Also...

A couple of things I forgot to mention in my last blog. When we were driving through the mountains we cleverly drove over a large rock that kicked up underneath the jeep and punctured a leak in the petrol tank. So we all bail out in a hurry before the fumes made us nauseous or it caught fire and burned us alive. As we were waiting I lazily looked at the surrounding foliage when suddenly my eyes narrowd.

"Is that marijuana?" I thought to myself. I crawl over and sure enough it is, growing wild throughout the mountains. Thinking this is a funny stroke of luck I take a photo of the little shrubbery. Proud of my find I straighten up, then I realise the entire freakin mountain is covered in it. There is so much of it growing wild here that locals were hanging their laundry over it to dry. Phenominal I tell you!

Anyway we are called back to the jeep and we are off. Ignorance is bliss because I found out later that they stopped the leak by rubbing soap over the gash, or something like that. It didn't stop our driver from smoking cigarettes the whole way up though.

Then we got to watch the beautiful ballet of baksheesh, (bribe). We were in a jeep meant for 7 people but it had 8. When we reached the checkpoint which was the border for Jammu and Kashmir a seamless sequence of events happened.

1) A passanger jumped out the back of the jeep and walked across the border, which was being guarded by several men with very big and scary guns

2) We are pulled over by the military and the driver exchanges a few choice words with the officer

3) The driver pulls out 50Rs and hands it over, in return he is given a couple of pieces of paper

4) The 8th passenger jumps back in and we drive off

5) We look at the papers expecting to see permits or some such thing, instead it is tickets to the annual policemans ball

I love this country, I really do.

xoxo
Sim