Namaste from Manali! You might ask yourself, why? Why would Allison go back to the land of lost-and-found torment? You know, the place she left only a week ago on a nightmare 20-hour Jeep ride? Wasn't she supposed to go to Srinagar next? Well my friends, plans change, and once again I am reminded that things happen for a reason.

After a few days in Ladakh, Paul, Chris and I discussed our options for moving on. Chris had heard good things about Manali and the nearby Parvati Valley. He'd heard not so good things about Srinagar, namely that the rough journey there isn't worth the few days you'd spend relaxing on a houseboat on Dal Lake, having all your meals cooked for you by a personal chef, gazing out across the lake over fields of flowers and snowy Himalayan Peaks. Uhhhh, OK, so yeah, I decided to come back to Manali with these two irresistable yahoos from San Francisco. And I can honestly say, I'm not missing a thing.

Not enticed by the uncomfortable journey I had described, Paul and Chris were determined to find another way. In a brilliant maneuver (with some coaching from the Israeli Network, North India Chapter), they set out to investigate the option of hiring a Himachal Pradesh Jeep just arriving in Leh from Manali. Thanks to an odd law that prevents out-of-state Jeeps from returning to their own state with passengers (hello! India!), drivers wait around after dropping off passengers, hoping some clever travelers will figure out they can beat the system, get a good price and more space in one of these "empty" Jeeps. (Nevermind the questionable sanity of a driver willing or able to drive this forbidable stretch of road round-trip in 40 hours.)

A crowd of HP drivers preying on an easy fare and Ladakhi drivers wanting to stop them draws around Chris and Paul before they're able to break away and cut a deal with an HP driver eager to relieve us of our 4000 rupees (about $90). The deal is sealed and our driver disappears for a few moments with our 500 rupee deposit, which he will use to bribe the appropriate authorities. (My theory is that this whole operation guarantees employment of twice as many drivers, as well as a steady supply of baksheesh into the pockets of several interested parties.)

Thanks to Chris and Paul's efforts, we spent 16 hours tracing the sharp bumpy curves of the Leh-to-Manali road sprawled out, listening to our music and talking as loudly as we wanted. I felt no remorse for our luggage, which occupied the backseat I had been relegated to on the drive up.

An unexpected side effect of this drastically improved transportation arrangement was that I felt like I was experiencing this journey for the first time. I feel dumb saying so now but I guess attitude and environment can change everything. This Leh-to-Manali road navigates through the most jaw-droppingly gorgeous scenery I have ever seen on this earth. If not for Chris and Paul's suggestion, I've have missed the trip of a lifetime.

After two days of searching, frantic phone calling and plastering posters written in Hebrew and English all over Old Manali, my wallet containing my credit card, driver's license and passport finally found its way back into my hands. As I was taping up a poster in the main intersection of Old Manali, someone called my name. Behind me stood the anonymous couple holding my passport, smiling from ear to ear. Turns out they weren't staying in Old Manali at all; they'd been searching for me too and just happened to be there for dinner. After countless hugs and thank yous, I immediately went to the closest travel agency and booked my ticket to Leh departing that night, 6 hours later at 2 AM.

The drive to Leh from Manali was 20 spine-shattering hours in the only-remaining rear seat of a Jeep with four mute Koreans, an overbearing Isreali girl who refused to shut her window, and a Belgian photographer whose only pauses in conversation occured when I put my headphones on, on the world's longest and highest continuum of narrow, extreme-weather torn, improperly banked crappy ass road. Discomfort aside, the journey was stunning. Rising out of the lush, green river valley in Manali, the road slowly gains altitude, rising up into the barren Indian Himalaya through the most alien and moon-like topography I've ever seen. Stark brown snow-dusted mountain peaks jut and reflect perfectly in placid, still lakes below. Giant boulders crumble and roll down sheer slopes into seemingly bottomless gorges and craters. There are no towns, villages or signs of life for hundreds of kilometers, only makeshift police checkposts and crude food tents set up for road-weary travellers.

Leh, at 3500 meters (roughly 11400 feet) is the capital of Ladakh, part of India's northernmost state of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K). Srinigar is the capital of the western region of the state and may be a name that sounds familiar to some of you since over the years it's been the subject of countless hours of news coverage. It's has been and continues to be a military hotbed amidst the ongoing disputes between Pakistan and China regarding the borders of the natural resource-rich land in J&K. (Just between you and me, from a purely aesthetic standpoint, I think redistribution of the giant knob-like protrusion known as J&K to India's neighboring nations would leave India with a much more pleasing and aerodynamic wedge shape.) Since Partition in 1947, during which the ruling British created the Muslim state of Pakistan separate from the Hindu state of India, Pakistan has slowly tried to chip away at J&K in attempts to reclaim some of the land for their own. They've even apportioned parts of western J&K as gifts to China... without permission from India. The borders are perpetually under dispute and travellers are warned to skip the sensitive areas around Srinagar since bombings and armed warfare still occur nearly every day.

Ladakh is home to many ethnic groups and has a sizeable population of Tibetan refugees. In addition to Tibetans, Ladakhis (Indians, but those who speak Ladakhi and look more Chinese or Nepali than what most of us think of as Indian), nomads (the original yak and goat herding people of Ladakh) and a small Aryan ethnic minority comprise the sparse population of this inhospitable land. This area is also the birthplace of pashmina wool; the soft fine hair of a particular breed of goat native to this area and the material used for the famous shawls we all know and love.

Looming snowcovered Himalayan peaks surround the quiet valley in which Leh sits. The weather now is temperate and dry (though a bit chilly at night) and little grows or lives in the thin air at this altitude. With the exception of occasional flights into and out of Leh's small airport (which reportedly clip a mere few hundred meters above the soaring peaks in order to land safely on the short runway in the valley below), full-time residents of Ladakh are snowbound and virtually isolated from the rest of India for 9 months of the year.

Chris and I are traveling together again and it's brilliant to see him. He and his friend Paul (also from San Francisco) met up here a week ago and I have joined them for the next leg of the journey. Tomorrow is the much-anticipated Hemis Gompa festival, a birthday celebration for Guru Padmasambhava, the rinpoche (next in the Tibetan Buddhist pecking order after the Dalai Lama) who is credited with introducing Buddhism to Nepal. Afterwards? More from someplace with more reliable and cheaper internet access...

Mark the day, June 2, as the day I cursed myself. The wood computer table I knocked must have only been veneer.

This installment of misadventures began Thursday night as I was leaving Dharamsala. An Indian friend, Jain, offered to drive me to the bus station where I would catch my 8 PM overnight bus to Manali. Halfway there I realized I'd left my sweatshirt behind. Jain insisted we had time to pick it up so we spun around, picked it up and sped back to the bus stand to board just as the bus closed its doors.

Fast-forward through the sleepless bus ride during which I was continually jarred by bumps and dips amplified by my unfortunate location just over the left rear tire. At one point, the bus inexplicably screeches to a halt. Another traveller tells me during a 3 AM chai break that the bus had stopped to scare away a leopard trying to kill a cow in the middle of the road. I misheard this as "leper" and formed some fun mental images to entertain myself for the next few hours.

At 6 AM, the bus breaks down about an hour outside Manali. The busdriver and his sidekicks disappear without a word, leaving 30 bleary-eyed travellers wondering what the hell is going on. Reminding myself I am in India and that the process of procuring parts at dawn and performing the necessary repairs could take some time, I grabbed my pack and hailed a sunshine yellow Maruti heading my way. Its driver was a middle-aged, extremely kind and creative man named Rinoo who designed and runs a beautiful artist's retreat / cat and dog zoo in Goa, exports his own furniture designs to Scandinavia and plays really wicked tunes in his car. He's a mountain man making his annual pilgrimage to the Himalaya and I happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Freed from the bus, Rinoo and I took our time getting to Manali, passing along a mountain ridge into the small village of Naggar, home to a spectacular carved wood castle-cum-hotel and a museum for Russian artist Nikolai Roerich. After breakfast at the castle overlooking the entire Kullu Valley surrounding by Himalaya (Manali lies at one end of this valley), Rinoo drove me to the State Bank of India to reclaim the ATM card I lost in Gorakhpur. Attempting to prove my identity, I then realize I've lost my wallet containing my passport, credit card and driver's license. The bank man takes pity on me and with a significant squeeze of my hand insists that I join him for chai later (augh) and releases my card with only my checkbook as ID.

Since I had lost my ATM card in a previous scatterbrained maneuver, at least I had access to money, so the hunt for the wallet begins. Rinoo generously offers to drive me an hour back to where the bus is still broken down by the side of the road nearly four hours later (HA! knew it). We search the bus and turn up nothing except my pillow, which I had also accidentally left behind. We call the castle where we had breakfast and the place I'd had dinner the night before. Nothing. I go to file a police report. There's a long wait and they tell me to come back tomorrow.

I check my email and yes!! There's email from Jain in Dharamsala telling me I'd left my wallet in his car and to call him immediately. With only an hour to spare, he agrees to try to send it on that evening's overnight bus from Dharamsala to Manali. He misses the bus and tells me he will try again the next night. Equipped with the bus number and instructed to look for an Israeli couple to whom Jain had given my wallet, I go to meet the bus at 6:30 AM. I learn the bus had arrived at 5:30 and the couple were nowhere to be found. A rickshaw driver tells me where he dropped them, *surprise*, right in the middle of Isreali-central, up the hill in Old Manali.

I've spent the morning rather befuddled, wandering around Old Manali asking at guesthouses, talking to random Israelis and putting up posters. I called Jain; turns out he gave the couple his phone number just in case, so now it's a waiting game. Rinoo was ready to leave for Leh today and I was forced to abandon our plans to drive together to stay yet another day in Manali waiting for me and my passport to be reunited. As Chris once said, "These are the dog days of India."

My days in Dharamsala have been some of the most peaceful, rest-filled and pleasant in my 10 months of traveling. My days go something like this...

Wake up around 9. Read a chapter of my current book, The Dice Man. Dance around my small L-shaped room for an hour to trance or breaks emitted from my teeny tiny tinny speakers that seem to be missing an entire crucial bass line. Hang out with the wonderfully warm Indian family that runs my guesthouse. Play with their 3-week old baby goat and watch her torment the baby cow. Hike 30 minutes along a mountain ridge to Shiva Cafe by the waterfall for a breakfast of chai and the Western menu fixture, meusli with fruit and yogurt. Hike back to Bhagsu along the river. Visit friends, play cards, talk, shop, hike again, eat dinner. Bathe with a bucket of hot water. Sleep.

I met up with the Delhi boys for booze night, which turned out to be less boozing and more me plying them with questions on my favorite subject, arranged vs. love marriages. Despite my initial repulsion to the idea of arranged marriages and my lingering doubt regarding whether anyone who has their spouse chosen for them by their parents will ever know true love, I find my views on the matter are shifting. Most Indians I've talked to have strong opinions about marriage in the West, particularly criticism of the atronomical divorce rate. Some claim that by getting to know their spouses *after* the wedding, they learn how to make marriage work through compromise since the easy exit hatch so easily afforded us in the West is, for them, not really an option. They've even gone so far as to accuse Westerners of being too choosy. Could they be right?

Indian tourists flooded Bhagsu over the weekend. On Saturday, my Delhi buddies and I hiked to Shiva Cafe and then to the waterfall where three of them stripped down to their underwear and had a shower in the thin cascade, shampoo and all. I photographed them Sports Illustrated Swimsuit style doing tree pose up against the slippery rocks.

Returning to Bhagsu from the waterfall, we walked in the river gorge along the series of cold pools where I'd sat with the Punjabi family the day before. Every one of the dozen or so pools was full to the brim with local Tibetans bathing or doing laundry and hundreds of Indian tourist families having picnics. As we neared Bhagsu, the unmistakable bassline of trance bounced and echoed around the gorge. I scrambled along the rocks determined to locate the source; an outdoor rave on a big terraced lawn just above the river. In a true East meets West moment, hordes of turbanned and saried Indian tourists stopped on the trail across the river to gawk at the madness of a bunch of crazy hippies flailing and bouncing around in front of giant speakers.

This place is a haven for travellers burnt out from India's sensual-onslaught and many people stay months at a time as temporary residents, taking courses or working on pet projects. I ran into Mark from the trek, who's now living here for a year writing a book about tantra, and Matt from Hampi, Goa, and Kathmandu who has been here for two months working 12-hour days developing a card game a friend of his invented. This morning I met two English lads making a documentary about spiritual and physical healing in Dharamsala. I'm feeling a bit lazy watching these guys in action and have been daydreaming about having a focus of my own.

Aside from the gorgeous and strenuous 10-mile hike I did today, I'll be leaving Dharamsala without dabbling in any of the things that piqued my interest; yoga, meditation, Indian cooking, jewelry making, poi twirling, belly dancing or volunteering at a monastery or nunnery. All in another life I suppose. I'm leaving before I'm ready, but for good reason. Tomorrow night I'll head to the town of Manali to swing through and pick up my lost ATM card, and then it's on to meet Chris in Ladakh, part of the northernmost state of Kashmir. The town of Leh where we will meet is a place that has been described by more than a few people as the most beautiful place they've been in their lives. The journey from Manali to Leh is a killer; two full days on busses over terrible roads passing over the highest motorable pass in the world at 18640 feet. Cool! More from Kashmir.

Leaving Kathmandu: A Beginner's Guide

If you are a budget backpacker trying to get from Kathmandu, Nepal to Dharamsala, India, please observe the following steps:

Take a 14-hour bus ride in the rain from Kathmandu to the border town of Sunauli. Sit in the bus with the engine off for hours while traffic is allowed one direction at a time on a horribly underfunded, partly unpaved, pothole-riddled road.

Spend the night in a dodgy hotel in Sunauli. Lay out to dry your belongings that got wet in the rain on the roof of the bus on the way there.

Pass through Nepali and Indian immigration. Observe the corrupt Indian immigration officer try to demand baksheesh from an Italian sadhu who supposedly does not have his paperwork in order. Watch the ensuing screaming match. Smile and make sure your own paperwork is in order.

Pay twice the public bus fare to take a 2-hour Jeep taxi ride to the Indian town of Gorakhpur. Rest assured, it will end up hotter and more crowded than the bus would have been.

Forget your card in the ATM at the State Bank of India.

Spend another night in a hotel. Spring for A/C and a TV this time. Eat ice cream and enjoy the view from the top of Hotel President overlooking glorious downtown Gorakhpur (psssh). Watch part of Mission Impossible II before the cable goes out just as it's getting good.

Wake at 7 AM to wait in the horrendous queue of summer travellers to buy a train ticket to Delhi. Don't mind the person behind you virtually spooning you standing up. The trains will all be overbooked so you may as well sleep in.

Accept that you won't be getting on a train from Gorakhpur. Take an 8 1/2 hour bus ride to Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh and a more major stop on the train route.

Spend another night in a dodgy hotel.

Wake up again at the crack of dawn to buy a train ticket to Delhi. Wait in the "ladies only" queue only to be told when you reach the front that you should be in the "foreign tourists" queue.

Spend four hours before the train comes at the post office attempting to mail a package home. Dealing with Indian bureaucracy will be just the thing for your already paper-thin patience.

Pay a visit to the State Bank of India to see about getting that ATM card back. Interrupt the vice president in the middle of an important meeting to sweet talk him into making phone calls for you. You're a foreigner after all!

Go back to your dodgy hotel room and watch American sit-coms while you wait for your train, which will be 7 1/2 hours late. Go back and forth to the train station three times because every time you will be told a different ETA.

Take a 10-hour overnight train to India's capital city, Delhi. Toss and turn all night. Vow to take valium on the next one. Get your hair sucked into the ceiling fan when you climb down from your sleeper to use the toilet.

Take a 12-hour overnight train to the town of Pathankot in the northern state of Punjab. Watch your step around the 150 waitlisted passengers sleeping in the middle of the aisles. Don't mind the dozen or so sets of Indian eyes glued to your every move. Try to sleep through the overlapping stream of chai and coffee wallahs offering their wares in the same quick monotone, "chai-ahhh, chai-ahhh, chai-ahhh" or "coffee coffee coffee."

Take a 5-hour public bus to Dharamsala. Sit in the front seat and practically be deafened by the constant blast of the horn reminding all others on the road of the Indian traffic mantra, "Might is right." Hang on tight when the bus swerves to avoid cows in the middle of the road.

Find a guesthouse. Any guesthouse will do at this point. Collapse in an exhausted puddle on your inch-thick mattress.

Greetings from Dharamsala, home of the Tibetan Government in Exile and His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama! In 1949, the newly established Communist government extended sovereignty to Tibet and imposed a regime that has left 1.2 million Tibetans dead, millions more in forced labor camps and the destruction of 90% of Tibet's religious institutions. Fearing for his own life and the lives of those who followed him, the spiritual leader of Tibet, the Dalai Lama, led his people into exile in India in 1959. He and his entourage traveled by foot across the Himalaya into the valley here, where they have been granted political asylum and the right to set up headquarters for what has been a 45-year struggle for liberation.

The Tibetan presence is clear as you see dozens of burgundy and saffron-robed Buddhist monks roaming the streets along with Tibetan men and women in their traditional dress, or chubas, and the women with their overlaying horizontally-striped aprons. Tibetan culture is alive and well here and there's even a institute of performing arts and a library and archive of Tibetan works.

The town I am staying in is called Bhagsu, a village 2km from the Tibetan headquarters set among the foothills of the Indian Himalaya and exactly the kind of place I was looking for after the utterly exhausting journey described above. Guesthouses are scattered and hidden among the hills and winding rock trails lead to waterfalls, temples and astonishing views of the mountains above and valley below.

Lower Bhagsu is full of Indian honeymooners and familes on summer holiday. Upper Bhagsu is full of western travelers, most of whom come to Dharamsala to practice yoga, enroll in 10-day Vipassana meditation retreats, take language courses, learn to play instruments or volunteer their time teaching English to Tibetan monks. At this point I don't have much planned for my time here other than to do a bit of exploring and get some serious R&R. I may take an Indian or Tibetan cooking course or learn to make jewelery, but realistically I envision myself with my nose planted firmly in a book.

Today I sat and talked with a vacationing family from Punjab down in the cold pools below the waterfall. They offered me Black Label whiskey and caramels (!) and asked me about life in America. When I tried to answer they told me to slow down and speak clear English (!). Later when walking back to my guesthouse, I past a small courtyard where an Australian man playing classical Spanish guitar and a French man playing a 4-stringed classical Indian instrument called a tambura had drawn a small crowd. I put a flower in my teeth, danced around a bit and got talking to one of the Indian men there. Turns out I was smack in front of the guesthouse Chris had stayed at when he was here a few weeks ago and the man, Nosho, had become quite good friends with him during his time here. Small world. Tonight I was invited to "booze" with some young Indians vacationing here from Delhi. God I love this country. I am so thrilled to be back.

I have *got* to stop losing things. In the last few weeks I've lost sunglasses, shoes, two watches, earrings, two rings, a pipe, a padlock, my Lonely Planet Nepal, a notebook, a scarf, a hairclip, a Sharpie, earplugs, and countless pens and hairbands. I shouldn't be surprised; this is an affliction I've had since birth. I wonder where all this stuff goes and who ends up with it. Surely there must be other people losing stuff at the same rate so it stands to reason that with all this lost stuff floating around out there, I'd luck out and at least wind up with someone else's hoodie or at least a measly lighter. No such luck. I guess I should be glad I've managed to hold on to my passport, traveler's checks, journal, ATM card, money and camera without much difficulty. (*said with a sharp rap to the wood computer table*)

This is beginning to get a bit old I imagine, but I'm still in Kathmandu. This is officially the longest I've ever spent in any one city that I haven't lived in. That's scary. My plans to leave Monday fell through on Sunday night at Funky Buddha when, after free shots bought for me and my friends by a rich cigar-smoking middle-aged Floridian, I decided getting up at 5:30 AM to catch my bus no longer held much appeal. Aside from Lauren (miss you babe!), most of my friends were staying and I found myself feeling a bit of an emotional pull when thinking about the reality of leaving Nepal. So, I danced all night to shockingly good trance, went to sleep at 5:30 AM instead of getting up, and here I am still.

We're in the midst of another Maoist strike and Thamel is a ghost town. This is the fourth strike since I arrived in Nepal more than six weeks ago. There are different kinds of strikes lasting different durations and affecting different sectors (transportation, tourism, industrial, educational, etc.) The strike today is a "bandh," or forced shutdown, and is a longstanding form of political expression in Nepal most often used by the Maoists. They enforce the strike with intimidation and violence and in past bandhs, Maoists have attacked public buses, government vehicles, schools and private businesses with bombs in an effort to terrorize the population into observing the strike. I just overheard a Nepali man tell an Isreali girl requesting information about renting motorbikes, "Sorry. Nepal is closed today." It's not far from the truth.

Schools are closed (wonder if it's like a snow-day?) as are offices and all government facilities. Rolling metal door seal businesses shut. The usual hubbub of tourist activity has seemingly vanished overnight as most people spend the day hidden out in internet cafes, watching movies or hanging out in the few open restaurants. Despite the fact that tourists are not a target for the Maoists, it's difficult but not impossible for us to get taxis out of Thamel. Besides, do we really want to be wandering around the streets of Kathmandu?

There's another strike on Monday that's supposed to last five days, so I'm going to have to take my window of opportunity and get out on Friday. My ticket's booked and I'm off, if a bit begrudgingly. I'll miss this place.