Another email from my trip.

I am in Leh, India now. It is our second day here and the owner of
our guest house, Lha-Ri-Sa, has brought us to an internet place. He has been
incredibly helpful from sending an extra kerosene space heater to our
room and helping me find the chai they drink here - it’s amazing. I
can’t seem to stop drinking it.

We hired a driver today and went through some other villages: saw two
Buddhist monestaries and one palace. The first monestary, in Alchi, is over
1,000 years old. We ran into some Korean monks visiting at the other
monestary who were very cheery and kind enough to let us take our
picture with them.

Yesterday we lounged at our guest house out in the sun drinking chai,
talking and reading. We both got bad sunburns in the places we had
exposed. I had put sunscreen on in time to save my face, but the tops
of my hands, lower arms, part of my neck, and the tops of my
feet/ankles were all burning last night. It has been a bit painful to
put my shoes on. Today I was careful to cover everything up and put
on more sunscreen. The sun is so strong here and this is one
particularly white girl. The weather has been sunny and then partly
cloudy and back again. I think it has gotten up to 60 degrees (F) at
times in the sun. I don’t think it has been 30 degrees yet.

We both had some light-headedness yesterday and anything strenuous,
such as walking up a flight of stairs, gets us both out of breath and
my heart starts pounding, even today. Other than that, we have not
had any other signs of altitude sickness and I have not had to take
the diamox I brought along with me. I have also avoided
Delhi-Belly….no stomach aches yet. The food is delicious. Just a
continuous flow of Indian food. Yumm…. I am missing dairy though.
I could use a few good hunks of cheese.

We are still deciding what to do tomorrow. We might go visit more
monestaries, but in another direction from Leh. Though, it’s like
visiting cathedrals in Europe; after a while they all look the same.
I even managed to not get motion sick today. Our drive was 70 km in
each direction with lots of stops for us to take photos of the
Himalayas. They are as amazing as you can imagine and more. I’m sure
my photos won’t do them justice.

Jackie, no more frizzy hair in Leh, but I’m not sure I will take
another shower until I am back in Delhi or Chennai on Tuesday! I took
a shower yesterday and it was luke warm at best. I was shivering the
whole time. Teeth chattering. The air isn’t warm enough to feel any
relief once you get out and dry off. Jon and I may just have to build
up a good layer of dirt in the next day or so. Who cares? It’s
probably good for our dry skin anyway.

I am writing in my journal much more than I thought I would; many
times to just pass the time. Yesterday we had a lot of down time just
resting. Jon and I played an hour and a half of rummy last night. I
am also flying through my book, “A Walk in the Woods” by Bill Bryson.
It is just as light and entertaining as I had hoped it would be.
Though I think I will finish it more quickly than I thought. There
are some good bookstores in the big cities though and I have even
spotted another Bill Bryson book.

I have much more to write, but I will end here for now.