Catching up

So, a handful of group blogs to catch you all up on, as much has happened in the last few weeks.

Right now I'm in Ladakh, which is part of Kashmir, and it is the coolest place I have been so far. It's unbelievably gorgeous, and the stars here MIGHT rival those you can see from Orcas. The mountains are amazing and the trees here are awesome. The air is fresh (and thin, it's pretty high elevation) and the sky is soooo blue. The only thing it comes close to reminding me of is the time I lived in Flagstaff, AZ, which is also high elevation, but not nearly as high (we're at 11,500 ft right now). I am definitely coming back here someday.

There is definitely a military presence here, which makes sense given the region. We went right up to the border of Tibet (which really was not even marked in any way at the Pangong Lake) and as far north as foreigners can go, about 100km from the border of Pakistan, in the Nubra Valley. On the pass there and back there were a lot of military vehicles and all of that.

Anyway here are recent group blog posts, in order

Rogue Travel Begins - Nina's post

Varanasi, One Billion Degrees - Hilary's post

Sitting On Top of the World - my post

And stay tuned, Ben is posting an update from our Ladakh crew to the group blog as I type, so it should be there shortly!