hello everyone. its sunday afernoon here and we are now in the old British hill station of Mussoorie, a small quiet tourist town in the foothills of the Himalayas (by tourist I mean middle-class Indian families...still the only white people around). after our last post we had an amazing meal at a fancy restaurant in Dhera Dun (by fancy I mean we payed about $5) but decided to get out of yet another overcrowded crazy noisy polluted city. our friend and savior Sanjeev, after a long visit to our second hotel room with his friend Gideon where we chatted about all kinds of intellectual things in perfect English, sent us here to Mussoorie to his friend's forest resort. this place was the haven we needed and we spent 2 full days relaxing in the quiet, solitude, and clean mountain air. the views would have been superb, not only of the valley below but also of Himalayan peaks, but unfortunately its still monsoon season and at 7,000 feet, we were still inside the cloud. permanently. never saw a thing. this was only slightly dissapointing and we still enjoyed our retreat immensely, despite pulling 50 or so leeches off our legs after a hike. the food was of course excellent and we spent our time reading, writing, painting (kw), napping, learning hindi from our eccentric host Mr. Negi, and showering with buckets of hot water that the staff brought to us from the kitchen. we sipped tea on our private porch and watched the mist and fog and rain devour the ridgeline we sat on. now we are roaming the streets of Mussoorie proper after descending 1,000 feet from our resort, looking at beautiful kashmiri rugs, shawls and saris, teak handicrafts, silver jewelry, etc. our friend Sanjeev is in touch with us every day and constantly planning our next adventure for us, making connections with his friends and cousins in neighborin towns. this is his way of buying time to wait for the rains to end so we can begin our trek to Gangotri, the source of the Ganges River as it exits the Himalayas. So, things are looking up and we can't wait to spend a large portion of our stay in these mountains. We miss you all.

love
thane and kendall