Dharamsala

View from McLeod Ganj
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[McLeod Ganj is the area we stayed in, in Dharamsala. Dharamsala is spelled differently by this website, the book, and google.]

Arriving into Pathankot Station early in the AM, and rather dazed we bargained the necessary taxi ride into the mountains from 1400 to 900 rupees. Getting a good deal, we held onto the driver's number, which later caused us problems. The drive from Pathankot station was 2+ hours and very windy. We had to have the driver stop due to my motion sickness. Luckily Anna is a nurse, off duty of course, but still a nurse.

India's Tibet

Charlie, Tovah, Anna and Wendy in Dharm
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McLeod Ganj is just uphill from Dharamsala, and is where most of the guest houses are. It's well know as the stomping grounds of His Holiness the Dali Lama and many, many Tibetan refugees. In fact, the area is more Tibetan than Indian. I'm a big fan of the Tibetan food, not only are the dishes a challenge to say, but they taste great too, my favorite being the veggie momos and the noodle soups like Thenthunk and Geyathunk!

The mountains are gorgeous and are what really brought us there. Rolling views at every corner. Terracing farms and Tibetans Freedom Flags flow beyond every house and tree. There are many hikes to caves, a lake and a waterfall. Our first day we opted to hike to the waterfall. Our journey gave way to us being stopped every couple of steps to join in some Indian's photos. Not just with boys, but with couples to. We were semi-used to this from being at the Red Fort (in Delhi) and partaking in many visitors photos, but this time they were relentless. We had numerous request for "snaps," then demands for individual shots with each one's cell phone. At first it was funny, but then it got to be a nuisance, creating a 30 minute detour. However, the waterfall was well worth the trouble. It was relaxing, sitting on piled rocks listening to the water flow while viewing the mountain mist rise.

"one snap" turns into many
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The streets of McLeod Ganj have many monks in their maroon robes draped in blankets going to and from mountains caves for meditation and monasteries. The story and struggle of the Tibetans who were forced to save their lives by walking across the Himalayas, loosing toes, fingers and lives to come to Dharamsala is remarkable. The struggle continues today and hopefully one day Tibet will be free.

Dharamsala was cold, so cold we geared up in gloves, hats and layers after being in the mountains for 45 minutes. Wendy and I took refuse in a movie. One of the restaurants had a big screen tv and couches set up in the back with bootleg NEW movies on DVD. This was our 1st movie in months. We saw "Babel." We'd never even heard about it. It was heavy, perhaps too heavy, but the joy of seeing a film was great. We had taken for granted movie watching, one of our favorite pastimes.

"ommming" in the mountians
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When we left Dharamsala it was raining, ALL day. With tourism booms there is good and bag, Bad being that an area which used to have a lot of culture now has more "show" culture, but at the same time good for the local people because they can make money off internet cafes, jewelery shops, as foreigners bring in a lot of money. Also good for us, that in a rainy downpour we could escape into a cafe and get a delicious chocolate cake and lattes.

Our departure from Dharamsala was wet and drama filled. We had called the taxi driver who picked us up at Pathankot to take us to Chikki Bank (another station about 3kms from Pathankot) to catch the train. McLeod Ganj's drivers charge a minimum of 1100 and our guy quoted us 900. This caused problems as he was from a different state giving the business to another areas drivers. Obviously, we just wanted the best price and this problem was really between them, regardless, we had a train to catch and the only thing on our minds was the last train we MISSED. After lots of arguing we finally just drove off. Two hours later and "about" 1 km from the station we got caught traffic with no resolution. It was not moving, with no police and five roads filled with rickshaws, cars, trucks, vans, taxis, cows, mopeds, cyclist all coming into 1 intersection. It was only supposed to be 1 km, so we strapped on our bags and started to hike, following the tracks. It was much more than 1km. We got harassed by young boys on bikes who continued to circle us and shout. We finally made the station, sweat dipping from our foreheads, with 5 minutes to spare in the dark (the station's electricity was out, but the trains were still running).

Under the waterfall
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Having known that Rishikesh (our destination) was a dry town we had picked up a bottle of Whiskey before leaving McLeod Ganj. We boarded the train with the bottle and a 6 pack of warm Diet Pepsi (the only thing available at the dark station), to bring in Wendy's 26th year in plastic cup style. There are armed guards that walk the train so we had to keep an eye out, which was easy as there were 4 of us. We celebrated Wendy's birthday with little plastic cups and a lot of cheers.