McLeod Ganj

In the morning, Saturday the 3rd, I woke up to find the weather very gloomy and overcast, but seeing the first glimpse of the Himalaya's was still nice. The roads were extremely narrow and the bus climbed up the windy path with deep gorges falling off to the sides. At one stage the road made such a serious curve, there was a sign that said "Dead Slow" and the bus really did take that turn inch by inch. But overall, I did not find it as scary as people made it out to be.
In Dharamsala, we had to change bus for the last 10 km stretch (4km by foot, but the road is longer because of the steep incline). When I got to the bus stand, which is basically the town square and is no bigger than the floorspace of a small restaurant, I started phoning all the hotels mentioned in the lonely planet looking for a room, but as expected everything was full.

Because checkout was only around noon, I started walking through town and the first thing I did was register for the teachings. I am glad I did, because as the day progressed the queue only got longer and longer. When I registered I asked how much it was and the guy said five, so I pulled out Rs 500. No, it was Rs 5. They could make so much more money, but they are a very honest people!!!
The teachings started on Saturday, but the official start was only on Sunday, so I had not really missed anything.
I then found a place for learning Tibetan cooking. On the menu for that evening's course was Momo's. I had never had them but had heard lots about them, so I registered for the course. I also found lots and lots of nice things I could buy... hmmm, pity about that weight limit... I am trying to make plans how I can increase the size of the single luggage item I can carry on with me :-)

After having some breakfast just before noon, I started searching for available rooms and eventually found a room for Rs 600, but I wanted to see other options. I walked to the next town, Bhagsu, 2 km away, and found rooms available there for Rs 400 with TV, but I did not like the place very much, so I went back to McLeod Ganj. By the time I got back that room for Rs 600 was taken. Damn, I could have kicked myself!!! Eventually I got a room at the Hotel Tibet for Rs 810, but it is a deluxe room normally going for Rs 990. They gave me a 20% discount. It had been a long search and I needed a rest and watched some TV.

In the late afternoon, I headed out into the freezing cold. People are walking around with blankets draped around them and warm jackets etc and so far all I have is my windbraker... At least I have a nice room and warm water... the cheaper rooms do not have hot water and I am willing to pay the extra money for that commodity :-).

At 5pm I went to Lhamo's kitchen for the cooking course. We made 3 kinds of tibetan momo's: veg, spinach & cheese and sweet momo's. We used three different designs in the dough to identify which were which, and teaching us how to create these designs took most of the time, but it was good because it was much more hands on training than Tina's courses were.
They were my first taste of momo's and they were devine. I was later to find out that they were much better than the ones one could buy at the street side stalls.
What was also nice was that Lhamo gave us a glimpse into his life... he was born in Tibet and escaped over the Himalaya's when he was 9 or 13 (I forgot). He is now 29 and has not seen his mother since except that he got a note from her last year that she is fine. A cousin of his escaped last year and Lhamo is looking after him now. In India, they cannot get citizenship and they remain refugee's and therefore cannot open their own businesses in India, and because they never get a passport, can not return to Tibet.

Unfortunately the quantity of food that we prepared did not fill my tummy... and later that evening I was overcome with cravings again and I gave into them and I ended up buying 5 different chocolates and ate them while watching TV.

Sunday
The next morning I got up around ten past seven. It was a beautiful day with the sun shining... no more overcast skies!!! It was going to be like this for the rest of my stay and it really warmed up, so I was glad.
I was told to be at the teachings at eight because it is so packed. The teachings are from 9:30 to 11:30 and again from 13:00 to 15:30. I bought some banana's for breakfast on the way down to the Tsuglagkhang complex where the teachings are being held, and I found a transistor radio with earphones and batteries for Rs 170. Could have got it cheaper, but as unprepared as I was, I had to pay the extra Rs 50. On the way in, there are seperate cues for the public, the monks and nuns and foreigners. The foreigner queue was split into male and female because we were all searched very thoroughly. We are not allowed to take in any cell phones or cameras. The guy actually turned on my radio to ensure that it was really a radio. Impressive!!!
I remember that at the railway stations, before getting on the platforms you have to walk through a metal detector (with your bags), but because there are so many people, the guards just let everybody walk through and the metal detector is constantly beeping...

I was lucky I got a very good place in the courtyard, because I only got in around 8:50. At first I was right at the back but right on the walkway where the Dalai Lama walked from his residence to the central chapel where he would sit and teach. The first time I saw him I was struck by how joyous and happy he seemed to be. After he had walked through, the security removed the security tape and some of us could move onto the walkway, which meant I moved right into the centre and sat on the red carpet... Yes, I was also unprepared in that respect because I had no cushion to sit on. The things people are allowed to bring to the teachins are a mug (they serve tea during the teachings), a blanket and cushion, food, hat, umbrella and a radio with earphones. The monks then came in with huge baskets full of rolls and started distributing these and then started walking around serving tea.

The teachings always start and end with Tibetan chants / prayers. Then the Dalai Lama started teaching. He said that even though he had covered the introduction to buddhism the day before, there were many people who had not been there, so he covered it again.
His teachings cover two texts, namely, "A guide to the Boddhisattva way of life" by Shantideva and translated by Steven Bachelor, and "The essence of superfine gold" written by the 3rd Dalai Lama. It is quite complicated material for the uninitiated like myself :-).
He spoke about how important education is and then he went on saying that our minds fool us into thinking that we have an independant existence, and he tried to inspire us to develop the wisdom to understand this incorrect view and that there is no absolute independant existence. We are all connected and there are infinite number of contributing factors to each and every event.

It was also nice that he used personal experiences which were quite humerous while teaching, for example telling us about his travels to the west and an air-hostess swatted a mosquito in front of him as a pure reaction and then felt very guilty and told him that she would never kill another mosquito.

I went to the afternoon teaching session as well and in the evening after having a rest I walked up to Dharamkot, the next village up a very steep incline. I eventually found the Tushita meditation centre where an australian woman who was a buddhist gave a review of the days teachings.

Monday
On Monday my mood was not very good. I suspected it was because I had no plan for the rest of the week and because my body was missing the daily yoga practice. I did not attend the teachings, but did some window shopping. There is so much on offer here in terms of souvenirs: books, shawls made from yak wool, jackets and blankets made from wool, shirts, skirts, traditional jewellery, wall hangings with quotations from the Dalai Lama, music CD's of tibetan chants and DVD's of the Tibetan struggle and other stories or documentaries, embroidered bags that the buddhist monks use, tangka's (see glossary on right), note books made from re-cycled pater and the list carries on.

My cravings continued and today it was baked cake and pastries. There are many places selling sweet tibetan bread, all different kinds of cake and pastries and as I have not even seen any of this in five weeks it was too much to resist. I must have had about five pieces of cake during the day.
I also went in search of a place I could practice my yoga, but the yoga instructors all seem to be out of town during the teachings (I found out where they were later... see next post). I also looked at doing some karma yoga, ie: volunteering, while I was here, but I was told that the computer classes and english conversation classes were not running during the teachings. (There are different types of yoga, jana yoga, karma yoga, hatha yoga, raj yoga etc, which I will explain more in my final post).

I ended up doing half an hour of yoga, to the beginning of the seated poses in my hotel room... (I realised how dirty the floor is :-)) and this helped both my mood and my spine, which felt a lot better after the exercise.
I also came up with a plan for the rest of the week, which is to go to Rishikesh, which calls itself the yoga capital of the world. So now I had done some exercise and I had a plan and I felt a lot better.

As mentioned earlier, we were not allowed to take in any cameras during the teachings, so I waited until after the teachings were finished in the afternoon and then walked in and took a photograph, which is why there is a photograph of the teachings available on my web album.

At five pm I went to the cooking class with Lamo again and we made Mokthup and Tenthuk soup. I was disappointed because I was going to come on Tuesday to make tibetan bread, but Lhamo was not able to do that class.
The soup was good and easy to make. This time Lhamo told us a little more about the culture and customs of the Tibetan people. Usually a family will live together and each has got a duty so sometimes one brother will leave for 3 months to look after the animals in the mountains, but they remain a family unit and when one brother takes a wife, the other brothers usually share that wife. It is uncommon for a brother to then choose another wife for himself as this would mean he would not live together with his brothers... anyway, that is how Lhamo explained it to us.

In the evening I met Ori, an Israeli tourist who told me that he had attended the review of the day's teachings, which were now not held at the Tushita meditation centre anymore, but were being done by the monk who was doing the english translation of the teachings and it was held at the temple itself. So I made sure that I would attend that the next day.

Tuesday
In the morning I attended the teachings again, and in the afternoon I made an excursion to the waterfall in Bhagsu. Afterwards I went to the Himalayan Yoga centre where I had organised the day before that I could practice by myself. It was nice because the view from the window was onto the mountains. But my practice was slow and I took lots of breaks. I do not know if this was because of the altitude (approximately 1800 m above sea level) or because I was practicing alone.

Later I went to the review of the day's teachings, which was interesting.
He spoke about favourable rebirths (precious humban birth) in samsara (the cycle of reincarnation or rebirth) and performing the 10 virtuous actions and abandoning the 10 non-virtuous actions to gain liberation from samsara.
He also discussed that the goal of enlightenment should not be for oneself, but for the benefit of all other sentient beings, and how to cultivate the boddhicitta (the wish to become buddha to benefit all other sentient beings).
He also defined love as being the wish to give happiness to others and compassion as the wish to remove suffering from all other beings.

Afterwards I would have liked to see a tibetan movie, but unfortunately the one cinema (part of a tiny little restaurant) was not showing anything and the other one was showing something I had no interest in.
I ended up eating at the Japanese restaurant Lung Ta, where I met a french canadian yoga teacher and I had an interesting discussion with him.

Wednesday
I woke up early on Wednesday and bought some tibetean bread from the street side vendors. Previous mornings I was not up early enough to see them.
I then went for a walk towards Dal Lake through the forest. I have blisters on my feet from all the walking I have been doing around town, but it is good to get the exercise and this walk was beautiful.

I then had some breakfast and purchased my bus ticket to Rishikesh (Rs 470) for 17:30 from Dharamsala.
Then I got down to some real shopping. I did not worry about the consequences to the weight of my bags and had decided to throw away some of my clothes to make sure I can fit everything. :-) I then went to the hotel to pack and check out.
In the afternoon I walked back towards Dal Lake because the lighting in the morning was not that good and I wanted to take some better photographs.

I then had a quick bite to eat before getting a jeep ride down to Dharamsala. The driver threw my backpack onto the roof as there was no space in the jeep... we were packed in there like sardines. On the way down I was constantly checking if my backpack was not thrown off the roof with inertia as it was not tied down and the driver was screaming through the sharp corners.

New adventures

Yesterday, Thursday, I went to practice early. The shala was getting emptier every day. I did not expect anything from my practice, but it ended up being really good again... I bound Marichyasana D on my right side and I bound Supta Kurmasana again... so all in all I have had a great week of practice.
I think I have pushing Supta Kurmasana a little too hard because my lower back is being stretched forward to its limits and is a little tender.
The weather has been warming up the last few days and I have been perspiring more than my first week in Mysore, even though I was practicing earlier, around 6 am. In guruji's shala, the mornings are for westerners and the indians (there are very few) train in the afternoon, and they must be suffering...

After practice I had coconut jelly outside the shala where we normally all meet and chat for a little after practice. I thought I would just tell you a little about the coconuts here...
When you order a coconut, you have to tell the "coconut man" whether you want juice only or jelly. He then determines by the slight difference in sound the coconut makes when he taps it which one is only juice or if it is a little older and has started solidifying. He then chops off the end of the coconut and hands it to you with a straw to drink the juice out. If you ordered jelly, you hand him back the coconut and he chops off a sliver of the green outer layer, which you will use as a spoon and he chops the coconut in half, so you can scoop out the jelly and eat it.
Indians use the entire coconut tree... the leaves are used as plates and to make roofs, the trunk is building material and fire wood, and the young coconut fruit is juice and the shell is dried and used as fuel for fires. If the coconut is not used while still young it turns to jelly or the hard coconut, which is used in food and as garnishing food. Once the coconut is really old and completely hard, the inside is cold pressed and coconut oil is made from it. Also the hard brown shell is used to make spoons and lately arts and crafts too.

I then went to Tina's to say goodbye to everyone and Tina was packed some fenugreek roti's with tomato chutney for me to eat on the train... Leena was there as well and she had finished her panchakarma ayurvedic detoxification treatment. She has been quite down the last few days and yesterday she fainted twice and she think her nose is broken. Tina was saying that panchakarma should only be used as a last resort, but this doctor is prescribing it to every single Yogi who is coming to him...

I then had to return my mattress and scooter to Randy and pick up my yoga rug which I had embroidered... It was late because there was a power cut the day before... something you have to expect in India... I have even read in the newspaper that they want to shorten the business hours (go on until 21:30 or 22:00 and are closed around 12 to 4:30) in some cities to take the pressure off the electricity grids.

On the way to the railway station (if you ask for the train station they don't know what you mean) I picked up the pants I had tailored. I got to the train station half an hour early. I had bought a second class ticket on the Tippy express to Bangalore for Rs 70. At the airport I met Michael who was on the same flight (unbeknown to both of us until then) and he had come by taxi for Rs 1,500.
The train took about 3 hours to do the 135 km journey and the last few kilometres were excruciatingly slow considering I still had to go to the airport for my flight at 4pm. The train arrived at 14:15. As soon as I got off the platforms, I was harassed by taxi touts and offered rides to the airport for Rs 280 to 450. I really don't like tourists that pay without finding out what the locals pay because it is cheap in their currency and it is convenient. That is the cause of the harassment for others and the cause that tourists get ripped off. I went to the info booth and found out where I can get pre-paid taxi's and paid Rs 85. My rickshaw driver, Harish, was very nice and friendly and apologized on the way for having to get petrol as he knew I was in a rush. I got to the airport at 15:15 only to find out that the flight was delayed by 2 hours. Well that mean that I was not going to be able to get onto the bus to McLeod Ganj and I had to spend last night in Delhi.
Btw, my backpack was packed to the brim and weighed just under 20 kg and my daypack (hand luggage weighed another 10 kg. It contains the books I did not ship (package limit of 5 kg). When I left SA it all weighed around 12 kg.

While driving through Bangalore, I saw many signs advertising the coming of Amma to Bangalore on the 4th and 5th of March, just as I had seen in Mysore for the 1st and 2nd of March.

The flight with Jet Airways was very good again and the food delicious. I had the non-veg option again, chickpeas in gravy with potato patties. There was also a little packet named "After Eight", which I assumed would be chocolate, but this turned out to be a mixture of some seeds, but mainly aniseed, to freshen the mouth. It was good though.
Even though I had been sitting for most of the day, I was extremely exhausted and did not have the energy to get up to get my Lonely Planet guide and read up on Delhi, knowing that I would have to spend the night there. I was even thinking of spoiling myself and going to an expensive hotel in Delhi.

After the three hour flight, I found some energy and started informing myself of options. I phoned a few budget hotels in the Tibetan colony and was told that they were fully booked, or the telephone informed me that the number (from the lonely planet guide) did not exist. The number of the hotel that I finally got in the Paharganj area (described as a seedy area "due to its reputation for drugs and shady characters" in the lonely planet) worked on one phone, but when I phoned back on another phone it said the number did not exist, so I had to use the phone I originally got through on and it worked... very strange!!!

As I said in one of my first posts, on my first trip to India ten years ago, I had the worst culture shock I have ever experienced in all my travels and I got very stressed and aggressive. On that trip I only traveled through the north of India. On this trip I have been to the south so far and I have loved it so far. Now I was back in the north and people have been telling me that the north is far harder to travel in than the south, so I am expecting the worst.
I got a bus to the New Delhi train station for Rs 50 and then after having more attempts made at ripping me off by rickshaw drivers (like telling me that the hotel is already closed, so they can take me somewhere else and get commission) I decided to use my map and walk the last few hundred metres to the hotel using my map. A taxi would have been more convenient but a lot more expensive.

I finally got into my room around midnight. The room had a TV and cost Rs 250. I have not had a TV in 5 weeks... It is amazing how quickly we fall into old habits... I fell asleep with the TV on :-)
Delhi is a lot colder than the south of India was. The night was cold and required blankets. I also realized that I have strained my lower back, which was already saw from overstretching it, when I picked up my backpack to get onto the bus. I was considering finding a yoga shala for today but have decided to rest.

In the morning I went in search of food and walked around Paharganj... Vendors were starting to open their stores and I was in danger of buying more stuff!!! Delhi is extremely cheap. You can pick up a pair of shorts with pockets and beltloops etc for about five Rand or less if you bargain.
On the breakfast menu I could not find any idli's or dosas anymore... The south of India is the rice bowl of India and the north of India is the bread basket. Tina said that that is why the north has got all the big brawny indians and the south has got the intelligent indians :-)

I then went to the internet cafe and started writing this post, because I was not yet ready to tackle the nasty world out there. I had to rewrite this post 3 times because of the internet connection dropping, or computer rebooting unexpectedly... Other than this particular experience, my experience of the Indian broadband services has been excellent.

I then finally headed to the Inter State Bus Terminal (ISBT) near the old Delhi railway station. I wanted to experience the life and vibe on the streets so I decided to walk instead of take a rickshaw. On the way I found the Metro , which I had read about. It only became operational a little over 2 years ago. It has 3 operational lines now and it uses a disk system. You can buy a card for Rs 170 of which Rs 100 is refunded for a day pass. Otherwise you have to pay for every trip. I paid Rs 8 to go 3 or 4 stations on the same line. It goes up to about Rs 30 I think. After you bought the disk, you enter by swiping the disk, then when you arrive at the destination, you have to swipe the disk again to get out and drop the disk into the system. The metro train was absolutely packed every time I used it and I never had to waid for longer than a minute for the next train... and the station was quite clean considering the amount of people going through it and compared to the streets!!!

At the Kashmere station, which is also the old Delhi railway station and the ISBT, there was a McDonalds serving Chicken Maharaja Mac, Paneer (cheese) Salsa Wrap, McAloo (Potato) Tikki Burger, and Veg Surprise Burgers. The meals were about Rs 62. I held back the urge to taste the veg surprise.

I bought myself a ticket on the Deluxe Air Conditioned Bus (there is also another deluxe bus without AC) for Rs 800 to McLeod Ganj, because I wanted the safest and best bus, which left at 8pm that evening.
I then walked back to the hotel through Old Delhi, past the red fort and Jama Masjid, places I had visited on my first trip to India. Here is a snippet of Chandni Chowk, one of the main streets through Old Delhi. In the background is the old fort. There are 3 churches on the right hand side of the road, a Jain temple, a Hindu temple and a Sikh temple. The streets are extremely noisy because the culture is hooting to let people know you are coming instead of relying on them to watch out for you.




Here is another link to the main bazaar road in the Paharganj area where my hotel is, and here is one of street side vendors making jalebi, which is very unhealthy too, but I liked it.

At 6pm I got my bags from the hotel and headed back to the ISBT, which was absolute chaos. I had to wait because I arrived early and there are lots and lots of food stalls around and I finally gave into my cravings and bought 4 packets of biscuits and chips. The chips were "Lays" and the flavour was "Magic Masala". Everything you buy in India is marked with either a green dot or a red dot, signifying vegetarian or not.
I then had to search for the bus, which was not near any platform, because there were so many buses. We finally left just after 8pm. I had moved seats because the women sitting next to me was sick and I did not want to catch her cold. Luckily there were extra seats in the bus. Most people in the bus were on the way to the McLeod Ganj for the teachings and there were quite a few monks on the bus. People were coming from all over the world. The lady who I mentioned just now came from Darjeeling.

I thought I would never get any sleep because of all the hooting by the bus driver, but luckily this died down to a more acceptable level as we got out of town and onto the highway. At around ten o'clock, we made a pit stop. It was a themed place called Haveli, meaning fortress in Punjab. I was feeling ill from all the biscuits I had eaten but decided to try to eat something. The food was not that great, but after the meal I got served, what we would consider mints. See the picture on the right. It is jaggery (raw sugar), misry (which looks like sugar, tastes sweet but is not sugar) and then aniseed.
I was lucky because the man who sat next to me got off sometime during the night and I had both seats to myself, and I got some sleep.