Delhi: I'm at it again

Hello again everyone. I'm off to Spiti again this summer, unfortunately for a shorter trip, as I have to be in Nepal on June 15th to begin a Tibetan language program.

I arrived in Delhi late Monday on a KLM flight. It was nice, possibly my favorite so far. I have previously flown to India on Air France, Air India, and British Airways, none of which were thrilling. Amsterdam has a nice airport with a bunch of interesting things to do, but I was a little too tired to really appreciate it all.

I took a cab around 12am from the airport in Delhi to Majnu ka tilla, where I'm staying at Wongdhen House. MKT is the Tibetan district in Delhi and I usually stay here. It's convenient because it's close to the ISBT where I catch the bus north and because my Tibetan is much better than my Hindi (although everyone at the hotel speaks English better than I speak either Tibetan or Hindi, so that's somewhat a moot point). I met up with a friend who arrived in Delhi a couple days prior. As I mentioned in the previous post, we had planned to travel together for part of the trip, but that isn't going to work so I'm traveling solo this time.

LG, my friend, is going to trek on foot from Manali into Zangskar, where she needs to visit some nunneries for work. She's done the trek before and I had planned to go with her, but the weather has been so bad this year that I called it off and am just going to Spiti and skipping the Zangskar/Ladakh portion of the trip, which is too bad. I might still go from Spiti up to Ladakh and then fly from Leh to Delhi on the other end of my trip (mid June), but for now I'll just hang out at the monastery in Pin Valley where I was last summer and wait to hear about Rohtang pass clearing.

I stayed in Delhi for 4 days/3nights and am taking an overnight HRTC bus to Shimla, same bus I took in 2009. I'll get into Shimla early. I haven't booked a room yet, but I'm going to call the YMCA after I have lunch and see if they have any space. The plan is to spend the day getting my Inner Line Permit in Shimla (this was such a hassle/headache last time!) and then either try to find a shared jeep or just hop a bus to Reckong Peo either Saturday or Sunday. From there I'll head to Kaza and then to Pin.

More later!