Anyway, upon arrival in Delhi, I had arranged to meet my friend from home (Dana) and the our driver (Durga) from the drive north that I described in the last post. Dana is one of the few travelers I know who puts my journeys to shame as she was doing a 6 week tour around India! She kindly let me tag along for the weekend. I found it endlessly entertaining that the three of us met at the little domestic airport in Delhi from nearly opposite ends of India - me from Mumbai on the west coast, Dana from Calcutta on the east coast, and Durga from Dharamsala in the northern mountains - to then spend 11 hours together. The life of a professional tourist can be extremely random.
Our destination was Dharamsala. More specifically, a small town just up the mountain from there called McLeod Ganj, which my Lonely Planet India guidebook said contained "most of the Tibetan action." I was eager to find out first hand what that entailed. What I saw and learned there is something I expect will stay with me forever.
Before I begin, perhaps I should say that I have an interest in politics and certain views on the world, but prefer to express them in conversation and debate rather than rants on web sites. I think that makes me an atypical blogger, but then again I only post about once a month these days, so I'm a miserable blogger in many ways. I'll attempt to portray the story that I've gathered so far, but am keen to not stress that one way or another is correct - obviously in a situation this complex there are arguments on both sides and I'll let scholars, historians, and politicians decide what will happen next. Apologies if you feel strongly about this and think I'm copping out. Now that I've fully covered myself, I'll continue my story. Please remember to sign the waiver before leaving this page.
Before I left, I had the unusual foresight to pick up the excellent book The Story of Tibet, recommended by the owner of my local used book store. Though the book is obviously skewed towards supporting the plight of the Tibetan people, it gave me a background that made the trip significantly better. Yet another major world issue that I'd heard a bit about (thanks mostly to Perl Jam and my hippie friends), but never really had any understanding. "Free Tibet" rolls naturally off most American's tongues. But what does it actually mean?
Let me start with a bit of background. Historical Tibet is the massive area of land that now makes up the western part of China. I've heard different definitions, but generally I think it is said to range between 2x the size of Texas and 2x the size of Texas and Alaska. There had been varying arrangements of government, but none that stayed strong for long enough that they defined the borders the way that let them fit nicely on a map. The Dalai Lama spiritual lineage had become the political and religious leadership of the region until 1950 when troops from China "liberated" the 6 million Tibetans and helped with the problem of defining the borders.
After much debate and many thousands of deaths, in 1959 the young Fourteenth Dalai Lama made his famous trek from the Potala Palace in Lhasa, across the world's highest terrain, to the border of India. The battered group arrived bewildered to the flashbulbs of Western journalists and were accepted by the Indian government to live in exile. He, and many of the Tibetans, settled in various parts of India, particularly the former British hill station of Dharamsala. Two generations of Tibetans have now grown up in exile.
This is roughly where Dan, Dana, and Durga come in. Arriving safely from our honk-filled journey, Dana and I checked into the Hotel Anand Palace, which I had arranged with much difficultly from London, for about $10 a night. Probably less than was spent on the phone calls to make the booking. We were mildly surprised to find on arrival that it was actually a Best Western.
The next morning, determined to make the most of my short 2 days there, we headed into town. Our first stop was the Tsuglagkhang Complex, the Dalai Lama's new temple. We were sad to hear that at the time of our visit, he was touring around America working tirelessly at his 50+ year mission to find a peaceful solution to the conflict. So we let him off this time.
The new temple is very simple compared to the elaborate and massive Potala Palace. In many ways, I expect this reflects the Buddhist philosophy of detachment better. The benefit for us of the Dalai Lama being out of town that the temple was much more accessible than it normally would have been. No big crowds or security to interrupt the tranquility.
For me, the highlight of the whole trip was the hour or so that Dana and I spent in the temple. We wandered through the main courtyard, where you can enjoy the sights and sounds of monks in active debate about the depths of Buddhist philosophy. The key source of entertainment for us being when one monk prepared to make a particularly strong point, he would wind up one arm as if throwing a fastball and bring it down on the other in a loud *clap*. For the rest of the trip, Dana and I picked up this fun habit and nearly achieve enlightenment through some lively debate of our own.
After settling in, we made our way up to the main part of the temple. There we found about 25 monks, young and old, chanting and meditating in the way I only expected to find on TV. An amazing, spiritual experience. They, gracefully, let you come in the temple and sit on the wooden floors in the back and meditate along with them. At this point, I was as far away from Connecticut as I had ever been - geographically, emotionally, and spiritually. We absorbed ourselves in the monks' chanting until my hips and knees began to ache.
After that we made a few of the traditional clockwise loops around the building, spun the beautiful prayer wheels (3rd pic above), and enjoyed the clapping arguments one more time. After that, we headed down the mountain to another monastery called Dip Tse-Chok Ling Gompa. It was built based on another monastery in Lhasa that was destroyed by the Chinese. Apparently only 4 of the monks from there were not killed or imprisoned during the conflict. Difficult to imagine as we strolled the grounds and admired the beautiful architecture.
This was particularly incredible because we literally had the place to ourselves except for the few monks who were going about their day to day life. We chatted for with one young monk who was folding robes. He was so pleasant and kind to us, answering all our silly questions with a smile. He even explained the process they use to make the stunning butter sculptures you see below.
The rest of the time around Dharamsala was spent enjoying the really cool local restaurants and hiking up mountains. The first hike was fairly short, but brought us up to an unbelievable little village that had magnificent views of the Himalayas. For the first time, we were greeted by local children not with a sad look and an outstretched hand, but instead with a smile and a request of "photo photo." The kids there just wanted us to take pictures of them so they could see themselves posing on the digital view screen. Three little girls, who had been playing hide and seek, though that Dana was fantastic. She was very sweet with them and I'm sure got a few classic pics!
The next day's hike up to Triund was a bit more serious. Ducking for cover along the way as a quick hailstorm threatened, we were entertained by several passing mountain goat herds. We also stopped at a small temple on the way up and got to play with a few more cool local kids.
I also got to slide down the permanent glacial snow with a bunch of pharmacy students from Bangalore. Though they were much more interested in Dana than anything I had to say. At the top, the mountains were mostly clouded over, so the view was a bit disappointing, but the hike was excellent. Amazing to be at 9500 feet and still see mountains touching the sky making your trek look like a mild stroll. Maybe someday I'll see the view from the top of one of them.
Cheers,
Dan
