Third entry

The sickness

Around six days ago (today is Monday) Lana fell sick with a case of Delhi Belhi. Delhi Belhi is a sickness in which a traveller who is unused to the spices and sauces of Delhi falls sick with TD (Travellers Diahorrehea). TD involves nausea, vomiting, stomach pains and sleepless nights. The first incident occurred on a 12 hour bus trip to our first destination in India, McLeodGanj. These infamous bus trips are known for their drunk/high/loose drivers, windy, bumpy, loud, stench filled roads, uncomfortable 25 degree reclining chairs, noisy fans, 3 hour interval stops and horrible diner destinations (where the restaurant pays a commission to the drivers for the tourist revenue). About an hour into the bus trip I needed to go to the toilet, a number one to be precise. I really needed to go, and I couldn’t as the bus rarely stops for anyone. So I made an attempt at peeing into an empty water bottle. My attempt, was a swing and a miss as it’s hard to “let it go”, especially when the road resembles something out of a pre-urbanised Texan town. I set it to the side of my mind and clenched my water bottle. This soon became the least of our problems. Lana had laughed at my incident earlier but then, within the space of about two minutes Lana started to feel sick as if she was going to throw up. Though Lana did not throw up, she kept it down. Her decision to do so meant that it had to come out the other end, and the bus was not stopping. Almost as soon as I’d seen Lana keep her self together, she told me that her stomach was turning over. Then, all of a sudden she uttered “Oh, I need to go”

“Can you hold on? The driver said he’d stop in 10 minutes” I replied

“No,no,no,no,no,no,no. I’m going to go, get me something, get me something”
I searched frantically, the only thing I could find was my favourite purple beanie. Now, my favourite purple beanie is no longer, it went straight out the window. Once the episode was over Lana kept herself together until the first stop which was in fact two hours, not the ten minutes we had previously been told, I personally don’t think she could have waited two more hours. The stop, was the same stop that the bus had used when I used to catch this bus, Lana didn’t eat. She did change her pants in the toilet though. Nine hours later we arrived safely in McleodGanj and established a base. She’s going to kill me when she finds out I posted this, so please enjoy it.

McLeodGanj

We came here to celebrate the Tibetan Children’s Villages (TCV) 50^th anniversary, originally. We’ve now been here for a week, or so. With no real plans of leaving soon, McleodGanj is the town/hill station for the Tibetan government in exile www.tibet.com/. It’s a retreat in the foothills of the Himalaya, a tourist hub, I taught English in a secluded monastery (Kirti monastery) at the bottom end of the town in 2008. There are meditation retreats, Yoga institutes, volunteer programs and organisation all over the town. It’s an activists dream. There are now café’s with wifi, one of which I’m currently sitting at, downloading skype; pretty good, yourself? The town is littered with small western eateries such as Nicks Italian Restaurant, Moonpeak Espresso, Coffee talk, Café Coffee Day, Family Pizza Restaurant etc. Only the products of these small eateries are cheaper than you can imagine, and are considered expensive my Indian standards, 80 cents for a coffee, 90 cents for a cake slice, $1-$2 for a hearty breakfast with your choice of Spanish omlette, banana bread, home made brown bread to Chicken salad’s. The mountain town relies on tourist revenue, there are Kashmir emporiums, Tibetan souvenier shops and Indian Trinket stalls throughout the town. You can see the Himalaya daunting their presence over the town on any roof top café, from less urbanised parts of the town, or from your average walking trail. There are treks that circle around glacial lakes, through tribal villages and over passes that reach up to 4500metres. 5000 metres peaks surround the town and 6000 metre peaks beyond that, reality strikes hard here.

We stayed in a small guest house off the main road for the first 5 or 6 days and took part in a number of community namesakes, non-violence orginastion meetings, awareness forums, Tibet awareness movie screenings and fundraising parties. I’ve visited my old monk students and have seen a number of old friends around the town. Most locals and friends couldn’t believe I had actually come back and were overly “stoked” to see me. We’ve met some incredible people here, the kinds of real people you only meet at destinations such as this one. Living here amongst the Tibetans is a step back from India, a peaceful people to exist with. We have since moved up to Dharamkot, the last small town before the Himalaya really begin. Our room looks over the Valley that we were staying in, we are paying 150 r/s per night between us, that’s $1.75 per night each and it’s actually quite nice and oh so quiet.  

Second Entry

Completely on it

To be so, is to have entire balance in a moment. Regardless of what resides in that moment, I believe. Through my ups, uncertainties, downs, breakthroughs, journeys, my moments. I will be writing, articulating, analysing and searching through to you, my blog. 

Suppresion

Too many thoughts are suppressed due to the society and the people that we live amongst. I say this because of a young Tibetan man I met in Delhi. Lana and I chose to have a Limca at a café named “Fat Yak” where we met owner Tenzin. Who consequently changed our path in India, we were originally going into Rajastahn. Currently, we are in McLeodGanj where I taught English. We’re here because we found out from Tenzin that the Tibetan’s childrens village are celebrating their 50^th anniversary. After a slow introduction of personalities we found out that Tenzin was 28 years old and has dreams of travelling the world. Though, his family life does not allow him to do so. We eventually began talking about religion, status and comparatively, western and third world societies. We ended up on the topic of his father, whom used to be a monk. Tenzin believes that “ Even though the Dalai Llama is a great man, I do not call him god” where as his parents and most monks respect him as a God/Deity. Tenzin does not disrespect the Dalai Llama but chooses to respect him merely as an amazing being. In a non religious, but spiritual sense. Tenzin and I were not only reading from the same page but were trailing on the same line. His thoughts, when spoken to me we’re whispered, as they are not tolerated by his family and he would be shunned if he shut out the idea of a “god” even in a Buddhist sense. In his whispers I could see his suppressed being, a wry thing to observe. A disconnection from the self due to a non-tolerance or non-acceptance of different idealogies, most of us have experienced this, first hand.

Dharamsala has welcomed us

Tenzin, the Tibetan Cafe owner told us of the Tibetan Children’s village 50^th anniversary that’s happening this weekend and an assortment of other wonderful performances/celebrations that are happening throughout the day. Since making the decision to come here, Dharamsala has welcomed us. Dharamsala or Mcleodganj is where I used to teach English. Our good friend Dolma Tsering (former Miss Tibet as I only recently found out) who had been helping us a great amount in Delhi decided to catch one of the 12 hour 6:30pm buses up north with us. She was to perform in a Tibetan fashion show and sing one or two of her newly recorded Traditional Tibetan songs.  Upon arriving in Dharamsala we visited an old friend of mine, Kalsang who works at Tibet Tours Travels, one of many local travel agents. Kalsang was taken aback when she first realised who it was, as I hadn’t told her I was coming. She then kindly organised her friend to show us a few of the hotels around Dharamsala. After finding some nice accommodation for $9.75 per night, between us, (with incredible views of the Himalaya) we went for a walk. We ended up on the rooftop at Jimmys Italian Restaurant, where we met Mikhail. Mikhail is an American traveller who lived his childhood years in Madras (India ) and high school/college years in Texas.  This young man from Madras came and sat down on our table, where there happened to be two spare chairs. We began to converse and soon discovered we were on the same page, all three of us clicked. Mikhail sparked up a spliff, and we were soon on the same sentence. Mentioning our lack of Buds, Mikhail gave us a block of hash, laughing “it’s not a problem, I have far too much”. A few moments later, Tenzin, the Tibetan café owner walked onto the roof at Jimmy’s. Mcleodganj is a big place with about 300 restaurants. Tenzin acknowledged this as we shook hands and spoke of what we’d be doing in the near future. Mikhail joined us as we then made our way up to the Tibetan Institute of performing Arts (TIPA) where our friend Dolma was performing. Actually, we had met a young American girl at a café earlier that day who was also to sing at the show. Who ended up blowing us away with a beautiful rendition of a traditional Tibetan song. As we sat on a small window ledge of an overlooking building at TIPA,  I thought about whether the Dalai Llama would come to a performance like this. I thought of the moment when he’d ask his security guards about what they thought of his idea. As my thought ended, within the space of two seconds Lana asked me

“Do you think the Dalai Llama would come to something like this?”

“I just stopped thinking about that two seconds before you spoke” I responded.

Lana’s eyes lit up, “of course you did”.