Maldives politics in the Himalaya

Just back from an outing from Solang Nulla, some 20km up the mountains, north of Manali. I took the local bus which cost 10 Rupees each way, excellent value for money for a scenic ride in the valley. There's a beautiful meadow up in Solang Nulla, which was full of amateur paragliders. In the winter, the meadow serves as a ski slope. I expected Julie Andrews to run up the hill any minute and burst into "The hills are alive..."

I met an elderly American woman who'd walked all the way up to Solang Nulla from Manali with a youth, a Tibetan refugee from Dharamsala. Dharamsala sees hordes of refugees fleeing from persecution in their homeland of Tibet, now under Chinese rule, and their culture now survives mostly in exile.

Then there were the two children, a boy and a girl 8 or 9 years old, who rode on the bus back to Manali. They'd been trying to sell frozen packets of a sugary drink, a bit like "juicepeti" in the Maldives, to tourists at Solang Nulla. They didn't sell much but that didn't dampen their spirits as they sang their way back to Manali.

These are hardy people, these mountain people of Himachal.

Earlier today, I browsed some of the Maldives websites and discovered that there's been another crackdown on dissent in Addu. I know that even as I sample spectacular mountain scenery in the Himalaya, many brave Maldivian men and women are fighting for basic rights such as the freedom of assembly. Indeed, I know that visitors to this blog are also involved in the struggle and although I'm not part of it, I do send them my best wishes from up here in the Himalaya.