Ok, so I think I've actually finalized a plan. I'm thinking that we'll leave around mid-day, and so far, I have Divya, Erez and Tina John coming with to HP/Kashmir. Shekhu said that he'll organize the trip from Shimla considering he's owns a hotel in the travel biz, and that he knows people in the area. Of course, he told me this a week ago, and I reminded him on MSN a couple of days back when he said he'll hook me up with his travel agent friend. Of course, nothing of this has happened. I have two concerns when it comes to Shekhu- one, that he usually talks bigger than he can perform; and the other, that I don't know how much I can trust his agent given his current friend connections.

Shekhu was saying that we should directly fly down to Leh, however, I don't really want to do that because it'll be defeating the purpose of backpacking. The other alternative, which is cheaper, and what I prefer, will be to take the bus into Leh. The problem with this is that the Rohtang pass should be open. This gets snowed in, and typically opens early to mid-may - and so I don't really anticipate it being a problem, but as a backup, there's always Chamba, Manali, Kullu in HP which we can do. But I really would like to do Kashmir.

In the other part of the trip, I'm thinking we I take the train down to UP stopping at Haridwar to see Shiv, and then move on to Banaras, Allahabad, Fatehpur Sikri, Ayodhya and Lucknow. It's probably going to be mad hot, but given that I have 20-ish days, I think it should be possible. Let's see. At least, as of now, I have a skeleton route.