Digitally Exploring the world

Wandering around the himalayan ranges in Sept 2011 ..  More here

Back from the high mountains and just trying to get back to the workings of the modern world . Phone , Internet , TV and cacophony all around . A few weeks back I was wondering where to head out for a couple of weeks and as luck would have it came across a volunteering activity from Spiti EchoSphere. Just the perfect job I thought to do some work and also spend sometime around the mountains. I had fond memories of backpacking across this area few years back and lots of adventures then and my spirits were high again. So with my leave of absence of granted and air tickets booked I headed to New Delhi when the entire nation was debating the Lok Pal bill and when Anna Hazare would break his fast. With a fleeting stop at my uncles place for lunch, I took the night bus to Manali . Reached Manali early next morning thanks to the driver thinking he was navigating an airplane and checked into a hotel. Manali had changed quite a bit since my last visit (resembled the mess just like in most...

Thought of putting all the links as an offshoot from the main topic.. I spent two wonderful weeks in some of the remotest villages in our country , also trying to find some answers to the unanswered questions that bother me. Found a few answers in the spiritual discussions i had along the way,had some adventures, met some veteran travelers, made some friends for life, encountered what is really India in the simple and ever cheerful villagers and got back to this busy modern ever connected world and still have lots of unanswered questions ?? Hope to see of your comments on them :) Posts: On the Buddha Trail (1) ::::::Tabo On the Buddha Trail (2) ::::::Kibber On the Buddha Trail (3) ::::::Nako On the Buddha Trail (4) ::::::MacLeodGanj Pics from this trip: Manali-Kaza Tabo Kibber Nako MacLeodGanj

Here's a 3rd one, after the first two : On the Buddha Trail (1) ::::::Tabo On the Buddha Trail (2) ::::::Kibber The bus reached Kaza in an hour's time from Kibber, and was heading to Nako and we decided to further our travels. However, the bus had trouble with its gearbox and we had wait for sometime while it got fixed. The only thought I had at the moment was to thank someone, for having reached Kaza in one piece. Savoured hot cups of chai and glucose biscuits as we waited for the bus to get fixed but after 2 hours both the driver and mechanic decided that they couldn't do a quick fix and all of us had to transfer to another bus. The journey from Kaza to Nako takes about 4hours or so and passes through some really beautiful sceneries of rugged mountains with patches of green in between and glimpses of first snow at a distance. The bus also stops at the Tabo busstop on the way. Both (Gottfried and me) were the only tourists from Kaza but some Swiss girls got up at Tabo and...

Here's the 2nd post after the one on Tabo. Finally, I reached Kaza around noon after 2 days of trying to leave Tabo and being stranded because of no bus in sight, heavy rains,bad roads etc. I was really hungry and found a small shop near the bus station where i had a wonderful meal of steaming hot mutton curry and rice. A meal to remember!! With a happy stomach I tried asking around for the next possible bus to Kibber but was told that since no buses had come from the other side for 2 days, no buses were available for Kibber that day. Asked around for Taxi but there was no share ones available and hiring just a jeep for self would work out to be too expensive for just an hour's ride. Was cursing myself for not having a light backpack, else I could have walked the 20 odd kms to Kibber. But I didn't have to hurry, I had all the time, I remembered something i had read someplace earlier that goes something like this " Life, takes on a neat simplicity too. Time ceases to h...

My first post on my recent Buddhist Trail. I headed to Delhi from Bangalore on a beautiful Saturday morning with this map and the return tickets after 2 weeks and no plans !! Once at Delhi, headed to Janpath for the bus to Manali. While waiting for the bus I met Christine, an elderly French lady , an author of 15books, a PhD in psycho-ethnology( don't ask me what one really researches for that!!) . She has been a world traveller and even spent 3 years in early 1970s as a 20 year old hitchhiking around India . We had an interesting conversation while seated in the heat of Delhi (39 degrees Celsius, phew) about society, people, freedom ,women's place in the society, human mind and genetics . In the midst of our talk she said she felt i would write a book very soon :) not sure why she thought that way. Only time well tell if her premonition worked out !. We parted ways as our buses arrived. I was the odd one out in the Volvo bus I had boarded for Manali, the rest of the passenger...