hi everyone
i'm writing from what appears to be the slowest connection i've witnessed since the 90's, from a small northern indian village called Kasol.
i arrived in Delhi more than a week ago, there i joined my brother who's been in india for 7 months already. delhi is a nightmare; a dusty, sweaty chaos, filled with millions of ppl vhiacles and animals, on the same street you'll see bikes, cars, rikshas, trucks, donkeys, cows, pedestrians, and the occasional elephant crossing the roads that's filled with piles of waste and crap.
anyway, after 20 HORRENDOUS hours by over-crowded buses, we arrived here to this tiny village, 2000 meters above sea level, in an extremely beautiful valley, surrounded by snow caped hymalaian ridges
http://img147.echo.cx/img147/5374/442vx.jpg
with a mighty river crossing on one side, and hot springs on the other.
http://img299.echo.cx/img299/8531/20fx.jpg
in the last few years it became a hot touristic spot, especially for israeli travellers, but you can now find many japanese and europeans here as well.
Parvati valley is known for its top-quality charas; cannabis and magic shrooms grow freely in the forests and all around,
http://img299.echo.cx/img299/18/44ve.jpg and everywhere you can hear ppl's constant caughing. everything's very lazy dazed and chilled, i guess most ppl don't even know what day it is.
India's a challange; it's a far cry from the beloved everyday western comforts, even a "luxorious" resort like the one i'm staying in, doesn't provide a tv set or a guarentee for a full day of water and electricity. the longer i stay, the more i find this country fascinating, and (excuse me but) disgusting at the same time. it's just hard to digest this place, everything looks, tastes and feels different (my current bathroom routine is not something you'd wanna know more about :eek: ) but i'm trying and hoping to blend in at some point.
at the moment i'm hangin' with a very friendly bunch of wonderers, tomorrow we'll be heading to Dharamsala, which is 10 bus-hours away, where there's supposed to be a huge rave this weekend. if everything checks out okay, we'll go from there to Kashmir, which is known (other than being an ongoing war field) to be the most beautiful part of the north.
i hope everyone's going to see the tour and having a great summer.
much love
Tommer
http://img299.echo.cx/img299/1261/35ey.jpg