For Mandy & Pat

Abby and I got back from a trek this afternoon. We are still in Leh. We ended up staying for the cultural festival in Kargil where a rural development bureaucrat whose family is Silk Road old money befriended us and (1 sat us on red velveteen couches to our embarrassment at the festival where different tribes/groups wore their traditional costumes and danced their traditional dances (2 took us to four nearby villages at sunset where we got to eat apricots from the trees in the valley and (3 showed us his family's private museum from when the trade routes were open until 1947 (which corresponds with China's closing). He refreshed us with his kindness.

Trekking: went for five days, our two guides/cooks were Sikkimese who merit their own post along with my attempt to climb Stok Kangri. We leave for an 18 hour jeep ride in three hours (departing 2 am) as a part of our indiscriminate program of spending money on some things (turquoise) and not on others (hour long flight to Delhi vs. three days and 30 hours of car rides). I have high hopes to write and post pictures at sometime in the next week but it also includes two full-day bus rides and four separate flight segments. We'll see. Thanks for your love and interest.