News from McLeod Ganj

Tashi delek and greetings from McLeod Ganj again!

This place rocks. It is absolutely ace! I arrived here two days ago, after a long bus ride from Amritsar. First of all I had to stash my bag on the roof of the bus, chain it to secure it, then we bounced our way out of Amritsar. Strange knocking sounds a few kilometres on, and a couple of panicky passengers (well, they were sat right above the knocking sound) later, and we had our first forced stop. The menfolk got out for the repair - I reckon one person actually fixed it while everybody else watched - then the bus limped to the next town for more repairs. Much banging sounds, and off we went again, and the knocking sounds were definitely gone. And so we bounced our way into the Himalayas. Finally got to Dharamsala after 6.5 hours, in need of food, sleep and an enormous wee! Not that you wanted to know this. A short taxi ride up a series of extremely narrow hairpin bends and we were in McLeod Ganj. Since it was dark, I couldn't hear myself think and people were shoving cards for hotels in my face, I decided to tag along with Sven from Belgium, who was my bus buddy, and we got to a hotel with freezing cold rooms, but for Rs150 only. And a restaurant on top. So we both got a room there and went to have food.

The night, well, was uncomfortable, cause it was absolutely freezing, the hotel had only thin blankets... I got up several times to put more clothes on and vowed to find another guest house in the morning - which I did straightaway. It mght not have a heater, but it has two enormous duvets, and they're soooo warm!

Went for a first exploration session after a tsampa breakfast (essentially Tibetan porridge), though stayed clear of the butter tea for now (they only sell it in huge pots, so have to find a place doing cups of it first to check it out). Signed up for a series of 3 Tibetan cooking classes, and a trial Yoga class.

Then went to the Dalai Lama's residence, whcih is next to the main temple and had a look around there. After circumambulating (great word or what) the temple and turning some prayer wheels to send prayers skywards, I then did the proper Buddhist thing and circumambulated a bit more, namely around the kora, which is a trail leading around the temple, the monastery and the DL's residence. More prayer wheels, prayer flags everywhere, ace... having lifted the spirit, I decided to bring it crashing down straight away and went to the Tibet museum, which documents from eye witness accounts the history of Tibet post-Chinese invasion. Seeing it here is even worse than reading the books and it quite literally had me in tears. Particularly when they stuck the docu about the Dalai Lama and the exiled Tibetans on. I think I wasn't alone though, there was lots of sniffling going on.

So this is part of why you got yesterday's email, it really is such a humbling experience seeing all these devoted people, smiling, happy with their lot, getting on with things and trying to keep their culture and identity going. Speaking of humbling, after dinner I had the pleasure of talking to a monk who was imprisoned by the Chinese for 3-4 years and was tortured to near death. If that's not humbling I don't know what is. And if I never knew what humbling actually means I almost certainly know it now. A remarkable person, he is now travelling all over the world promoting the Tibetan cause. And he's written books about his experience (one of which I had to buy today straight away).

Had my first cooking class this morning, making lovely soup with Tibetan style pasta, yummy, and am going to learn how to make momos tomorrow evening. Also have my first yoga class tomorrow, so am expecting pain.

Went for a nice walk around the Tibetan Children's Village today, am hoping to meet the American guy again I bumped into yesterday - he's teaching computer stuff there, and I might be able to tag along for the day at some point. Wouldn't that be ace...

Anyway, off to dinner now, need my book to be signed... :-)

Greetings,

Monni