Ending at Gokarna

Namaste All & Happy Diwali!!


We are now a few hours away from our flight home... Sad... but all good things must come to an end as a wise woman has told us and we must return to our normal lives back home.


We spent a relaxing 10 days at Om beach near Gokarna doing more or less nothing... on the beach... the most exercise we got was playing Frisbee which we did every day... sometime even twice :) other than that we spent the time lazily reading books... dipping in the ocean... sipping banana coconut lassi's and eating grilled Kingfish and prawns... We catched a slight tan and a big smile :)

The contrast in the landscape & weather between south central India and Ladakh is amazing (as you can see below in the pics)... the weather here is hot as hell with ~150% humidity... the tropical sun is strong and deceiving. After deserts of Ladakh the hot wet green was a big refresher combined with the beach making Om beach a real treat after Ladakh. Om beach's tourist population consists of roughly 98% israelis and we can say for sure that Israelis have a tendency to pick the right spot. We also had the luck of arriving just as the season began so though we didnt have perfect weather, since the last 2 days were a bit cloudy and we even caught the last of the monsoon rains, the beach was far from crowded and very quiet. An excellent chill out beach (if you come outside the height of the season) - much quieter than the beaches of Goa (pallolem included).


Thats Uri on the beach at Gokarna

thats a view over most of Om beach

and from eye level
Can't have a beach in India without a few cows now can you ;) every afternoon they started marching home on the beach...

a view over the small and lovely half-moon beach just south of Om

here is Hila on our walk back to Gokarna

Thats it i guess... we had a great time in Ladakh and a great time at Gokarna.. The trip sure did seem long though we wish it were longer :)

We will see you all in the next few days,

Namaste and Happy Diwali to you All!! (luckily we are just missing it - its on the 28th though they have been playing around with the fire crackers for a few days now...),

Hila & Morphhh Sleazy.

Around and about the Indus Valley

Juley Juley all.

Happy holidays to you all...

We have returned from 10 days riding & walking around the Indus valley amongst its gompas and rivers... We spent the nights in simple guest houses/family homes in small villages of only a few families. We started in Hemis (where we slept in the monastery itself) and made our way through Thiksey, Shey (the old capitol of Ladakh) & Stok before returning to Leh visiting a local Wedding and then setting out to the western side of the valley to Lamayuru (the oldest gompa in Ladakh), Likir, Yuktung, Alchi & Basgo.

After all the questions about food - we ate mostly vegetables (potato, leaves, cabbage carrot), rice & lentils which was an amazing delight especially for Uri who enjoyed a big bowl of boiled broccoli leaves (not the actual broccoli itself) and even held it down till the morning :) though cursed the day he was born.... how can we phrase it... simple food... but we endured and kept traveling to bring you these lovely sights... we are sorry we could not convey the taste through the photos ;)

Hemis gompa and its village



and the way down to the road


Thiksey gompa sitting on a lovely hill

morning shower at the gompa


the monks starting work on a Sand mandala (wikipedia)


we forgot the name of this one :) it was a drive by shoot on the bus but its still nice


on the top of Shey palace with a view of the valley and of Hila :)


Stok village

Back at Leh at the Ladakhi wedding with one of the local grandmas in full costume


Hila at Lamayuru (a bit chilly that night)
the locals ladies having afternoon tea


Likir gompa with its big sitting buddha outside

The view from Yuktung in the evening

and they trek down back to the indus valley


the road to Alchi with the Indus river and Saspol village in view


back towards Leh - a view over the valley


Well thats it... we have covered Ladakh resonably well.. seen many of its gompas... climbed around its mountains and valleys... ate the enticing local food and even went to a wedding :)

We had a lovely time in this remote dry barren cold region and would like to thank the ladakhis for their hospitality and hope they find a good use for our tent :)

We will be flying tommorow to a more warm, green, wet & sunny place near the south side of Goa - Gokarna and its hopefully lovely beaches, we just hope to get there before the hordes of israeli ex armi children get there... Our sources tell us they are still stuck in Pushkar - we hope they are...

So see you next time with photos of the sea and palm trees...

Hila & Morphhh Sleazy.

A bit of Trekking

Juley Juley!!

Shana Tova and happy holidays to you all...

We returned yesterday from our trek. 5 days including the mild mountain pass Ganda La ~ 4900m. Unlike our usual tendency, we took the full trekking deal including morning tea to the tent, packed lunch for the day, tea and snacks at camp and a variety dinner menu (chicken curry, veg. curries, veg. momos, chow mien etc.). The star attraction being the hot water bottles that were a real life saver for hila on the cold nights :) Its really amazing what one can do with a full camping kitchen set and the right ingredients, even chocolate cake, kudos to our guide-cum-cook. We only did 5 days trekking and only got a half day look into the Markha valley (which was our original plan) because of fear of weather problems, though eventually we had clear blue skies throughout the trip as you can see from the photos. Sadly on our last day, after all our stuff was hauled onto the taxi to Leh, one of our bags containing sleeping mats and our precious tent fell off the top of the taxi as things tied to the roof sometimes have a tendency to do... So after bragging throughout the trek at how our tent was soooooo coool... we managed to loose it :(... Bad luck as our guide said... ya real bad luck... well at least we have less to carry now... Even with this loss we really enjoyed the trek and only wished it were a tad longer...

In the time we have left in Ladakh (till the 14th) we will spend village hopping & Gompa gazing throughout the Indus valley hope fully we will bring you these photos before our flight (uploading pics here is a bitch!! )


This is Uri drying his clothes after clumsily falling into the river (waist deep brrrr..)




(sorry these are small)




Our lost tent :(


(back to normal size)


At the Ganda La Pass - 4900m




Locals at harvest time






kids at a local school


We needed to cross the Zanskar river at the end of the trek, no bridges here yet so you can see hila in a little box being pulled across the river, her smile is fear ;)


Thats it for now... next post when we finish village hoping around the Indus valley...

happy holidays to you all !!!

Hila & Morphhh Sleazy

Lakes and Weather Gods

Juley Juley !!

How are the holiday preparations ???

We don't have any ;)

What we do have are trek preparations and we got our second set back. The local weather gods are apparently not our side and after keeping us an additional day in smelly delhi we have now been forced to change our trekking plans. Currently we are waiting an additional day before leaving on the trek and will probably shorten it to 4-5 days instead of the planned 9. Also the course will be different so as not to have problems with snow. As you can see we are taking the safer path so parents - no need to worry :) We have been assured that the said alternative will not angry the weather gods ;) and that the scenery is as good (actually its part of the trek we planned with an additional part on the other side of the mountain so as not to have heavy snowfall). Also we will have less time to freeze our asses off ;)

So what have we been doing so far you ask ? Well we took a jeep with some Spaniards we met in the guest house for a 2 day trip to Tso Moriri & Tso Kar at ~4800m (Tso = Lake) and had a lovely time, saw some local wildlife and took these:







Nice right ? well here are some more








On the way back from the lakes we joined the Manali-Leh highway, if you can call it that, the right thing about it is that it is high, very high - it passes Tanglang La which is a ~5300 high pass with these amazing views




Thats it for now, we will share more next week when we return from our trek, well... if the internet stays open here (end of season).

Hila & Morphhh Sleazy.