple orchards and fields of ganja blur on past me. arrived in chandigarh at 9:30, an hour break for dinner and off we go.

a strange, hallucinatory night drifting in and out of dreams. lightning. rain so strong we had to stop so i could get my backpack off the roof. a very heated argument between some men who got on... finally we arrived in haridwar at 6 in the morning. i walked with my soggy bag to the ganga.

after an hour of walking in the rain and early morning muck, it became apparent that all of haridwar was full of hindoo tourists. so i went back to the bus stand, a little over an hour ride to rishikesh, and here i lay.

it was one of those stupid things i do sometimes, i real breaking journey for no reason. but in the end it didn't feel so bad. i laughed a lot and i think the bus conductor really thought i was nuts. my body still hasn't recovered but i'm happy somehow. happy to be back in the "real" india with it's horns and squalor and mess. happy to have a view of the ganga from my room. happy and sad because i know i'm leaving it all very very soon.