"Put the leeches on her!!!"

Sorry bz the waz, if this is superly incoherent, this keyboard is set to Israeli... all the super hardcore people that just come out of the armz are the token backpackers around here, and I[ve got Hebrew stuck all over the kezs! Anzwazs, thats the news for now, Tenzin has invited us to do an 5 hour hike up a mountain today, but I dont think we[re feeling that energetic... instead we[re going to check out the Tibetan Governments building and the Dalai Lama[s residence and nearby Gompa. I bought a beautiful hand painted Tibetan thanka yesterday... I[ve bought up nearly half of Dharamsala so far, but nevermind. This avvo Amelia and I are going for Tabla and Sitar lessons as well, we[re going to start an ironic Western Eastern music band Ë)

Weeeeeell. Because Amelia, Ed and I are super intrepid pro-rambling Lowe Alpine endorsing people (and I don't even own a pair of walking boots, so just don't worry), we decided to walk from McLeod Ganj, to Dharamsala (about 10 km.... people who know how much exercise I do, try not to faint with shock). Anyways, in true comedy style, we got totally lost on this "short cut" that some Indian guys sent us on and ended up blissfully sauntering into an army barracks. Whoops. Then, we wandered down a beautiful valley, strewn with cows contentedly munching on the grass, and two wisened old Indian men, with henna red hair, sat leisurely smoking a hookah. So we toddled down what looked like a track and came across the most amazing thing... several families of monkeys hanging out on the side of the mountain. It was so amazing, Amelia and I scrabbled behind a rock to video them and take some pictures...very David Attenborough BBC 2 Nature-esque. The monkeys were absolutely gorgeous running about, tumbling over each other, furry bodies swinging through the branches and slithering down tree trunks. It really was amazing seeing animals like that in the wild, that normally you're only used to seeing from the comfort of your sofa, Doritos in one hand, remote control in the other. It was very special.

Seeing monkeys and clambering down the hillside and crossing a few narrow rivers all made us feel super confident when we came to a heowge thundering 11 ft wide beast of a river... In my Dorothy Perkins Gola trainers I shouted: "Just don't worry, it's fine guys!"
Ed tentatively stepped forward; "Lets cross here..." before almost tumbling head first over the side of a cliff.
Needless to say, we abandoned that plan to cross a bit further down... before bumping into an Indian guy that gave us the look that we've come to know and love so well: 'What the bloody hell are those crazy Westerners doing?'
After much explaining to us in broken English that it really wasn[t the best plan to try and climb down the side of a gorge when we didn[t actually know where we were going and with mutterings about snakes that "cut the leg"... At which point I totally lost all sense of adventure, we decided against it. I felt a strange sensation on the back of my leg, felt up my trouser and had a leech! A LEECH! attached to the back of my leg... I yelled seventy kinds of blue murder and ripped it off. The man walked away, comforted in the knowledge that we were all clinically insane.