twoislandtravellers: Lazy days are followed by full power trekking days.

After our hairy experience in Uttarakhand getting lost without food we were very happy to head to our next state moving north into Himachal pradesh. Famed for its mountain scenery and stories of missing tourists, we were ready to put our training into action. Although the area is trekkers paradise we were planning chill out for a week or so with Mayu's friend, of a friend who met a Japanese girl hiking in Japan once, Acha was her name and she had been living up in the mountains with an Indian local for the past 5 years. . . as you can imagine, we were very curious.

Soon after meeting Acha and her boyfriend we soon realised that days were spent relaxing, a lot. Smoking, a lot and in between eating biscuits I'd check my watch to see if dinner time was getting any closer. Mayu and I soon realised that if we were going to get our daily mango lassi fix, we'd have to walk an hour and half back down the mountain. So for the next week it became our routine to walk down for breakfast to o rest guest house for the best mango lassi's in India, wait till afternoon until day was cooler, grab an ice cream and hike back up to the small village. It was the perfect combination of eating well, getting stoned and doing exercise. But this life tires quickly and we really wanted to go back into the wild. We were promised by Acha's boyfriend Tecco that we would go on a wild trek starting from his village, so we hung around a few days longer waiting for things to come together. Jerry arrived just in time for our departure.

The first day was up and up, up over rocks and bushes, ignoring any paths that might of been near us. It was a pretty brutal way of starting the trek, and by afternoon with only chai in my belly, I was completely spent. I ate dinner as fast as possible to see if I could get a look in on Mayu's dinner, but that was already gone. Straight after dinner we hiked up to the pass and saw an amazing site, we were up in the clouds, with the sun setting behind them, it set everything off orange and pink, like being in one of James turrel's dreams.

We woke the next day early, being led by our newly oppointed sheppard come guide. I decided to avoid the regular spliff breaks, but still most of the day remained very foggy. As soon as the sun broke through we could see the amazing mountain scapes we were hiking through. Late afternoon we passed through some amazing meadows, with flowers and little streams, just heaven for camping. So you can understand I was pissed off when we finally camped in a slopping meadow, thick with long grass, spiky things and an English favourite, stinging nettles . . . But that's exactly why you leave these decisions to the locals, little did I know we were sleeping on our dinner! I've had many years to work out that touching stinging nettles stings, that day was no acceptation to this rule, however we all spent the next hour with our hands full of stinging nettles, preparing them for tomorrows breakfast.
The shepherds of the valley we're extremely helpful and kind giving us extra rice and flour when we needed it, so on the last day we gave the remainder of our food to a shepherd we bumped into on our way down. The trek was really tough, we were hungry a lot of the time but we both enjoyed the wild experience we had. Our next move was to get back to collect a few things left and move further north to Ladakh.

The shepherds of the valley we're extremely helpful and kind giving us extra rice and flour when we needed it, so on the last day we gave the remainder of our food to a shepherd we bumped into on our way down. The trek was really tough, we were hungry a lot of the time but we both enjoyed the wild experience we had. Our next move was to get back to collect a few things left and move further north to Ladakh.

I couldn't wait to get out of bed, a bit like that feeling on Christmas morning, waiting for presents. Except I was waiting for my rice with stinging nettles, and if you'd done a blind taste test you'd be very surprised that you weren't eating fishy flavoured rice and spinach. But as usual I was starving and can only remember it as being delicious. We crossed paths with many people that day, we were told not to touch anyone, as these mountain people were holy and if touched by a foreigner you'd receive a￡30 fine (not sure who from) and touching a shine you pay double that, the gloves went on. Later on that day I really understood why so many people had gone missing in these mountains, I read that all these missing people were related to drug issues. A lone foreigner would stumble across a large field of dope and before the foreigner can explain they are only interested in hiking and not leading police to the field, they disappear not to be seen again. We were safe however being with a group of people from the surrounding areas. It was amazing to see so many plants hidden up in the mountains.