This is Tuesday June 24

We are back in Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir. We have been in Gulmarg for the last five days. It is a beautiful valley where our hosts have a cabin with a fab view and large maountains all around. There is skiing here in the winter and plenty of tourists in the summer. Most are gone by sundown when the place is left to people who have had places here for a long time. It is very close to the Pakastan border so there are soldiers everywhere. I have included some pictures from there. It was the strangest thing because there were monkeys who also come for the summer. The elevation is 7,000 feet above see level and at the top of the ski lift it is 13,500 feet. I took a lot of pics also of places we visited before we went to Gulmarg. The day before we went we drove up into the mountains toward Leh and took horses to a glacier. We saw lots of tribal people and shepherds who are basically nomads. The day before that we went to a ruin called Avantipur which is an anciet ruin that has Buddhist, Greek, and Hindu influence. Bob will tell you more about the ruins later.

Gulmarg: You don't see it all at once. It's more like a series of unfolding light strips, overlays. First the blue and yellow fields of flowers, then the long green of the valley with horses grazing, then the rising forests of fir and pine, above the tree line gray-greeen cliffs, the glacier fields, the cloud-filled crests, only then the sky.

Kolohoi Glacier: It's the kind of day Carrie loves and I really, really love--narrow, twisting roads, steep dropoffs, no guardrails. The rivers rushing off the glacier, huge, gray-green rapids, the roar that you can hear for miles. We finally get to the end of the road and have to go the rest of the way on horseback. I haven't been on a horse for about a thousand years. More on this adventure later.

All in all it has been a very interesting trip. We leave for Leh tomorrow moring where we'll visit Buddhist stuff. I'm really looking forward to it. I wish I could remember the monastery where the monks who performed for Banners are from. We'd look them up. I have warm clothes packed for the trip. We return to Srinagar on June 30. There wasn't an internet cafe in Gulmarg and I'm not sure about Leh. The power has been on and off here so this is our first time to get to a computer. I miss my mother, so everyone who knows her, will you please give her a kiss for me. Thanks to everyone who is taking good care of all our stuff at home.