Dharamsala

My train journey from Old Delhi to Chakki Bank was worryingly uneventful. When I arrived, I got a taxi to Mcleod Ganj which took 3 hours, and was through the spectacularly mountainous Kangra valley. On the way I saw monkeys. Lots of monkeys. Like, big troops of monkeys. I'm so excited! I wonder if they'll be my friends? (Apart from the rabid ones, that is.)

The taxi arrived in Dharamsala which is a regular Indian town up in the mountains of Himachal Pradesh. The 'town centre' of Dharamsala is an intimidating intersection of narrow and dangerously overcrowded roads. At this junction, the driver curiously choose to drive up an extremely steep and narrow side-track which looked like the driveway to someone's house.

Unfortunately, it wasn't anybody's driveway, it's the main road to Mcleod Ganj. This 'main road' is a crumbling farm track with a set of extremely sharp inclines and cliff edges. Despite this, it's full of motorbikes, jeeps and taxi-vans, all arrogantly hurrying its rapid decay (see photo left).

Half way up the track the traffic became intensely congested and degenerated into a gridlock of horn-blowing. It was at this point that the taxi driver stopped the car and told me I was at my new home.