Photo album Dharamsala
30/8 Mandi
Our route to our next major stop involved a day of travel on minor roads across the hills to get to Mandi where we would need an overnight stay, and then another long trip on more major roads (straight, though of course never more than single lane) the following day to get to Dharmasala, followed by a further half hour bus ride up the hills to Mcleod Ganj, where the Dalai Lama resided together with his collection of exiled Tibetan monks, and a further taxi ride up the hills to Daramkot, a quieter village in the hills where we would find somewhere to stay.
We were up very early to be packed up and at the bus stand, loaded with some fruit and biscuits for breakfast, by 6:30am, as we had been advised by a number of different people. But for 2 hours, we sat through the arrival, in clouds of exhaust and dust, of many buses, each prompting a rush of people to climb on as the conductor drummed up business by pounding the side of the bus shouting out the name of their destination in continuous unreocognisable repetition. We relied as usual on two or three locals, to whom we had spoken and made clear our destination, to indicate whether or not the approaching bus was ours. Four bananas, four tangerines, two mango juices and a packet of biscuits later, we were on the 8:30 bus to Mandi. We had an extremely friendly conductor who was delighted to have some foreigners on board, but the trip was arduous on narrow winding roads up across the hills, with several stops for tea and lunch and one for a puncture repair. All of us felt rough and exhausted when we arrived at Mandi at 18:30 after 10,5 hours of travel - our longest bus trip so far.
We had planned to head straight for the Raj Palace hotel - a beautiful ex-palace heritage hotel, with rooms clad in polished wooden panels, and filled with magnificent epoch furniture and genuine black and white photos of India's exotic local past of maharajas and opulence. It was way over our budget at 2200 rupees, 33 euros (after rigourous negotiations), but as we were all weary from the travel and would only be in Mandi for one night, we would splash out and experience some of the maharajas legacy. This was our treat to ourselves for our 11'th wedding anniversary. We however kept it secret from the girls to avoid disappointment in case it didn't work out, and in any case to have a bit of a surprise.
Fia and Tamsin were open mouthed and incredulous as we walked in through manicured gardens, past a restaurant with starched white table cloths, laid with wine glasses and elegant cutlery, and into the plush wood panelled reception area with its antique armchairs and ceiling-high bookshelves lined with ancient leather bound books, and into our room, with vintage furniture, period paintings, and a sumptuously large double bed with its mountain of puffy pillows.
"It's not in our budget...it's not in our budget" Fia kept whispering to us, as we were shown around, and the two of them erupted into giggles and jumps when they finally allowed themselves to believe us that we were actually going to stay here - running around the room, sitting at the dressing table, lying on the bed, exploring the evocative corridors.
We indulged: badly needed showers, a cold beer served in our room followed by a refined candle-lit dinner in the garden served by a smartly uniformed waiter, before we all slept, wonderfully surrounded by clean white sheets and soft pillows.
31/8
Dharamsala is a large functioning city, on the edge of Himachal Pradesh and sitting at the meeting point between the plains and the first foothills of the Himalayas. It is known particularly as the residence of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual head of Buddhist Tibet, who in 1959 at the age of 26, sensing a plot to imprison him when he was invited to a Chinese army camp ceremony, escaped from the Chinese occupation, disguised as a soldier, across the Himalayas into India. But in fact, the Dalai Lama lives 30 minutes into the hills at a town called Mcleod Ganj - originally a British garrison (and named after a British colonial governor) until an earthquake in 1905. Since then, it remained a simple hindu village but is now pulsating with everything Tibetan - restaurants selling momos, shacks selling Tibetan crafts, groups of maroon robed monks wandering between their monastic duties, busily colourful prayer wheels, and the presence of the Dalai Lama pervading all, not least the imposing residential monastery with its schedules and security guards, and the throngs of foreign tourists, some fanatical devotees, that are all here to observe and absorb the Tibetan buddhism that now dominates.
It was one of our "must not miss" destinations, and we were welcomed by pouring rain as we arrived at Mcleod Ganj after a full day of travelling on three separate buses, capping a journey that had lasted more than a week. We planned to stay in Dharamkot - a small village further up the hills from Mcleod Ganj, and seeing the brightly lit restaurants and frenetic touristic commotion confirmed our decision.
The rickshaws refused to take all four of us up the muddy, badly pot-holed track, so we took a taxi, which even then can go only as far as the start of Dharamkot, where the track ends and fuses into a network of walkable paths which connect the scattered dwellings around the bowl of the valley. We were following the recommendation of an Israeli we had met in Sarahan and were trying to find "Family Pizzeria", having to ask frequently to anyone we could find to keep us on the right track. It was a basic, but reasonably priced and friendly guest house, with a communal terrace in front of our room where we could do our maths and french lessons as well as meeting other travellers (all Israeli as it turned out), and with a beautiful view across the valley.
Its other advantage was a wood pizza oven, built with the help of a french chef who had once stayed, and we tested it that first evening, as well as several others over the following 8 days that we would stay in the area of Mcleod. The restaurant was devoid of character, with the concrete walls and ceiling marked with damp and exposed fluorescent lighting, but the pizzas were excellent, and we came to know the family over the time we were there, including a gorgeous little boy called Arun who Tamsin, in particular, fell in love with, and who joined us several times with
his cheeky grin to entertain us.
1/9
We lacked military discipline in the morning and after an extended breakfast it was past mid-day before we headed down to Mcleod Ganj, this time on an alternative "short-cut" path winding through the wet forest - heading initially in the wrong direction before we were corrected by a villager.
Little did we know that while we were taking things easy in our guest house, down the hill the Dalai Lama was delivering one of his teachings - a talk delivered in the complex, open to all and regularly attracting packed audiences, some of whom travel to India purely to hear his wisdom delivered through these discourses. It would be the last he would give in Mcleod Ganj before leaving on a foriegn trip, and would have been our only chance to have seen him - but while he was sharing his perceptive thoughts to followers that hung on his every breath, we were tidying up our clothes, sorting out our laundry, writing tweets and wrestling with the girls, in complete ignorance of this once in a lifetime opportunity passing us by.
We headed straight to the Tsuglagkhang complex containing the monastery as well as the residence of the Dalai Lama. His Holyness was present, but now in a private meeting and the complex was consequently now closed to the public until the afternoon.
Frustrated at our near miss, we wandered back up the narrow main street of Mcleod, dodging taxis, tourist vehicles and motorbikes that raced down with horns blaring leaving a trail of pedestrian tourists clinging to the sides of the road, and found solace in one of many stylish cafes, capitalising on the availability of wi-fi to synchronise a few things and start getting our photos organised and published in albums along with the blog.
The cafe was refreshingly chic with white walls adorned with artistic framed photographs of Indian life and culture, wooden floorboards, and elegant garden-like furniture, that we could have been in Putney rather than northern India except for the Tibetan staff, and the menu, which was a simple mouth-watering fusion of indian basics and european blends of flavours such as toasted chicken and mango and lime chutney sandwiches.
The temple complex was full of life - monks and Tibetan pilgrims prostrated in prayer, or doing the ritual clockwise circuit of the temple, crowds of villagers queuing stoicly at a room where free eye-check-ups were being offered, tourists, both indian and foriegn, wandering around in curisoity and sometimes devotion. It was constructed in a short time frame when the Dalai Lama and his entourage first arrived, with fresh bright colours and large chunky pillars, and looks a little like a Buddhist version of the Georges Pompidou centre. There are significant statues inside: one of Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisatva of whom the current Dalai Lama, and the thirteen Dalai Lama's before him are said to be reincarnations, another of Buddha and a third of Padmasambhava, an Indian scholar who is credited with introducing Buddhism to Tibet in the 8'th century. Some pieces of statues were rescued from the destructive vandalistic acts of the chinese and smuggled across the Himalayas with refugees to be reconstructed here.
Two shaven headed Tibetan monks took a short break from their circuit to take photos of Fia and Tamsin, and we struck up a small conversation - we found out that the following day was a festival (democracy day) and there would be celebrations in the temple complex - the Dalai Lama was not expected, but may make a surprise appearance. Both of the monks had themselves escaped Tibet, braving the cold of the Himalayas to get into Nepal and then onwards into India.
2/9
The next day we were back to the temple for the festival.
Fifty one years ago on this date, following a presentation of a programme for the governance of Tibet from the already exiled Dalai Lama to a large collection of Tibetan exiles, the first democratically elected body, the Commission of Tibetan People's Deputies, took office. It was largely symbolic given that the deputies were in exile, without any real facilities and the Chinese were firmly in control back home, but it was a significant break from tradition - Tibet having been ruled, effectively, by an "elitist" monk class up to the moment of the invasion.
we had by now, allowed expectation and hope of seeing the Dalai Lama grow to excitement level, and we were set up for a probable disappointment. There were already crowds of Tibetans, a sea of maroon robes as well as many others. We found a spot near the front - to our left were the guarded iron gates outside the Dalai Lama's residence, with the unattractive tall windowed building beyond, in which every face that appeared momentarily became the Dalai Lama, in front of us was a cordoned off walkway to the front of the temple where a larger area was cordoned off to be used as a sort of stage.
A police accompanied convoy of black ambassador cars with diplomatic flags arrived and were let into the residence, causing a flurry of excitement. Next to us was an English girl - she was in India only for the Dalai Lama.
"I love him... I love everything he says...he is the ultimate wisdom for me", she said with full sincerity with eyes glazing over as words failed to help her express the extent of the love she felt. She had of course not missed the teachings as we had, but had also attended many others in different parts of the world following the Dalai Lamas visits. To the right of us was an English speaking girl from Singapore - a buddhist, with excellent knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism and clearly experienced in the exiled Tibetan scene in Mcleod,
"the security guards are not carrying guns - that means that the Dalai Lama is not coming...oh look.... that man is the Oracle - the Dalai Lamas chief advisor".
The gates to the Dalai Lamas residence had swung open and a group of Tibetan dignitaries and a few VIP Indians marched out. It caused a flutter of expectation across the crowd, which died down when the realisation spread around that the Dalai Lama was not amongst them.
It is hard not to be uplifted by the obvious reverence in which the Dalai Lama is held by Tibetans and visiting foreigners alike. Clearly his notoriety has come partly as a result of his significant position as the spiritual leader of the Gelugpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism, which is, in fact, only one of several sects, including some that are much older (such as Nyingma, followed at Kungri monastery where we had stayed in the Spiti valley), but was the sect that historically won the Tibetan royal patronage and gained ruling status in the country. He was found as a young boy, born to a poor rural family, by a party sent out after the death of the previous 13'th Dalai Lama to search for his re-incarnation. Various signs had guided them to him - the 13'th Dalai Lamas head had turned after death to a north-easterly direction, and the Regent had had various visions that gave them indications of the monastery and even the precise house where he resided. He had to pass the usual test for a reincarnated Lama, identifying the few objects that belonged to the previous Dalai Lama from among a wider collection. before he was taken from his family and entered, at the age of three years, a new life of intense education and attention, accompanied by the weighty expectations of millions.
The notoriety then went global when he became the face of occupied Tibet, presented along with images and accounts of the destruction and cultural vandalism that the Chinese reeked on Tibetan religious and social heritage, ransacking and demolishing temples and burning scriptures.
But there is more than the position that the Dalai Lama was fated for, that is behind the adulation and inspiration that he has generated worldwide. We left Mcleod Ganj without seeing or hearing him, but we were in Dalai Lama land for 8 days, and his presence, grace, compassion and sagacity sunk into us like water into sponge - through people we met, through the Tibetan monks that we spoke to, through the temples, the posters, his quotations that appeared everywhere, and the historic portrayals in the museum, and we left disappointed, but feeling acquainted and closer than we had been when we arrived.
The festival was launched when the traditional Tibetan musicians paraded in, with an upbeat Scottish sounding tune together with marching drummers and bagpipes, decorated with a (surely conincidental?) tartan ribbon, dressed in immaculate traditional dress - the ladies in blue tunics with striped aprons, the men with grey skirts, yellow waitcoats, high leather boots and a tall fur-lined hat. The marching music was followed by singing - a harmonious chorus of mostly ladies, reminding us of the hauntingly beautiful music we had heard at the Ladarcha festival in Nako.
As the music gave way to speeches, and then what seemed like prize giving for school essays, we took our leave - the girls leaving the letters they had written for the Dalai Lama with the security guard at the entrance to his residence.
We had to work for our lunch - we had headed down the steep hillside out of Mcleod Ganj on a long walk to find a restaurant that was highly recommended in our guidebook, only to have to climb our way back with empty stomachs having found it closed and no longer bearing any resemblance to a restaurant. We ended up back in Mcleod Ganj at the Tibetan Kitchen - soon to become our favourite Mcleod restaurant with their mouth-watering menu of Tibetan and other asian dishes at deceptively cheap prices.
We had planned a hike for the afternoon, and set off after lunch. From Mcleod a road led us into Bhagsu - a neighbouring, almost connected village with a temple (which somehow we missed) and a dubious public open-air swimming pool, fed it seems from a spring. It was bustling with activity and ringing with screams of laughter - but only Indian men and boys were swimming, mostly in their underpants. For women, it was presumably considered inappropriate, though they seemed to be sharing the joy of their male relations.
On from Bhagsu village we followed the river up to the Bhagsu waterfalls. We were in beautiful nature, but far from being in isolation as the path was well frequented by mostly indian tourists trailing both up and down. One group of lads had clearly celebrated their efforts with a drink or two, and we were stuck for 20 minutes with them while they hugged us all, and insisted on photos of every possible permutation of their large group with each of us, until we had to literally prise ourselves free from their grasps and their pleas of "one last snap".
We arrived there just as the rain started and as it became heavier, we took refuge in a stone tea-shack with a polythene lined roof. It poured so heavily, pierced by ear-splitting cracks of thunder, that we could hardly hear each other talk, and by the time we finally ventured out again, we had drunk so much chai that we were in danger of overdose, and meanwhile had become good friends with another Indian family marooned with us. We were entertained also by a man who had spent his afternoon there, but drinking beer rather than chai (seems to be a popular draw to the waterfalls), and was having difficulty to keep control of his limbs. Somehow, he insulted someone in the Indian family, a few shoves had been exchanged and he fell over a pile of crates of empty bottles, knocking them over and breaking all the bottles. He was sent off stumbling down the path in the wet. The girls were gripped with the whole episode and questions on the man, beer, fights and bad people continued to surface for the rest of the day.
We followed a different track up and across the mountainside to get directly back to Dharamkot rather than returning through Bhagsu - this one was completely devoid of tourists, or anyone else, and we had to work from a general sense of direction to get us back to the Family Pizzeria, around 2 hours later.
4/9
Mount Triund:
Two days later we set off early in the morning, with light backpacks, to climb Mount Triund - the towering mountain that looks down over Dharamkot, Mcleod Ganj and Dharamsala. We had heard that there was a forest bungalow guest house on the top, and also the possibility to hire a tent as the guest house was often fully booked.
We had woken to torrential rain. The weather forecast indicated that it was sunny now but would be raining for the rest of the week, so a 'wait and see' option didn't look very promising either. We had our umbrellas and waterproofs, so were prepared, but we accepted that it wouldn't be pleasant, particularly if we were camping. We stopped at Daramkot village for a breakfast, with vain hopes of the rain abating, but when it didn't, set off anyway, wrapped up in waterproofs.
A dog that had been sitting outside the Himalaya tea shop at the end of the village, decided to join us, and walked with us for an hour, all the way to Gullu temple. The girls named him Banoffi because of his dark and beige colouring, loved his company and were a bit upset when he left us at the temple - though I was partly relieved as I wasn't looking forward to being part of a territorial battle when he arrived on the turf of another pack of dogs.
Luckily the rain started to fade, and within an hour or so we were able to take off our waterproofs. It was a 5 hour (including our regular stops) highly rewarding walk , of continual and often steep ascent, from Daramkot at 2000m to the summit at 2900m. The girls needed a little pushing, but about half way up we caught up with a couple of friendly american ladies who had previously passed us while we were stopped for a drink at Gullu temple - the girls latched onto them, and the engaged conversation motivated them to walk without complaint. They now love meeting people, probably as a welcome break from the intense relentless company of their parents, and as time passes we can see their confidence growing and their conversational skills improving.
We stopped at a small tea-shack, about half way up. Just after, a group of Indian lads, who had also been taking a break, moved onwards, the tea-shack owner suddenly launched into a passionate discourse about young Indians: they think they own the place....they think they have money but they don't..they'll have all their alcohol in a bag, and they'll be singing and making a noise tonight...they'll leave all their rubbish all over the place...... We were a little shocked at his outburst, but later that evening we passed the boys on the mountain top, and his assessment turned out accurate.
It was a pretty exhausting 5 hour walk, and when we arrived at the top in beautiful warm sunshine we all collapsed onto a blanket-covered camp-bed that was outside Suresh's little tea shack, and rewarded ourselves with tea and noodles.
It was breath-taking - we were in the Dhauladhar mountains, the foothills of the Himalayas - on one side of the ridge, jagged mountains led up to the heavens, and on the other, the plains extended like an ocean to the horizon, with clear views of Mcleod Ganj, Dharamsala and the dam in the distance.
We asked at the forest bungalow, but as expected he was unable to offer us a room. It sounded very vague but it seemed as though reservations were taken at the office down in Dharamsala, but the first that the keeper would normally hear would be when the people arrived at the top. Today he had heard that a group of americans had reserved and were on their way up. We started checking other options. Tamsin and I hiked a further 25 muddy minutes along the ridge to another guest house. It was uninspiring concrete cells, basic and dirty and our renowned group of partying young indians, holding their plastic bags of whisky and beer, were also checking a room.
We had a dinner of vegetables and chapati back at Suresh's tea shop, sitting on the camp bed that we had now made our own. The evening turned into a spectacular one - warm, with the setting sun pulling a jagged shadow up over the mountains like a pair of night socks. The clouds had grouped to lay a warming blanket over the plains below us, inviting us to step off our mountain and cross the cotton wool plateau to the horizon. We were all feeling special, on top of the mountain with such humbling views, and any worries about someone arriving to claim their room and turf us outside was fading, until suddenly we heard voices and watched a group of 3 American sounding tourists, together with a few indians climb up the path and head towards us. They were delighted to have made it after having accelerated to get up before the dark, but our reception was icy cold as we saw our lovely mountain hut slipping through our fingers. We posed the fatal question to which we were frightened to hear the answer:
"where are you from?"
"Israel" said the girl with a smile, at which we all let out a big sigh of relief.
"ohhhh....how wonderful" we said to her surprise. We didn't explain that anything other than American would have sufficed, in case we tempted fate.
The evenings conversation had been about black bears, who inhabit the mountain. They are known for their attacks on people and we were told of a recent death at nearby Kareri Lake. It created a great deal of excitement when we came to the night time, torch-lit sortie to clean teeth and go to the toilet.
We slept the night in our cosy wood cabin, four of us in a bed - top to tails.
5/9
In the morning we were out of bed at 6:30, wanting to get out in time to see what was reportedly a stunning sun rise, but unfortunately in vain as the sun made its muted appearance through a veil of cloud. Nevertheless it gave us a good start to the day and Suresh prepared a breakfast for us of porridge, eggs and chapati, before we set off walking again up the hill towards Laka Got.
By now we had discovered that Laka Got was not a lake as we had thought. There is a sacred lake up the mountain, but it was beyond Indrahar Pass, which was another 2 days trekkng away including a night sleeping in a cave. We were not equipped for the night in the cave so decided to go for the trek up to Laka Got (3300m) only, then return in the same day all the way back down to Daramkot.
It was a stunning walk, wih the path picking its way up between crags, around headlands, amid giant boulders, grazing goats and surveyed by graceful eagles gliding effortlessly above our heads.
A stone built shelter marked our arrival at Laka Got - the Snow Line cafe, although when we were there the snow line had fled up the mountain side infront of us towards the Indrahar Pass.
"I been here sixteen years" said the keeper, sitting cross legged like a hermit when we peered inside the shelter, obviously no longer feeling the need for the usual terrestrial greetings.
We stayed for a while - absorbing the beauty of this God's perch in glorious Himalayan scenery, and took sustenance of a dahl and rice and a packet of crisps.
A friendly dog that had accompanied us all the way from Mount Triund was named Goggle by the girls, who became very attached to him. When we arrived at Laka Got, he too lay down and rested at our feet while we stayed there, then obediently stood up with us for the return trip.
The return was downhill, the rain had stopped and the sun was shining, and it was a beautiful walk. The girls were skipping along now enthusiastically, in front of us, and Tamsin, in an unprecedented burst of appreciation, turned round to us and said
"Mummy and Daddy..... thanks for taking us to India".
Maybe the repeated comments to the girls from everyone we met about how lucky they were, were starting to soak in, or perhaps it was just the positive emotion that comes from going downhill after a steep arduous uphill, helped no doubt by the fact that for once, even if temporarily, they had Goggle, their own dog.
We descended back past Mount Triund and then took a different path down - a "short cut" that someone had mentioned to us that went directly down to the Family pizzeria where we had kept our room, rather than round via Daramkot village. It was a steep descent, past an impressive waterfall, and we were working a little bit from the bearings of the mountains, but not very confident about where we were going. We passed a couple of villagers on their way up who reassured us, and eventually arrived at some houses - we had been on the right path - although it had seemed much much steeper descent and no shorter than our path upwards. All of us were suffering for the next two days - feeling the tinges in our calves every time we went downhill.
We flopped into the pizzeria with enough energy left only for a weary game of cards and a pizza.
6/9 - 8/9
Breakfast was at the Moonlight restaurant in Daramkot, using their wi-fi to do some work on the blog, while the girls were working on their diaries. We were there in the end until mid day, when we headed down to Mcleod Ganj.
On our way down the path, which woun3ed through the middle of the forest, there was a large troupe of monkeys scavenging out of the bins, They were blocking our path like striking pickets, nonchalently fingering their findings clearly with no fear of us. Having heard from a few locals not to provoke them in any way, we were all a bit nervous to get past them and shuffled around looking for an alternative way down off the path. We found no alternatives and started trying to mutually summon up the courage to walk straight through the middle of them, but just at that moment, we spotted a group of locals on their way up, so we drew our confidence from them, and took the opportunity to pass the unperturbed monkeys at the same moment. Someone had told us, probably a little melodramatically, that even if you let your eyes meet theirs it can be interpreted as a sign of aggression - so we all walked through with our eyes firmly fixed to the ground.
The plan was to go to the Tibetan museum, but it was (yet again) festival time and there were a number of traders and fair stalls lined along the streets, which we coudn't resist. We ate at a colourful little shack, sitting amongst the Tibetan monks and other fair-goers on a makeshift bench in the street, then Fia and Tamsin played a few of the fairground type games - throwing hoops onto objects and rolling table tennis balls down a board into slots - both of which lured their customers by prizes that looked like the sort of things left over at the end of the Nerville village brocante ("bring and buy" sale) - a dusty box of an unheard-of perfume, an out of date packet of sweets, a mini-teddy bear with a missing nose. The girls played for a while on a huge inflatable slide, then we headed into Mcleod for a coffee.
We had put our names down as volunteers for English conversation class with the Tibetan monks and other Tibetan refugees, at the Lha centre - a non-profit establishment that works towards Tibetan refugee welfare, as well as supporting and promoting Tibetan culture and arts and crafts. We didn't quite know what to expect, but had envisaged that the four of us would together have a group of maybe 4 Tibetans, to whom we would chat.
We arrived at Lha at 4pm to find the corridors crowded with Tibetans - monks and others - and having established that they were all waiting for the English conversation class, we joined the melee. The doors at the end of the corridoor opened, and the crowd shuffled in as one unit, everyone grabbing a cushion and finding a place on the floor. Not quite knowing what we were supposed to be doing, we hesitated a mere second before we were torn apart between different groups of monks that had formed, and seated down amongst them. There was no question of us staying together - the English speakers needed to be distributed evenly. Each of us had our own circle of about five Tibetans seated on the floor around us - we were'nt too confident of Fia and Tamsin's ability to facilitate conversation with a group of monks with little English, but in hindsight it was a great opportunity.
It was a fascinating experience, and a privilege to be able to converse with people with such different backgrounds than ourselves and who have been a living part of one of modern history's most significant events. Their openness, frankness and willingness to talk unlocked our curosity and our inhibitions and after a round of small talk, we let our increasingly daring and intimate questions fly out, as we listened gripped with their stories. How they became monks, how they came to India, whether they mixed with Indians, etc.
Most of the Tibetan refugees esaped from Tibet themselves, all making treacherous journeys on foot over the Himalayas into Bhutan or Nepal, braving sub-zero temperatures, some with stories of others that perished on the route. Now a small but growing number of young refugees are second generation, born in Mcleod Ganj to parents that made the crossing. The first waves of refugees started in 1959, once news spread that the Dalai Lama had left. The Tibetans that stood to suffer most as part of the Chinese occupation were the ruling monk class, who were stripped of privileged positions, and persecuted in their worship, with many monasteries demolished and their contents redistributed to the people, or simply destroyed. Many faced intimidation to renounce their faith or to forsake their loyalty to the Dalai Lama, and several of the people we spoke to quoted this as the final trigger, forcing them to leave home, posessions and sometimes family behind, and embark on the hazardous route crossing Himalayan mountain passes over 5000m high, more worried about capture by chinese soldiers than perishing in the freezing temperatures. Also standing to lose were the landowners and other people of position, who had land taken from them and redistributed to neighbours, and those that had supported the Tibetan resistance fighters who were humiliated in front of their neighbours with their possessions handed out amongst the community.
Not everyone was fleeing from religious persecution - one girl who had lived in a remote rural village that had remained untouched by the Chinese had left for Dharamsala in seach of economic opportunity - fleeing from a feudal system where women had little access to education and whose futures were fated as domestic workers in the house and in the fields, imprisoned by their society's restricted expectations. Her sister lived in Dharmasala, and had sent back reports of education and improved opportunities. Others, particularly non-monks, also mentioned the pull of India - housing, water, electricity, economic opportunity.
I was interested in what enticed monks to embark on such an austere life of simplicity and hardship, particularly as some monks can commit their lives at a young age where such levels of religious devotion are hard to imagine. One or two spoke of genuine spiritual motivation, normally from a particularly inspiring mentor, but others gave more arbitrary reasons. One spoke about how he had joined the monastery at a young age against his family's initial wishes - he admitted knowing very little about the religious aspects, but remembered thinking that they wore "cool" (his words) clothes and had a "great" life. The "sacrifice" of the monastic lifestyle was put into context for me - Tibetan life at that time, outside of Lhasa was mostly feudal, subsistence and nomadic agriculture.
The girls asked questions about the Dalai Lama - they were moved by his story and wanted to know whether he had remained in touch with his family when he was taken from them to Lhasa for his life of preparation for his significant leadership role, and whether they had come with him when he excaped from India.
We came out of the classes, buzzing with excitement about the discussions. We went straight to the Tibetan kitchen, ordering a selection of exotic sounding and delicious Tibetan dishes - Tam-yum soup, honey chilli vegetables, "specialty" roast chicken, fried baby corn, chicken momos - and in a flurry of vivacious conversation, shared our stories and learnings. We were delighted, with hindsight, that the girls had been on their own - they were bursting with pride and enthusiasm about their conversations and couldn't wait to recount it all.
The next day, we repeated the classes. The girls, knowing this time that they would be on their own, prepared more questions, and we had visited the Tibetan museum in the morning which had also raised both our understanding and a host of further questions. We were all greatly moved by the museum - images of the ransacked social and religious heritage of Tibet, footage of the chinese brutalities in suppressing demonstrations, harrowing accounts of the treatment of political prisoners. We were shown a film - a US documentary on Tibet, the Chinese occupation, and the embarrasingly muted world reaction to it at the time, hampered by conflicting interests that prevented the ruffling of Chinese feathers.
I was fascinated to learn more about the other side of the story in my conversation with the refugees. Tibet was a backward country at the time of the occupation - a harsh feudal system, with many injustices. Tibetans as well as Chinese participated in the rejoicing at the arrival of the chinese, and many of those in underpriviledged positions stood to gain. I asked about the chinese occupation - had they had direct experience, what were their memories, did any Tibetans see it as a positive historical event. They were all so open and honest, that it was a unique and direct opportunity to learn. I was of course asking almost impossible questions to a biased sample - I was talking to monks, who had faced direct persecution and who had clung to their faith while it was being torn from them, denied and spat on. Nevertheless, they were able to dig behind their provoked emotions to find objectivity - yes, Tibet had gained economically as a result of the advent of the Chinese, most peoples lives had improved materially, inequity and grievances had been exposed and some social injustices rebalanced - though most (but not all) denied that any Tibetans saw the occupation as a positive event. The loss of soveriegnty, the loss of political freedom and the painful destruction of their heritage as part of the cultural revolution could not be compensated for.
One of my "students" was in Lhasa at 10 years old and recounted a vivid memory of a group of monks waving the Tibetan flag and shouting to the chinese to leave - the boy watched as one was dragged by the feet by two soldiers, and a van full of reinforcements of chinese soldiers arrived - the monks were thrown in to the lorry. Another monk recounted how his remote monastery was able to continue unaffected by the Chinese, until the monastery leadership visited and stayed for two years with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala. On their return, the monastery started to receive visits and attention, with individual interviews putting monks under pressure to renounce loyalties to the Dalai Lama.
Despite the fact that many Chinese have been encouraged to settle within Tibet, and have taken leading roles in commercial activity, leaving some of the indigenous Tibetans alienated outside a growing and changing economy, all of the refugees that we spoke to refused to show any resentment for the Chinese people (who in fact are sometimes innocently ignorant of the damage that has been inflicted on the Tibetan social fabric), and focus their bitterness on the Chinese government. We saw a similarly remarkable tolerance and conciliation in statements that the Dalai Lama has made with reference to the Chinese, and wondered if it had spread from him, or whether both were part of an inate Tibetan nature.
After the conversation classes, when we regrouped as a family, we were all dying to know why Tamsin's group of refugees had gathered in a tight circle around her at the beginning of the class. She explained. They had asked her what she had been doing that day. She had told them that Fia and herself had been singing a song under an umbrella in the pouring rain, as we had walked down the hill from Daramkot that morning. She refused their insistent pleas for her to sing the song, until they offered a solution so that no-one else in the room could hear. So they closed around her in a seated circle, arms linked, and Tamsin gave a solo rendition of "Champs Elysee".
As our rickshaw hobbled its way back up the steep pot-holed hill to Daramkot, with the make-shift polythene curtains closing the sides, barely able to keep out the incessant lashing rain, we felt light from our touching memorable experience with the Tibetan monks - stimulated, enlightened and warmed by their sincerity, strength, kind heartedness and sense of humour.
Meditation and yoga
Fed by the presence of spiritually sensitised visitors, Mcleod Ganj has become a thriving centre for Tibetan and Indian meditation and yoga classes.
We decided to give it a go, and were up early one morning, dressed in the stretchiest clothese we could muster, trekking along the Daramkot overgrown mountain paths to get to "The Sanctuary", a meditation and Yoga centre. We were fielding incessant questions from Fia and Tamsin who were desperately trying to understand what exactly you did in an "assisted meditation" class.
"But you just sit there doing nothing for a whole hour. Why?"
"Why do you need someone to help you to do nothing?"
Being in the dark almost as much as them, we gave up and decided to leave the experience to tell its own story.
We were welcomed before we entered, and told to remove our shoes, and that once we entered through the doors of the centre, we were to maintain complete silence. We timidly walked past floating candles into a large room, soothingly decorated with purples and maroons, where two ladies were already seated on cushions waiting for the class. We exchanged limited nods as tokens of polite greetings, nervous not to break our vows of silence, and each fetched our own cushions and found a space.
In a short while our teacher arrived and took his place cross legged at the front, using a microphone to welcome us in his deep, slow, chocolatey voice, and start to guide us through the steps.
We were to start by letting go - and to let go, we needed to lie down, tighten all our muscles, scrunch up, and let out loud groans as our muscles released the extremes of their tension. We all lay down, tightened our muscles, scrunched up, and let out barely audible sighs. This was not good enough. He demonstrated, writhing like a snake and culminating in a long, room-reverberating roar. We sheepishly tried again, and ended with marginally less inaudible moans. It seemed that this would have to do and we moved on.
Our eyes closed, we were to sit cross legged in a comfortable position. We waited in position.
Chocolate voice: "If anyone does not feel comfortable in this position, then they can lie down"
We waited.
Chocolate voice: "If you don't feel comfortable, then feel free to lie down".
We waited.
Chocolate voice "If you are not comfortable, then it is better to lie down".
Sensing something amiss, I ventured a badly disguised peep out of one eye - he was looking directly at me, and gave me a knowing nod as he repeated his command, never slipping from his resonant hypnotic tones. I got the message, untangled the knot in my legs and lay down - clearly my body's resemblance to a plank of wood had already been spotted.
He guided our untrained minds through the steps. We were to make ourselves conscious of the noises around - the rickshaw engine strugling up the Daramkot hill, the dog barking, voices in the distance. Breathing was critical - deep, slow, rythmic. Bit by bit, we were to turn our focus from the outside world to the interior - our breath, our muscles, the weight of our legs, our posture. Every muscle was to let go.
"Let ...your....beeellyy...looooose.."
It was working, I was drifting, but then... I would think of Fia or Tamsin sitting there, trying to control their young distracted minds, and work out how to let their bellies loose and a smile would involuntarily creep onto my face, as the nirvana moment would slip through my fingers.
It was an experience, and we enjoyed it, but the only state that we had managed to transform ourselves to was hunger, for the muesli and eggs breakfast at the Moonlight restaurant across the road, where we read a downloaded copy of the Herald Tribune and heard how ex-world leaders, Chirac and Mubarak were both reportedly too ill to face the corruption charges levied against them.
Later, after our English language classes with the Tibetan monks, we went up onto the roof of the Lha centre for a lesson in Tibetan yoga. It was an incredible setting - bathed in a warm setting sun, with many exercises leaving us staring up into a deep blue sky, where eagles glided in high circles. The friendly Tibetan Yoga teacher took us through chains of exercises, some of which I thought were more suited to a rag doll than a human, though the rest of the class fared better than me, including both Jacqui and our two flexible little daughters. I disgraced myself further in the breathing exercise - we were to hold one of our nostrils closed with a finger while breathing deeply through the other. I lapsed and glanced across at Tamsin on my left to see how she was faring. I couldn't help breaking into a giggle, channeled loudly through my one nostril.
30/8 Mandi
Our route to our next major stop involved a day of travel on minor roads across the hills to get to Mandi where we would need an overnight stay, and then another long trip on more major roads (straight, though of course never more than single lane) the following day to get to Dharmasala, followed by a further half hour bus ride up the hills to Mcleod Ganj, where the Dalai Lama resided together with his collection of exiled Tibetan monks, and a further taxi ride up the hills to Daramkot, a quieter village in the hills where we would find somewhere to stay.
We were up very early to be packed up and at the bus stand, loaded with some fruit and biscuits for breakfast, by 6:30am, as we had been advised by a number of different people. But for 2 hours, we sat through the arrival, in clouds of exhaust and dust, of many buses, each prompting a rush of people to climb on as the conductor drummed up business by pounding the side of the bus shouting out the name of their destination in continuous unreocognisable repetition. We relied as usual on two or three locals, to whom we had spoken and made clear our destination, to indicate whether or not the approaching bus was ours. Four bananas, four tangerines, two mango juices and a packet of biscuits later, we were on the 8:30 bus to Mandi. We had an extremely friendly conductor who was delighted to have some foreigners on board, but the trip was arduous on narrow winding roads up across the hills, with several stops for tea and lunch and one for a puncture repair. All of us felt rough and exhausted when we arrived at Mandi at 18:30 after 10,5 hours of travel - our longest bus trip so far.We had planned to head straight for the Raj Palace hotel - a beautiful ex-palace heritage hotel, with rooms clad in polished wooden panels, and filled with magnificent epoch furniture and genuine black and white photos of India's exotic local past of maharajas and opulence. It was way over our budget at 2200 rupees, 33 euros (after rigourous negotiations), but as we were all weary from the travel and would only be in Mandi for one night, we would splash out and experience some of the maharajas legacy. This was our treat to ourselves for our 11'th wedding anniversary. We however kept it secret from the girls to avoid disappointment in case it didn't work out, and in any case to have a bit of a surprise.
Fia and Tamsin were open mouthed and incredulous as we walked in through manicured gardens, past a restaurant with starched white table cloths, laid with wine glasses and elegant cutlery, and into the plush wood panelled reception area with its antique armchairs and ceiling-high bookshelves lined with ancient leather bound books, and into our room, with vintage furniture, period paintings, and a sumptuously large double bed with its mountain of puffy pillows.
"It's not in our budget...it's not in our budget" Fia kept whispering to us, as we were shown around, and the two of them erupted into giggles and jumps when they finally allowed themselves to believe us that we were actually going to stay here - running around the room, sitting at the dressing table, lying on the bed, exploring the evocative corridors.
We indulged: badly needed showers, a cold beer served in our room followed by a refined candle-lit dinner in the garden served by a smartly uniformed waiter, before we all slept, wonderfully surrounded by clean white sheets and soft pillows.
31/8
Dharamsala is a large functioning city, on the edge of Himachal Pradesh and sitting at the meeting point between the plains and the first foothills of the Himalayas. It is known particularly as the residence of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual head of Buddhist Tibet, who in 1959 at the age of 26, sensing a plot to imprison him when he was invited to a Chinese army camp ceremony, escaped from the Chinese occupation, disguised as a soldier, across the Himalayas into India. But in fact, the Dalai Lama lives 30 minutes into the hills at a town called Mcleod Ganj - originally a British garrison (and named after a British colonial governor) until an earthquake in 1905. Since then, it remained a simple hindu village but is now pulsating with everything Tibetan - restaurants selling momos, shacks selling Tibetan crafts, groups of maroon robed monks wandering between their monastic duties, busily colourful prayer wheels, and the presence of the Dalai Lama pervading all, not least the imposing residential monastery with its schedules and security guards, and the throngs of foreign tourists, some fanatical devotees, that are all here to observe and absorb the Tibetan buddhism that now dominates.
It was one of our "must not miss" destinations, and we were welcomed by pouring rain as we arrived at Mcleod Ganj after a full day of travelling on three separate buses, capping a journey that had lasted more than a week. We planned to stay in Dharamkot - a small village further up the hills from Mcleod Ganj, and seeing the brightly lit restaurants and frenetic touristic commotion confirmed our decision.
The rickshaws refused to take all four of us up the muddy, badly pot-holed track, so we took a taxi, which even then can go only as far as the start of Dharamkot, where the track ends and fuses into a network of walkable paths which connect the scattered dwellings around the bowl of the valley. We were following the recommendation of an Israeli we had met in Sarahan and were trying to find "Family Pizzeria", having to ask frequently to anyone we could find to keep us on the right track. It was a basic, but reasonably priced and friendly guest house, with a communal terrace in front of our room where we could do our maths and french lessons as well as meeting other travellers (all Israeli as it turned out), and with a beautiful view across the valley.
Its other advantage was a wood pizza oven, built with the help of a french chef who had once stayed, and we tested it that first evening, as well as several others over the following 8 days that we would stay in the area of Mcleod. The restaurant was devoid of character, with the concrete walls and ceiling marked with damp and exposed fluorescent lighting, but the pizzas were excellent, and we came to know the family over the time we were there, including a gorgeous little boy called Arun who Tamsin, in particular, fell in love with, and who joined us several times withhis cheeky grin to entertain us.
1/9
We lacked military discipline in the morning and after an extended breakfast it was past mid-day before we headed down to Mcleod Ganj, this time on an alternative "short-cut" path winding through the wet forest - heading initially in the wrong direction before we were corrected by a villager.
Little did we know that while we were taking things easy in our guest house, down the hill the Dalai Lama was delivering one of his teachings - a talk delivered in the complex, open to all and regularly attracting packed audiences, some of whom travel to India purely to hear his wisdom delivered through these discourses. It would be the last he would give in Mcleod Ganj before leaving on a foriegn trip, and would have been our only chance to have seen him - but while he was sharing his perceptive thoughts to followers that hung on his every breath, we were tidying up our clothes, sorting out our laundry, writing tweets and wrestling with the girls, in complete ignorance of this once in a lifetime opportunity passing us by.
We headed straight to the Tsuglagkhang complex containing the monastery as well as the residence of the Dalai Lama. His Holyness was present, but now in a private meeting and the complex was consequently now closed to the public until the afternoon.Frustrated at our near miss, we wandered back up the narrow main street of Mcleod, dodging taxis, tourist vehicles and motorbikes that raced down with horns blaring leaving a trail of pedestrian tourists clinging to the sides of the road, and found solace in one of many stylish cafes, capitalising on the availability of wi-fi to synchronise a few things and start getting our photos organised and published in albums along with the blog.
The temple complex was full of life - monks and Tibetan pilgrims prostrated in prayer, or doing the ritual clockwise circuit of the temple, crowds of villagers queuing stoicly at a room where free eye-check-ups were being offered, tourists, both indian and foriegn, wandering around in curisoity and sometimes devotion. It was constructed in a short time frame when the Dalai Lama and his entourage first arrived, with fresh bright colours and large chunky pillars, and looks a little like a Buddhist version of the Georges Pompidou centre. There are significant statues inside: one of Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisatva of whom the current Dalai Lama, and the thirteen Dalai Lama's before him are said to be reincarnations, another of Buddha and a third of Padmasambhava, an Indian scholar who is credited with introducing Buddhism to Tibet in the 8'th century. Some pieces of statues were rescued from the destructive vandalistic acts of the chinese and smuggled across the Himalayas with refugees to be reconstructed here.
2/9
The next day we were back to the temple for the festival.
Fifty one years ago on this date, following a presentation of a programme for the governance of Tibet from the already exiled Dalai Lama to a large collection of Tibetan exiles, the first democratically elected body, the Commission of Tibetan People's Deputies, took office. It was largely symbolic given that the deputies were in exile, without any real facilities and the Chinese were firmly in control back home, but it was a significant break from tradition - Tibet having been ruled, effectively, by an "elitist" monk class up to the moment of the invasion.
we had by now, allowed expectation and hope of seeing the Dalai Lama grow to excitement level, and we were set up for a probable disappointment. There were already crowds of Tibetans, a sea of maroon robes as well as many others. We found a spot near the front - to our left were the guarded iron gates outside the Dalai Lama's residence, with the unattractive tall windowed building beyond, in which every face that appeared momentarily became the Dalai Lama, in front of us was a cordoned off walkway to the front of the temple where a larger area was cordoned off to be used as a sort of stage.A police accompanied convoy of black ambassador cars with diplomatic flags arrived and were let into the residence, causing a flurry of excitement. Next to us was an English girl - she was in India only for the Dalai Lama.
"I love him... I love everything he says...he is the ultimate wisdom for me", she said with full sincerity with eyes glazing over as words failed to help her express the extent of the love she felt. She had of course not missed the teachings as we had, but had also attended many others in different parts of the world following the Dalai Lamas visits. To the right of us was an English speaking girl from Singapore - a buddhist, with excellent knowledge of Tibetan Buddhism and clearly experienced in the exiled Tibetan scene in Mcleod,
"the security guards are not carrying guns - that means that the Dalai Lama is not coming...oh look.... that man is the Oracle - the Dalai Lamas chief advisor".
The gates to the Dalai Lamas residence had swung open and a group of Tibetan dignitaries and a few VIP Indians marched out. It caused a flutter of expectation across the crowd, which died down when the realisation spread around that the Dalai Lama was not amongst them.
It is hard not to be uplifted by the obvious reverence in which the Dalai Lama is held by Tibetans and visiting foreigners alike. Clearly his notoriety has come partly as a result of his significant position as the spiritual leader of the Gelugpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism, which is, in fact, only one of several sects, including some that are much older (such as Nyingma, followed at Kungri monastery where we had stayed in the Spiti valley), but was the sect that historically won the Tibetan royal patronage and gained ruling status in the country. He was found as a young boy, born to a poor rural family, by a party sent out after the death of the previous 13'th Dalai Lama to search for his re-incarnation. Various signs had guided them to him - the 13'th Dalai Lamas head had turned after death to a north-easterly direction, and the Regent had had various visions that gave them indications of the monastery and even the precise house where he resided. He had to pass the usual test for a reincarnated Lama, identifying the few objects that belonged to the previous Dalai Lama from among a wider collection. before he was taken from his family and entered, at the age of three years, a new life of intense education and attention, accompanied by the weighty expectations of millions.
The notoriety then went global when he became the face of occupied Tibet, presented along with images and accounts of the destruction and cultural vandalism that the Chinese reeked on Tibetan religious and social heritage, ransacking and demolishing temples and burning scriptures.
But there is more than the position that the Dalai Lama was fated for, that is behind the adulation and inspiration that he has generated worldwide. We left Mcleod Ganj without seeing or hearing him, but we were in Dalai Lama land for 8 days, and his presence, grace, compassion and sagacity sunk into us like water into sponge - through people we met, through the Tibetan monks that we spoke to, through the temples, the posters, his quotations that appeared everywhere, and the historic portrayals in the museum, and we left disappointed, but feeling acquainted and closer than we had been when we arrived.
As the music gave way to speeches, and then what seemed like prize giving for school essays, we took our leave - the girls leaving the letters they had written for the Dalai Lama with the security guard at the entrance to his residence.
We had to work for our lunch - we had headed down the steep hillside out of Mcleod Ganj on a long walk to find a restaurant that was highly recommended in our guidebook, only to have to climb our way back with empty stomachs having found it closed and no longer bearing any resemblance to a restaurant. We ended up back in Mcleod Ganj at the Tibetan Kitchen - soon to become our favourite Mcleod restaurant with their mouth-watering menu of Tibetan and other asian dishes at deceptively cheap prices.
We had planned a hike for the afternoon, and set off after lunch. From Mcleod a road led us into Bhagsu - a neighbouring, almost connected village with a temple (which somehow we missed) and a dubious public open-air swimming pool, fed it seems from a spring. It was bustling with activity and ringing with screams of laughter - but only Indian men and boys were swimming, mostly in their underpants. For women, it was presumably considered inappropriate, though they seemed to be sharing the joy of their male relations.On from Bhagsu village we followed the river up to the Bhagsu waterfalls. We were in beautiful nature, but far from being in isolation as the path was well frequented by mostly indian tourists trailing both up and down. One group of lads had clearly celebrated their efforts with a drink or two, and we were stuck for 20 minutes with them while they hugged us all, and insisted on photos of every possible permutation of their large group with each of us, until we had to literally prise ourselves free from their grasps and their pleas of "one last snap".
We followed a different track up and across the mountainside to get directly back to Dharamkot rather than returning through Bhagsu - this one was completely devoid of tourists, or anyone else, and we had to work from a general sense of direction to get us back to the Family Pizzeria, around 2 hours later.
4/9
Mount Triund:
We had woken to torrential rain. The weather forecast indicated that it was sunny now but would be raining for the rest of the week, so a 'wait and see' option didn't look very promising either. We had our umbrellas and waterproofs, so were prepared, but we accepted that it wouldn't be pleasant, particularly if we were camping. We stopped at Daramkot village for a breakfast, with vain hopes of the rain abating, but when it didn't, set off anyway, wrapped up in waterproofs.
A dog that had been sitting outside the Himalaya tea shop at the end of the village, decided to join us, and walked with us for an hour, all the way to Gullu temple. The girls named him Banoffi because of his dark and beige colouring, loved his company and were a bit upset when he left us at the temple - though I was partly relieved as I wasn't looking forward to being part of a territorial battle when he arrived on the turf of another pack of dogs.
Luckily the rain started to fade, and within an hour or so we were able to take off our waterproofs. It was a 5 hour (including our regular stops) highly rewarding walk , of continual and often steep ascent, from Daramkot at 2000m to the summit at 2900m. The girls needed a little pushing, but about half way up we caught up with a couple of friendly american ladies who had previously passed us while we were stopped for a drink at Gullu temple - the girls latched onto them, and the engaged conversation motivated them to walk without complaint. They now love meeting people, probably as a welcome break from the intense relentless company of their parents, and as time passes we can see their confidence growing and their conversational skills improving.
We stopped at a small tea-shack, about half way up. Just after, a group of Indian lads, who had also been taking a break, moved onwards, the tea-shack owner suddenly launched into a passionate discourse about young Indians: they think they own the place....they think they have money but they don't..they'll have all their alcohol in a bag, and they'll be singing and making a noise tonight...they'll leave all their rubbish all over the place...... We were a little shocked at his outburst, but later that evening we passed the boys on the mountain top, and his assessment turned out accurate.
It was a pretty exhausting 5 hour walk, and when we arrived at the top in beautiful warm sunshine we all collapsed onto a blanket-covered camp-bed that was outside Suresh's little tea shack, and rewarded ourselves with tea and noodles.
We asked at the forest bungalow, but as expected he was unable to offer us a room. It sounded very vague but it seemed as though reservations were taken at the office down in Dharamsala, but the first that the keeper would normally hear would be when the people arrived at the top. Today he had heard that a group of americans had reserved and were on their way up. We started checking other options. Tamsin and I hiked a further 25 muddy minutes along the ridge to another guest house. It was uninspiring concrete cells, basic and dirty and our renowned group of partying young indians, holding their plastic bags of whisky and beer, were also checking a room.
When Tamsin and I were back to Jacqui and Fia, the sun was getting low. We made another try for the forest bugalow, and eventually persuaded him that we would take a room, with the proviso that if the Americans turned up, we would have to move out and into a tent. The room was lovely - the outside was built in stone but from inside it felt like a wood cabin, with - wooden boards making up both the floor and walls, and the windows looking down the mountain across to Mcleod Ganj and the plains. There was no bathroom, toilet or water - we were nature's guests tonight, and we loved it.
"where are you from?"
"Israel" said the girl with a smile, at which we all let out a big sigh of relief.
"ohhhh....how wonderful" we said to her surprise. We didn't explain that anything other than American would have sufficed, in case we tempted fate.
The evenings conversation had been about black bears, who inhabit the mountain. They are known for their attacks on people and we were told of a recent death at nearby Kareri Lake. It created a great deal of excitement when we came to the night time, torch-lit sortie to clean teeth and go to the toilet.
We slept the night in our cosy wood cabin, four of us in a bed - top to tails.
5/9
In the morning we were out of bed at 6:30, wanting to get out in time to see what was reportedly a stunning sun rise, but unfortunately in vain as the sun made its muted appearance through a veil of cloud. Nevertheless it gave us a good start to the day and Suresh prepared a breakfast for us of porridge, eggs and chapati, before we set off walking again up the hill towards Laka Got.
By now we had discovered that Laka Got was not a lake as we had thought. There is a sacred lake up the mountain, but it was beyond Indrahar Pass, which was another 2 days trekkng away including a night sleeping in a cave. We were not equipped for the night in the cave so decided to go for the trek up to Laka Got (3300m) only, then return in the same day all the way back down to Daramkot.
It was a stunning walk, wih the path picking its way up between crags, around headlands, amid giant boulders, grazing goats and surveyed by graceful eagles gliding effortlessly above our heads.
"I been here sixteen years" said the keeper, sitting cross legged like a hermit when we peered inside the shelter, obviously no longer feeling the need for the usual terrestrial greetings.
We stayed for a while - absorbing the beauty of this God's perch in glorious Himalayan scenery, and took sustenance of a dahl and rice and a packet of crisps.
A friendly dog that had accompanied us all the way from Mount Triund was named Goggle by the girls, who became very attached to him. When we arrived at Laka Got, he too lay down and rested at our feet while we stayed there, then obediently stood up with us for the return trip.
The return was downhill, the rain had stopped and the sun was shining, and it was a beautiful walk. The girls were skipping along now enthusiastically, in front of us, and Tamsin, in an unprecedented burst of appreciation, turned round to us and said
"Mummy and Daddy..... thanks for taking us to India".
Maybe the repeated comments to the girls from everyone we met about how lucky they were, were starting to soak in, or perhaps it was just the positive emotion that comes from going downhill after a steep arduous uphill, helped no doubt by the fact that for once, even if temporarily, they had Goggle, their own dog.
We descended back past Mount Triund and then took a different path down - a "short cut" that someone had mentioned to us that went directly down to the Family pizzeria where we had kept our room, rather than round via Daramkot village. It was a steep descent, past an impressive waterfall, and we were working a little bit from the bearings of the mountains, but not very confident about where we were going. We passed a couple of villagers on their way up who reassured us, and eventually arrived at some houses - we had been on the right path - although it had seemed much much steeper descent and no shorter than our path upwards. All of us were suffering for the next two days - feeling the tinges in our calves every time we went downhill.
We flopped into the pizzeria with enough energy left only for a weary game of cards and a pizza.
6/9 - 8/9
Breakfast was at the Moonlight restaurant in Daramkot, using their wi-fi to do some work on the blog, while the girls were working on their diaries. We were there in the end until mid day, when we headed down to Mcleod Ganj.On our way down the path, which woun3ed through the middle of the forest, there was a large troupe of monkeys scavenging out of the bins, They were blocking our path like striking pickets, nonchalently fingering their findings clearly with no fear of us. Having heard from a few locals not to provoke them in any way, we were all a bit nervous to get past them and shuffled around looking for an alternative way down off the path. We found no alternatives and started trying to mutually summon up the courage to walk straight through the middle of them, but just at that moment, we spotted a group of locals on their way up, so we drew our confidence from them, and took the opportunity to pass the unperturbed monkeys at the same moment. Someone had told us, probably a little melodramatically, that even if you let your eyes meet theirs it can be interpreted as a sign of aggression - so we all walked through with our eyes firmly fixed to the ground.
The plan was to go to the Tibetan museum, but it was (yet again) festival time and there were a number of traders and fair stalls lined along the streets, which we coudn't resist. We ate at a colourful little shack, sitting amongst the Tibetan monks and other fair-goers on a makeshift bench in the street, then Fia and Tamsin played a few of the fairground type games - throwing hoops onto objects and rolling table tennis balls down a board into slots - both of which lured their customers by prizes that looked like the sort of things left over at the end of the Nerville village brocante ("bring and buy" sale) - a dusty box of an unheard-of perfume, an out of date packet of sweets, a mini-teddy bear with a missing nose. The girls played for a while on a huge inflatable slide, then we headed into Mcleod for a coffee.
We had put our names down as volunteers for English conversation class with the Tibetan monks and other Tibetan refugees, at the Lha centre - a non-profit establishment that works towards Tibetan refugee welfare, as well as supporting and promoting Tibetan culture and arts and crafts. We didn't quite know what to expect, but had envisaged that the four of us would together have a group of maybe 4 Tibetans, to whom we would chat.We arrived at Lha at 4pm to find the corridors crowded with Tibetans - monks and others - and having established that they were all waiting for the English conversation class, we joined the melee. The doors at the end of the corridoor opened, and the crowd shuffled in as one unit, everyone grabbing a cushion and finding a place on the floor. Not quite knowing what we were supposed to be doing, we hesitated a mere second before we were torn apart between different groups of monks that had formed, and seated down amongst them. There was no question of us staying together - the English speakers needed to be distributed evenly. Each of us had our own circle of about five Tibetans seated on the floor around us - we were'nt too confident of Fia and Tamsin's ability to facilitate conversation with a group of monks with little English, but in hindsight it was a great opportunity.
It was a fascinating experience, and a privilege to be able to converse with people with such different backgrounds than ourselves and who have been a living part of one of modern history's most significant events. Their openness, frankness and willingness to talk unlocked our curosity and our inhibitions and after a round of small talk, we let our increasingly daring and intimate questions fly out, as we listened gripped with their stories. How they became monks, how they came to India, whether they mixed with Indians, etc.
Most of the Tibetan refugees esaped from Tibet themselves, all making treacherous journeys on foot over the Himalayas into Bhutan or Nepal, braving sub-zero temperatures, some with stories of others that perished on the route. Now a small but growing number of young refugees are second generation, born in Mcleod Ganj to parents that made the crossing. The first waves of refugees started in 1959, once news spread that the Dalai Lama had left. The Tibetans that stood to suffer most as part of the Chinese occupation were the ruling monk class, who were stripped of privileged positions, and persecuted in their worship, with many monasteries demolished and their contents redistributed to the people, or simply destroyed. Many faced intimidation to renounce their faith or to forsake their loyalty to the Dalai Lama, and several of the people we spoke to quoted this as the final trigger, forcing them to leave home, posessions and sometimes family behind, and embark on the hazardous route crossing Himalayan mountain passes over 5000m high, more worried about capture by chinese soldiers than perishing in the freezing temperatures. Also standing to lose were the landowners and other people of position, who had land taken from them and redistributed to neighbours, and those that had supported the Tibetan resistance fighters who were humiliated in front of their neighbours with their possessions handed out amongst the community.
Not everyone was fleeing from religious persecution - one girl who had lived in a remote rural village that had remained untouched by the Chinese had left for Dharamsala in seach of economic opportunity - fleeing from a feudal system where women had little access to education and whose futures were fated as domestic workers in the house and in the fields, imprisoned by their society's restricted expectations. Her sister lived in Dharmasala, and had sent back reports of education and improved opportunities. Others, particularly non-monks, also mentioned the pull of India - housing, water, electricity, economic opportunity.
I was interested in what enticed monks to embark on such an austere life of simplicity and hardship, particularly as some monks can commit their lives at a young age where such levels of religious devotion are hard to imagine. One or two spoke of genuine spiritual motivation, normally from a particularly inspiring mentor, but others gave more arbitrary reasons. One spoke about how he had joined the monastery at a young age against his family's initial wishes - he admitted knowing very little about the religious aspects, but remembered thinking that they wore "cool" (his words) clothes and had a "great" life. The "sacrifice" of the monastic lifestyle was put into context for me - Tibetan life at that time, outside of Lhasa was mostly feudal, subsistence and nomadic agriculture.
The girls asked questions about the Dalai Lama - they were moved by his story and wanted to know whether he had remained in touch with his family when he was taken from them to Lhasa for his life of preparation for his significant leadership role, and whether they had come with him when he excaped from India.We came out of the classes, buzzing with excitement about the discussions. We went straight to the Tibetan kitchen, ordering a selection of exotic sounding and delicious Tibetan dishes - Tam-yum soup, honey chilli vegetables, "specialty" roast chicken, fried baby corn, chicken momos - and in a flurry of vivacious conversation, shared our stories and learnings. We were delighted, with hindsight, that the girls had been on their own - they were bursting with pride and enthusiasm about their conversations and couldn't wait to recount it all.
The next day, we repeated the classes. The girls, knowing this time that they would be on their own, prepared more questions, and we had visited the Tibetan museum in the morning which had also raised both our understanding and a host of further questions. We were all greatly moved by the museum - images of the ransacked social and religious heritage of Tibet, footage of the chinese brutalities in suppressing demonstrations, harrowing accounts of the treatment of political prisoners. We were shown a film - a US documentary on Tibet, the Chinese occupation, and the embarrasingly muted world reaction to it at the time, hampered by conflicting interests that prevented the ruffling of Chinese feathers.
I was fascinated to learn more about the other side of the story in my conversation with the refugees. Tibet was a backward country at the time of the occupation - a harsh feudal system, with many injustices. Tibetans as well as Chinese participated in the rejoicing at the arrival of the chinese, and many of those in underpriviledged positions stood to gain. I asked about the chinese occupation - had they had direct experience, what were their memories, did any Tibetans see it as a positive historical event. They were all so open and honest, that it was a unique and direct opportunity to learn. I was of course asking almost impossible questions to a biased sample - I was talking to monks, who had faced direct persecution and who had clung to their faith while it was being torn from them, denied and spat on. Nevertheless, they were able to dig behind their provoked emotions to find objectivity - yes, Tibet had gained economically as a result of the advent of the Chinese, most peoples lives had improved materially, inequity and grievances had been exposed and some social injustices rebalanced - though most (but not all) denied that any Tibetans saw the occupation as a positive event. The loss of soveriegnty, the loss of political freedom and the painful destruction of their heritage as part of the cultural revolution could not be compensated for.
One of my "students" was in Lhasa at 10 years old and recounted a vivid memory of a group of monks waving the Tibetan flag and shouting to the chinese to leave - the boy watched as one was dragged by the feet by two soldiers, and a van full of reinforcements of chinese soldiers arrived - the monks were thrown in to the lorry. Another monk recounted how his remote monastery was able to continue unaffected by the Chinese, until the monastery leadership visited and stayed for two years with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala. On their return, the monastery started to receive visits and attention, with individual interviews putting monks under pressure to renounce loyalties to the Dalai Lama.
Despite the fact that many Chinese have been encouraged to settle within Tibet, and have taken leading roles in commercial activity, leaving some of the indigenous Tibetans alienated outside a growing and changing economy, all of the refugees that we spoke to refused to show any resentment for the Chinese people (who in fact are sometimes innocently ignorant of the damage that has been inflicted on the Tibetan social fabric), and focus their bitterness on the Chinese government. We saw a similarly remarkable tolerance and conciliation in statements that the Dalai Lama has made with reference to the Chinese, and wondered if it had spread from him, or whether both were part of an inate Tibetan nature.
After the conversation classes, when we regrouped as a family, we were all dying to know why Tamsin's group of refugees had gathered in a tight circle around her at the beginning of the class. She explained. They had asked her what she had been doing that day. She had told them that Fia and herself had been singing a song under an umbrella in the pouring rain, as we had walked down the hill from Daramkot that morning. She refused their insistent pleas for her to sing the song, until they offered a solution so that no-one else in the room could hear. So they closed around her in a seated circle, arms linked, and Tamsin gave a solo rendition of "Champs Elysee".
As our rickshaw hobbled its way back up the steep pot-holed hill to Daramkot, with the make-shift polythene curtains closing the sides, barely able to keep out the incessant lashing rain, we felt light from our touching memorable experience with the Tibetan monks - stimulated, enlightened and warmed by their sincerity, strength, kind heartedness and sense of humour.
Meditation and yoga
Fed by the presence of spiritually sensitised visitors, Mcleod Ganj has become a thriving centre for Tibetan and Indian meditation and yoga classes.
We decided to give it a go, and were up early one morning, dressed in the stretchiest clothese we could muster, trekking along the Daramkot overgrown mountain paths to get to "The Sanctuary", a meditation and Yoga centre. We were fielding incessant questions from Fia and Tamsin who were desperately trying to understand what exactly you did in an "assisted meditation" class.
"But you just sit there doing nothing for a whole hour. Why?"
"Why do you need someone to help you to do nothing?"
Being in the dark almost as much as them, we gave up and decided to leave the experience to tell its own story.
We were welcomed before we entered, and told to remove our shoes, and that once we entered through the doors of the centre, we were to maintain complete silence. We timidly walked past floating candles into a large room, soothingly decorated with purples and maroons, where two ladies were already seated on cushions waiting for the class. We exchanged limited nods as tokens of polite greetings, nervous not to break our vows of silence, and each fetched our own cushions and found a space.
In a short while our teacher arrived and took his place cross legged at the front, using a microphone to welcome us in his deep, slow, chocolatey voice, and start to guide us through the steps.
We were to start by letting go - and to let go, we needed to lie down, tighten all our muscles, scrunch up, and let out loud groans as our muscles released the extremes of their tension. We all lay down, tightened our muscles, scrunched up, and let out barely audible sighs. This was not good enough. He demonstrated, writhing like a snake and culminating in a long, room-reverberating roar. We sheepishly tried again, and ended with marginally less inaudible moans. It seemed that this would have to do and we moved on.
Our eyes closed, we were to sit cross legged in a comfortable position. We waited in position.
Chocolate voice: "If anyone does not feel comfortable in this position, then they can lie down"
We waited.
Chocolate voice: "If you don't feel comfortable, then feel free to lie down".
We waited.
Chocolate voice "If you are not comfortable, then it is better to lie down".
Sensing something amiss, I ventured a badly disguised peep out of one eye - he was looking directly at me, and gave me a knowing nod as he repeated his command, never slipping from his resonant hypnotic tones. I got the message, untangled the knot in my legs and lay down - clearly my body's resemblance to a plank of wood had already been spotted.
He guided our untrained minds through the steps. We were to make ourselves conscious of the noises around - the rickshaw engine strugling up the Daramkot hill, the dog barking, voices in the distance. Breathing was critical - deep, slow, rythmic. Bit by bit, we were to turn our focus from the outside world to the interior - our breath, our muscles, the weight of our legs, our posture. Every muscle was to let go.
"Let ...your....beeellyy...looooose.."
It was working, I was drifting, but then... I would think of Fia or Tamsin sitting there, trying to control their young distracted minds, and work out how to let their bellies loose and a smile would involuntarily creep onto my face, as the nirvana moment would slip through my fingers.
It was an experience, and we enjoyed it, but the only state that we had managed to transform ourselves to was hunger, for the muesli and eggs breakfast at the Moonlight restaurant across the road, where we read a downloaded copy of the Herald Tribune and heard how ex-world leaders, Chirac and Mubarak were both reportedly too ill to face the corruption charges levied against them.
Later, after our English language classes with the Tibetan monks, we went up onto the roof of the Lha centre for a lesson in Tibetan yoga. It was an incredible setting - bathed in a warm setting sun, with many exercises leaving us staring up into a deep blue sky, where eagles glided in high circles. The friendly Tibetan Yoga teacher took us through chains of exercises, some of which I thought were more suited to a rag doll than a human, though the rest of the class fared better than me, including both Jacqui and our two flexible little daughters. I disgraced myself further in the breathing exercise - we were to hold one of our nostrils closed with a finger while breathing deeply through the other. I lapsed and glanced across at Tamsin on my left to see how she was faring. I couldn't help breaking into a giggle, channeled loudly through my one nostril.
