McLeod Ganj and his Holiness

I bet cars in India would be out of service if their horns were not working.There is a list of things I wont miss about India and one of them would be cars honking all day and night. I know that most of you know how crazy of a driver I am, but you haven't seen the worst till you get to India. No one uses their turn signal here,there's nothing called “right of way” or a signal system( I haven't seen one so far) and it is perfectly ok to cut people off.

Since I had made an appointment with a fellow traveler to go to the Dalai Lama complex at one in the afternoon, I decided that I would take a stroll out to the 2 small villages next to McLeod Ganj. Bhagsu has a Shiva temple and a swimming pool that only men seems to be allowed into. While walking by I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to gaze at all the men in the underwear, not that there was anything interesting in the first place.

Lonely Planet had mentioned that I could get to the village of Dharmkot by taking a side road from Bhagsu. What it forgot to mention was that it is a single trail(not a road!!) all uphill. At some points it seemed to pass by people’s doorways, where you could literally peek into their bedrooms and kitchens. I had to ask several people for directions every time I wondered into farms and boulder climbing situations.

It was about 11am when I made it back to McLeod Ganj and enough time to get lunch and use the free Wi Fi at the local Monk hangout cafe. The internet had sufficient speed to get me online, but not enough to let me upload pictures.

Carol, who has been to India on several occasions and hails from England was a older women whose parents and grandparents were born in India during the British rule. She is retired now after a long career as a school teacher and was glad to accompany me on this venture. We arrived at the temple and were surprised to see quiet a large number of monks chanting mantras surrounded by mostly the senior Tibetan community. His Holiness the Dalai Lama had left for Australia that morning hence I was unable to be blessed by his presence. We decided to stay a little while and enjoy the peaceful environment that was bringing a calmness over every soul that happen to be around there. Later we learned that the Holiness has given the monks a piece of a scared mantra which was now being recited.

Brought a Mandela from the market as a sovereign for my trip to Dharmasala and got the bags ready for the departure to Amritsar early morning. I know that there is a reason I did not get to see the Dalai Lama, that reason may be that I am bound to come back again.