80th and final entry!! with pics!!

Written on Feb 1st, 2008...and 4th...

Well, it was my New Year resolution to write a final entry and post some of the many pics I took in India, so here we go!
Let's all thank levis for meaking them available (several months ago, it just took me a while to get to it)! I'm certainly thankful!

Let's start with the town of Shimla, in the north of India, where all middle-class/well off Indians go to escape the heat of their hometown (aka anywhere else in India). The town is perched up in the mountains, and is literally on a cliff.

hehehe gotta love India and its cows!

Can you see all those people? The streets were constantly that busy! Massive Indian tourist rush!

The town is also overrun by monkey, they are literally everywhere!

Getting there was a ride and a half, with many many many hours of train ride up the mountain with the old train engines which needed to be cooled off every 20 mins or so by stopping to hose the engine down with water(!)

Pretty picture for someone who used to work for a fire alarm co! hehehe

I met Moushy and a couple of other tourists and we went on the 10 days trip "up north" through the Spiti and Kinnaur Valleys.

On the first day, We came to a stop as a truck was halfway off a cliff on the only road to our first destination.

It had already been there for a couple of hours, so we turned around and went to another town (there's a lot more detail in the entry I wrote "back then").

Old man washing in the hot spring water, by the river
So anyway,

For this portion of the trip, we drove through the Himalayas, so I took a bazillion mountain pics. Here are a few

The first valley had some sort of vegetation, but the second valley was actual desert. This is where the power of irrigation is most striking, allowing little villages and a bit of life in such a harsh environment!

We also visited quite a few monasteries. The culture up there is a combination of Tibetan and Indian (mostly Tibetan actually).

This woman was swiping with a broom made of small tree branches...it was so cute I asked to take a pic, but she didn't let me walk back far enough to actually get the broom...

These people work a lot harder (physically at least) than we ever do:

Cute kids pics:

On the very last day of this 10 day trip, after all this time of mostly nothing and sooo few people, we get to this:

hehehe, Indians discovering snow!

and with them, massive traffic jam, noise, garbage and just people all around! It was a bit eerie, and quite funny!

Back to New Delhi, a bit of city life:

There are no camels in New Delhi, but I can't remember exactly where I took this pic...

Overcrowded bus:

To be fair, it's the only time I saw people on top of a bus, but ya know!

I then went to a town called Haridwar, a holy town where people go to bathe in the Ganga

This would not be complete without pics of the absolutely magnificent Taj Mahal:

Well, lets wrap up with a couple of funny spelling bits:

Darn Sand Witches... beware!

Obscure warning... hehehe

And to conclude, what better than a sunset over the Himalayas! :-)

On this note, I wish you all a wonderful wonderful year 2008!!!!!!!!