Rain!!

 Yep, its raining.  Raining a lot.  Mcloud Ganj is perched up on one of the first ranges of the Himalaya and the monsoon seems to run smack bang into it.  Does it matter? No not really, we've escaped the heat, glimpsed some fantastic views, chilled out, wandered around and had a really great time.

 McCloud Ganj is also the official residence of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile, so has a massive Tibetan population and feel.  There are so many places to go and learn about the Tibetan plight which has been very interesting, most places show documentaries and information sessions for free and are very informative.  You can also spend as long as you want volunteering in the endless classrooms.  Its a great opportunity to have a chat with the locals and newly arrived people and learn about their culture.  If you make it to India, drop by, you'll love it.

 But, we've also been sucked into a time warp, we checked out of our hostel this morning and discovered we'd been here for 5 days, not 3!  It actually took us a bit of thinking to realise that they were right and we had no idea what day it was when we arrived!  I get the feeling that this is going to happen a lot more.  We've ventured out on some walks and managed to avoid an close encounters with monkeys so far.  We would like to have been a bit more intrepid, but the rain has made a few of the roads and tracks unstable, so our sense of adventure will have to wait a little longer!

Collecting grass for the cows

 Food is playing a pretty big part in our trip so far, and we soon found ourselves in a cooking class whipping out a few curries, very basic kitchen, but some great hosts got us in the swing of it!  And of course we got to savour our hard work at the end of it all!

Cooking up a storm, not sure what the OH&S people would think, yep this is a restaurant kitchen!

Even the monks get into the rain!

Soph and our new buddy Lindsay looking for monkeys

 We're just about to jump on a 'Deluxe Bus' and travel 10 hours to Manali.  No idea what "Deluxe" means in India it could just be that the door closes and there are seats for most people.  Bus travel seems a bit crazy here, we traveled about 7 or 8 hours to get here and covered 208kms!!  Plus were 2 hours late.  10 hours might just turn into a lot more, but its all part of the journey, and everyone here seems to be on a journey, or maybe that's just because the Dalai Lama is in town!!  Wish us luck, and hopefully there will be a dryer post coming soon!

Mcloud Ganj