On the road from Jammu to Srinagar. This is the bit where the Indian tectonic plate hits the Eurasian plate and starts to push up the Himalayas.

Srinagar is the main town in the hilly bit of Kashmir.

Srinagar is built on the shores of Dahl lake, and a houseboat on the lake provided us with pleasant accommodation for a week or so. I presume that this harvested vegetation is used for fertilising the market gardens around the town.

I took a boat out for a paddle one morning and found this scene.

A scene from a walk from Pahalgam to the Kolahoi glacier and back.

On the Kolahoi glacier walk we met a small group of people and horses winding their way up from a very steep valley.

On the way back to Pahalgam from the Kolahoi glacier.

The road from Srinagar to Leh was blocked by military roadblocks at various points. It's a fairly contentious part of the world, and India has clashed with both Pakistan and China in this area. Fortunately, things were quiet when I was there, but the road was temporarily blocked at this point for a few hours on the trip to Leh.

While Srinagar and Leh are both in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, the scenery and culture are totally different at each end of the road. Leh, in Ladakh, is on the Tibetan plateau, in the rainshadow of the Himalayas and has a predominantly Buddhist culture.

A gompa is a Buddhist monastery. The Thikse gompa is set on a hilltop outside Leh, and it's an impressive sight.

To get back to Srinagar we got a ride with one of these trucks. As with the bus trip on the way up, the road was closed for a few hours at one point, but as soon as the road was reopened, all the trucks took off in a swirl of dust and diesel smoke.

Dharamsala, in Himachal Pradesh, is where many Tibetan refugees fled after the Chinese invaded Tibet in 1959. The Dalai Lama lives here.

Jodhpur, in Rajasthan, has a spectacular fort on a hilltop in the middle of the city.

From atop a camel near the Rajasthan town of Jaisalmer.

Tourist and lens flare in the deserts of Rajasthan.

Leh is the largest town in Ladakh, a section of the Tibetan Plateau and, as far as I know, is currently part of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. Although it's governed by India, it's unlike the rest of the country in most respects - it's on the dry side of the Himalaya for starters and the culture is predominantly Buddhist.

Matthew (nearest the camera) and David were my main traveling companions during my 1987 trip to India. At this point we'd finished the northern part of our trip around Kashmir, Ladakh and Himachal Pradesh, and were heading back down the very windy railway towards Chandigarh.