Skiing in India - not recommended!!!!

Bartlett - happy birthday for 27th Feb! As promised... here the special birthday message - in case you can't read it it says Happy 30th Birthday Matt - (by the way, the 0 is made from cow poo crumbled with Grahams bare hands, the things he'll do for you....! and yes.... we had a LOT of time on our hands in les mountains. and no.... we aren't dossers ;-)


































Anyway, back to Indiaaaaaaaaa. We were sad to leave Sri Lanka (tears from one of us as we drove away from the village) but now excited about the thought of 2 months travel. Getting to Delhi was a culture shock - we had forgotten how unbelievable poor and over crowded India is. It is also coooooooold compared to Sri Lanka. We spent one day in Delhi and went to this big old Mosque but mostly shopped for warm clothes. Then we were off en route to the Himalayas.....
















Day 1: took over night train from Delhi arriving at Haridwar at 3.15am followed by 9 hour drive into the Himalayas. Twas a looooong journey and the road was crumbling away, so scary at times but amazing views along the Ganges. There were Hundeds of people working at the side of the road rebuilding the bits that the monsoon had destroyed, often women smashing up stones with babies under one arm - mental note to selves never to moan about our jobs again. Drove up through colourful towns perched on the hillside - the higher we got the harsher the climate and the more hardy looking the people were, the towns were very Tibetan looking and goat and donkey tastic.

Me loving the journey, Graham spends a lot of time on the road enjoying his own company - Sarah, this will be a familiar site for you!

Reached the "ski resort" at 3,000m by cable car and were excited about skiing in India. The resort is Auli - India's "premier ski resort" - ok... so we knew India wasn't renowned for skiing but didn't think it would be as bad as it was!!!

We splashed out on "international standard accommodation" as a treat. This is what we were expecting...

But this is what we got...

The front half of the hotel had been demolished ... so we had to pick our way through the rubble to reach it as it (Mum, it was a health and safety disaster!) - without warning the Government smashed it up to make way for a new ski run out the front (for the Asian Winter Games next year!!). Can't believe that the government get away with acting like thugs!

The luxury accommodation turned out to have no heating, which in -5 degrees centigrade was not ideal! We were given a 1 bar heater - we asked if we could have another electric heater but were told that we would soon get used to the cold! So spent our first afternoon shivering in our room wearing the entire contents of our bags.

Another bonus was that there was no running hot water... but we were given a bucket of hot water to wash in. G warming his feet...

G taking a "bath" .... (I've shunk the picture so as not to offend!)

There were also powercuts every half hour. Doing aerobics in our room was the only way to get warm (KB, you'd have been proud of our pendulum and grapevine!). The woman in the room next to us crying because it was so cold. We spent most of the time in hysterics, if we didn't laugh we'd have cried... and we hoped the skiing would make up for it!

Day 2: Our first day skiing...... up and out early doors to get the first lift up. Put on what was described as "the latest skiing equipment" - those of you who are skiers will remember this sight from the late 80's....

But we got to the bottom of the lift only to be told that the lifts weren't opening - bizarrely because of an election(?!) - you can imagine how pleased we were! The Indians didn't see the problem and told us to walk up, as if it was the most natural thing in the world! So we walked up and skiied down 3 times before giving up (walking up a piste is haaaaaard work and the ski down is over all too quickly!).... so spent the afternoon sat inches from the heater in the cold bedroom, brrrr. We thought it couldn't get much worse....

Day 3: .... it did get worse. I was sick as a dog and spent the day in bed :-(

So Graham went out and did the only run that was open on his own (no need for a piste map, even he couldn't get lost).

Day 4: Hurrah, ski lift open and both fit and healthy. Did the one run umpteen times until we were bored. It was a good day though and made up for the other days. Views were aaaamazing ...

After a good first (and last) day skiing we ended up cutting the ski trip short, we couldn't bear the thought of 2 more cold afternoons and evenings confined to our room in the most depressing hotel in the world.

Drove 9 hours back down the crumbling road, thawing out as we went. Stayed in Rishikesh last night at the foot of Himalayas on the Ganges. It claims to be "Yoga Capital of the World" and should be renamed "City with the most annoying travellers in the world". Leaving today to another religious town called Haridwar before back to Delhi. Hoping to go to Nepal next but the fuel crisis is on going so we will seeeeeee!