Game Reset & Into the Hind

Leh, Ladakh region, India

 

So I've been quite lately due to mental & physical fatigue and also because I really don't have that much to say.  Hong Kong is Hong Kong, and it doesn't really need me to say anything about it that you can't learn on your own.  Plus, 5 star living at the Peninsula Hotel kind of saps your resolve as it seems as if the Concierge would post for me while I sip gin on the veranda.  Being a Peninsula guest opened many doors for me while I was in HK, particularly the automatic kind when I waved the Peninsula umbrella in front of the sensor. 

 

The only really memorable experience, aside from  eating Lipman's Thousand Year Old Eggs after he chickened out, was walking through a deserted super high tech shopping mall on a Sunday afternoon which was like a new age cyber ghost town.  But since I'm still acclimatizing here in Leh I don't really have the energy to describe it, so I'll leave the apres-postmodern monograph to Jonathan Franzen or Dom Delillo, who can write things in BIG CAPITALIZED PHRASES or important expressions of utmost irony. 

 

I should also send a shout out to my friends (and gracious hosts after the Peninsula ran out of dishes for me to wash) Jayne, Alex & Austin.  While it wasn't the Virginia Woolf-ish spectacle of being marooned in Moron that I happened to share with J on a previous excursion, nonetheless their hospitality was much appreciated.  So--holla, guys. 

 

I don't have much to say about Ladakh or India yet other than that while things here are changing, I imagine that flying Air India biz class is not unlike flying Air India biz class.  My big deal trek and the assault on Stok Kangri (which I can see from the roof of the hotel. It looks...high. But not too high for me) starts tomorrow, but it's a 9 day affair so it's not going to be too rushed.  I'll likely be out of radio contact till then but the pen is mightier than a shitty dial up ladakhi internet connection.