Out of Leh, onto Agra!
So we finally left Leh. After hearing about how the road might be open “in a day or two” for 5 days and after reading this article about all of the landslides we finally bought airplane tickets. The last rumor we heard was that it might be another five days till they clear the road so I’m pretty happy with the choice.
One great thing about the road being closed is that we made a lot of new friends. Leh is a pretty small place and as it was way after the tourist season, you tended to see the same people over and over again. My last two nights in Leh consisted of interesting conversations, a little bit of beer and a lot of yummy food. It made waiting around pretty nice. Plus I might meet up with of of these fellow travelors in Rahjistan since Kevin already went there for some reason and we will be parting ways.
Today was a day of travel. I flew out of Leh at 7:20 am, while Kevin chose the cheeper route of taking a 12 hr overnight jeep ride to Shrinegar and flying out of there this morning. Once Kevin and I found each other again, we headed to the train station and rode general class on the train to Agra. I’ve never had so many people staring at me for so long in my life. It was a little disconcerting and when Kevin leaves for Nepal at the end of the week, I think I’ll be traveling in the ‘ladies only’ section of the train. There were a lot of questions about Kevin’s ‘wife’ (haha, I know. I almost laughed out loud at that) and anytime I looked up from my book it was to find 6 or 7 pairs of eyes staring at me. We were sitting up on the luggage rack so at least we got to sit for the 4 or 5 hours (though people kept poking at me through the grill >( ). I guess I was a bit of a novelity.
Tomorrow we are going to hopefully see the Red Fort (as the Taj is closed on Fridays!) and then the Taj on Saturday and then a overnight train to Veranasi. We have abandoned our original plans not only because of the delay in leaving Leh, but the amazing amount of natural disasters in the areas we were planning on going to. The Spiti valley had an unexpected and early snow fall, which required the Dalai Lama’s second to be airlifted out of the area. The Leh/Manali area is suffereing from landslides that have resulted in at least 6 known deaths (though people are still stranded on the roads so this will most likely go up). And Shimla has had major flooding and over 40 deaths. It’s pretty crazy! But no worries, Kevin and I have been perfectly safe, if not a little stir-crazy stuck up in the mountains.
So that is all for now. In case you cared, I’ve read the following books since I came last week: The Left Hand of Darkness, Seven Years in Tibet, Fearless Fourteen, and The Fifth Mountain. I’m starting A 1,000 Splendid Suns tonight. I imagine with all the train rides this list will get pretty long!
