Festival time in Kullu!

Naggar is a lovely village and we stayed in a rather cosy guesthouse with a glorious rooftop restaurant, great food, great company of four irish tourists, a dutch travel writer, a german biker and our host, Manuj. Ate our dinner by firelight on the roof watching shooting stars.

Visited Roerich's museum and gallery - and bought some terrible postcard copies of his work - which we;ve sent to some of you :-) The old house was beautifully preserved and the museum had lots of Himachel, Ladakhi, Russian and Tibetan artefacts.

We've also been to the first day of the festival of Dessehra with hundreds and hundreds of gods descending from the mountain villages with their trumpeting drum playing support cast. They descend into Kullu, which was like Glastonbury had come to India. Tents and foodstalls and crowds everywhere. The children had a ball although I did think we might all die when they talked us into going on the shadiest looking ferris wheel I've ever seen. Our carriage was only half attached (we realised as we reached the top). I prayed that Shiva would not destroy us on a lovely day like this!

In the evening, Manuj took us to his family's house in Kullu. We watched fireworks in the valley and they made us a simple but lovely thali dinner, while the children played basketball and Pokemon (the great unifier of young boys from across continents it seems).