Now here, soon there

After a couple days of rest in Bhagsu, just above Dharamsala it was time ot move to Manali, the setting off point for Leh, a desert moonscape 6000m high...

Myself and Ilan and Noam, an Israeli couple from the last hike bought tickets on a minibus to ride in comfort and style 10 hours through thenight to Manali.  I think I was th eonly one riding in comfort and style though...While all of our seats reclined I was in themiddlein front and got to stretch my legsout betweenthe driver and co pilot seat.  Also I didn't have anyone puking next to me the entire journey.  The bus was driving a little faster than one would think it could and taking turns like one of those motor cycle racers thjat drops his knee to the gournd...Being in front I was cool but a poor gilr in the back was constantly decorating theoutside of the vehicle with her dinner and whatever else her body could eject.  As it was a semi private bus we figured we could ask the driver to take it easy, and we were figuring correctly.  We were able to ask..he jsut didn't want top listen, or not for free.  He said for 1000 rupees he would slow down.... 

When we arrived there were 2 options for staying, each on the opposite side of the valley and each a tuk tuk ride away.... I wanted to go where my friend was staying and as soon as my Israeli friends heard there were more Israelis in the other place they wanted to head there to get into the Israeli connections...  I thought this was a little funny, but it turned out to be the excat connection we needed.  That same mornign they found out where to rent horses from a group of Israelis ready to embark on a 25 day trek....

We had the name 'mule union' and the next mornig setout to find them.  One would think this would be ab easy task in a 2 steet town.... It took Ilan and I 2 hours to track them down.  First no one had heard of them and thought we were nuts...then we were told they are near the telephone exchange.  So we tracked down the telephone exchange and started asking around, and no one had heard of the place...Then we found a cmaping store that knew it existed but not where and sent us to the tourist office.  We went to the building (hut) marked tourist office in big letters and they turned out to not be the tourist office,just a taxi stand.  They sent us to the real tourist office, written in even bigger letters.  They turned out ot be the bus reservation office, and sent us around the corner to the tourist office.  Third time was a charm, we entered the cleanest building north of Delhi, galss doors, wood panels, open space and were guided perfectly to the Horse man union! 

We climbed one of the narrowest staircases in existence and met the horsemen! They are 10 men in a tiny room all smoking under a no smoking sign... We planned a 5 day trip over a beautiful pass and just had to confirm a day later...
The day we went to confirm the horseman told us we couldn't do the trip as there was too much snow on the pass for the horses....  So we had to change our plans and he recommended a 10 day trip for us...The funny thing is I had met a guy the day before who went over the pass and said there is 10 feet of snow, no way horses can do it...I said he was wrong...the horse man told us no problem.,..so the next day I had to go tell him he was right...

So we planned our 10 day trip, from Darcha to Padum....feel free to google it, up the Zanskar valley...or you can wait 14 days for pics:)

Of course planning for the first trip we were told horses can carry 40 kilos.  We double and triple checked this.  Then on booking for the 10 day trip the man tells us horses carry 40kilos on flat ground but less going up hill....So it looks like we will be pack horses for at least the hardest part of our trip! 
Shopping for dry goods was a blast, we also got a pressure cooker....flour for chapatis....a hardcore Indian stove and lots of yummies... tomorrow we head to Darcha, 7hours bus to Keylong, 2 more to Darcha, and Wednesday morning if all goes well we set off with our guide who started walking to Darcha with the horses on Sunday....

Thats all for now!
Here is a quote:  You can't control what happens but you can control your reactions to it