To the Ends of the Earth, Literally: the Survival Story (Cont'd)

Thank you for joining the next edition of the Survival Story....

1. if you are just now joining us - please read the entry below this one first....
2. if you are overwhelmed by the amount of text written.... enjoy the pics and see haley's blog for the cliff-notes.
3. if you are anxiously waiting to read more and were disappointed by the "to be continued" part of the original blog entry .... you are probably my mom. =) love you!
4. Enjoy.

The Saga continues....

After the 7km hike, we reached a place pronounced "Poooh". you can't make this stuff up! Please prepare yourself for the cheesey jokes that are to come and pity Haley for those she had to endure....

Well i must say we felt like we were in a lot of "poooh" trying to get out of poooh. Our national friend pointed out to us that there were two parts of Poooh....Old Poooh and New Poooh. He lives in old poooh. (I hope you realize and can imagine the amount of restraint that went into listening to him during this conversation) After hanging out a while by the road, we finally got a taxi and shared it with many people along the way. Our first friend is pictured below... i couldn't even pronounce her name little lone spell it so i will just call her "sally". I don't really think she looks like a sally, but it will have to do.... She was all smiles until Haley snapped the pic then serious face.. followed by smiles and giggles after she took it. I just don't get it.

***Side note for my dad.... if you will notice a certain article of jewelry placed strategically in her nose... Then i want you to remember how small my nose pin is in comparison.... Ok, so now i want you to thank the Lrd that HE did not put me in her village where i would be tempted to blend in with her culture... and then tell me how much you like the small stud that i wear... That is all i will say about that.... =)****

We traveled with all sorts of people in our car - village ladies with their buckets of delicious plums, old men with their Himachali apples, educated and uneducated, army people, etc. You never knew who was going to flag you down and join in the party.

This was probably the best part of the drive when the pine covered trees started dispersing and the the terrain started becoming more rocky as we climbed higher and higher into the heavens.

Here are some window shots...

We finally reached Okan* Lake where apparently the Dalai Lama visited the month before. There wasn't much to the place but the landscape was really beautiful. We were feeling a bit hungry so we stopped at this one restaurant and waited for about 20 min before we finally flagged someone down who told us they had no food.... so we went to the bottom of the hill where 2 restaurants/hotels were and asked for food and toilets - they had neither. No food. no toilet. at a hotel with a restaurant..... what kind of town is this?? seriously.

then we went to the next dot in the road - they had momos!! yumm. but no toilet. sad. Us mountain gals have no prob just stopping and finding a bush somewhere.... however the terrain had changed so that there were no "strategic" places to go. So then we arrive at our next police checkpoint to show our permits - we make friends with the policeman guy and he lets us use their toilet - i have never been so happy to see a squatty in my life! It didn't have running water but it had a door and that's all that mattered!

To Be continued....