June 8 - Exploring Delhi in the heat

June 8 day 113
We slept in to make up for our bus trip, had a good breakfast and got some work done.  We found another giant cockroach in the bathroom and let the hotel know about it and they said they'd clean the room while we were out.
We were going to two sites in the neighbourhood that were short walks around.  Tuktuk drivers constantly slowed down and asked us a barrage of questions about where we were going and one person started talking to us and following us which made us suspicious when he said he was a student practicing English, this guy was not in the least bit young.
We arrived at jantor mantor  after about 10 minutes.  This was an area of huge astrological observance structures constructed in the 18th century.  Admission was much more for foreigners ($5), which seemed fair and there wee only a few people on site.
The structures were truly huge and strange shapes, similar to some of Escher's drawings.  One had a series of curved semicircles, two weer ultra-complicated sundials with the central bowl cut up in precise ways, one in the middle had a tall tower flanked by two almost as tall structures that were supposed to be dark inside other than a pinhole whose light you could track.  At the back were two cylindrical structures resembling the Colosseum with the floor of them sliced into rays like a wagon wheel, apparently to check the angle of the sun, moon and stars by measuring the light through various windows.  There were explanations for each type of structure but not in enough detail to completely figure them out.    We found some strips of calibration on the first structure and it looked like you could measure things really precisely.  Puzzling over and exploring these structures was well worth the visit.
As we left the area we were able to walk past a park that provided nice shade for us although a few touts followed us and tried to tell us where we wanted to go.
About 15 minutes later we arrived at a step well tucked in a residential neighbourhood.  The steps went straight down, as opposed to along the side of ones I'd seen photographed before.  It was still impressive, as it had over 100 steps and would have been enormous when full.  It was completely dry now, and when you looked up into the tower you saw clusters of bats on the ceiling and pigeons everywhere else.   A few people were there but it was by no means busy.
We rested outside it before heading to Connaught Square proper.  Once we got there, the touts attached themselves to us and were hard to shake.  If you acknowledged them at all, they would stick with you, always directing you to a "government tourist office" or telling you that places were closed.  They acted like they were being helpful and often acted indignantly if you didn't go along with their schemes.
In one of our readings on India it was mentioned that the people here use older words that don't pop up in other English-speaking countries much, our favourite being "bamboozled".  Meg was repeating the word over to herself but I told a particularly persistent tout, "sir, you are trying to bamboozle me", when he told me an erroneous location for a tourist office.
We tucked into an underground mall that seemed less fancy than Connaught Place and where more normal items could be had.  Meg checked out some scarves but couldn't find one to her liking so we headed back to the main street and grabbed some cold drinks at an overpriced, faux-Portuguese place.  After that we went to a bakery recommended by the guidebook which was good but not exceptional.  After that it was a short walk back to our hotel in the heat, retreating once again to our air-conditioned room. 
Another half-dead roach was dying in the bathroom when we returned and so the hotel offered to shift us to another room while they dealt with the problem.  This took a while but it beat walking up to the third floor, where all of the other rooms were.  Once settled Meg napped and I caught up with some stuff.  Apurna called and said that she'd be picking us up at 5pm instead of 4 pm because of the heat.
She met us at 5 and we got into the car with her parents, who wanted to meet us.  Her mom is an elementary schoolteacher who can retire after next year and both of them had some English. 
We drove to a local Sikh temple, covered our heads, dropped off our shoes and toured around.  It was larger in space than the Golden Temple but not as singular.  There was much devotion and a pool beside the temple that had supposed healing powers, again.  A Sikh explained the temple (created in honour of some early hold man who cured a local plague) and many points about the religion.  His phrasing was refreshing, as he talked about "beliefs" when referring to his own religion, which was quite a concession. 
We looked around and were fed a sweet substance before getting ready to leave.  At the shoe depot, Meg and Apurna's dad had to wait as their shoes were being polished while they visited the temple, some service!  When Meg made a donation she was given a handful of candy, too.
We then were driving to a sound and light show at a recently built temple.  On the way, Apurna's mom wanted to do some shopping at a wholesale store that Apurna could use because she had a GST number because of her charity work.  any bargains could be had but you had to buy in bulk, we couldn't get water unless we got a case of 12.  We did get some apples, imported from the US and New Zealand.
When we got to the temple at 7 for the 7:30 show we saw that the last entry was at 6:30 so it wasn't going to happen.  Meg mentioned that she'd wanted to see a Bollywood film and Apurna suggested the new Salmon Khan flick and so we headed to the cinema.
Traffic was brutal and t took forever to get there.  We showed up a little late but didn't miss much.  The film was an older guy fighting to keep his store and thinking back to his past history on his birthday.  It touched on the horrors of Parition, which separated his family, had a circus bit, a middle eastern oil worker bit, a ship crew bit with Somali pirates and lots of songs, mainly from his daydreams.  The audience was on their phones through a lot of it and chatted happily away.  Apurna translated what Hindi she could but there was a lot of English interspersed in the conversation and most of the film was fairly predictable.  We took guesses as to how the film would end and which family member he would be reunited with.  It was stereotypical but not boring in the least.
At intermission we picked out some food that was delivered to our seat once the film started again.  When the Indian national anthem was played in the film, everyone stood up and sang along.  There wasn't as much audience involvement as we thought

but it was a fun night out.

Apurna got us into a cab using an Uber-like app and we got home around midnight, tired from our busy evening.

One of the cool astrological buildings in Delhi.

Meg at the top of the stepwell.

With Apurna and parents at the shoe pick up in the Sikh temple.

June 7 - Back to Delhi

June 7 Day 112
We slept through most of the night and were still groggy when the driver announced the last stop.  This was supposed to be at Kashmiri Gate, a large bus terminal with a metro station.  We were let off by an anonymous highway map.  We asked a young couple about it and were told we were more than two kms from the nearest metro station.  They also told us that 150 rupees was the Uber fare to Caunaught Place, so we knew the taxi driver asking for 400 was not on the level. 
We got a tuktuk for 200 who dropped us off within a short walk of the hotel.  It wasn't easy to find.  We initially rang the bell at a very residential home that had the correct address.  There was no answer and I went to see if there was another entrance.  i saw the name of our hotel Ram's Inn around the corner.  We had been ringing some unfortunate named Ram who was on the street where our hotel was on a lane.
When we got there  we found a locked gate and an unanswered buzzer system at 6:30 am.  We waited there and I went out and got us some tasty prantha and masala chai for breakfast.  After we finished eating the security guard next door saw us and said he'd call the manager, but still no avail.
Someone finally came out about 15 minutes later and we got into reception at about 8:30.  We chatted with a charming, older Australian woman who had been to Agra and was very travel savvy while we ate a light second breakfast.  We then got into our room and rested up and made ourselves feel human again before Apurna met us at our hotel.
We met Apurna when she was staying at Ahimsa House while doing a train-the trainer session with the LHA staff.  Meg and she bonded over having gotten a MSW so we met her for tea and agreed to meet up in Delhi.
She drove us around Delhi and told us much about the city.  The first project she showed us was aimed at people in their 20s.  They taught English, computers and life skills like getting along with people, grooming and interview skills.  Two classroom are used during the day and a new group comes in the evening.  Students are screened before getting in and all are offered a job placement after their 4 month program.  Most of the participants were female, and there was much discussion of young Indian men not wanting to work as they would rather hang out and live off of their parents.  On the way out we got Meg some burfi, which she had been craving for several days.
Next we went to an office shared by many NGOs and had lunch.  We chatted with some of the people there, one who was in a program to repair cleft palates and another looking to fight malaria.  Apurna's mentor was there who had helped with LHA and many other groups and has much experience in NGOs and the other side, being a former bureaucrat.  There was much to talk about and the fact that the different groups in the office could share information and resources was a good setup.
We got caught in a traffic jam on the way to the children's program and Meg complimented Apurna on her driving as Delhi is a difficult place to get around in.  She got us gifts, Meg a colourful silk bag and a keychain and me a wallet.  It seemed a little much but I guess that's Indian hospitality, and the bag in particular was very nice.
We got to the children's program in an urban slum, where people were poor but had concrete buildings as opposed to a shantytown.  It was aimed at kids whose parents had low paying day-today jobs where the kids might be left on their own of with neighbours.  It gave them a safe place to learn and remedial work to help them improve their school performance.   There were about 15 kids there, from 2 to 15 years old and mainly girls.  They had an activity room and another room with laptops and a small library.  They did a dance for us and recited some nursery rhymes before Meg led them in a rousing version of Old McDonald.  Then pictures were taken and we headed out.`
Our next stop was at a nice cafe that Apurna does workshops at a few times a week, working with the employees.  We had some nice sangria and grilled broccoli and the place had tons of busy staff as well as a cool ambiance.  Apurna offered to take us to a sound and light show at a modern temple but we were pretty wiped so she dropped us off at our hotel and we had a nice rest.
We went out to look around and find dinner.  Our hotel was close to Connaught Place, which is considered the heart of the city.  Most shops were closed and a few beggars were setting out their place for the night.  We found a restaurant recommended in the guidebook and had an uninspiring dinner, there's no excuse for mediocre food in a country like India.
We walked back and it was sill pretty warm.  Back in the room Meg gished a giant cockroach in the bathroom, which didn't start the evening off well.  Most of the rest of it was spent on Skype as Meg tried to solve a banking problem.  They had cancelled her Visa password because she hadn't logged in for a awhile and would only send verification codes to our two cancelled Canadian phone numbers.  The fifth person she got on the line was a manager and helped us set up an encrypted e-mail account for Meg that they could send a code to, so all was solved.

Meg and Apurna with precious burfi.

Meg and Apurna with the children's group.

June 6 Return to McLeod Ganj

June 6 Day 111
We got up and had until noon to check out and so sorted Meg's banking problems over breakfast and took our time until noon.  We putzed around and got a few minor chores done before having a big, late lunch in preparation for our overnight bus.
We did one final visit to LHA to say goodbye and then went to Ahimsa house to collect our stored bags and charge our devices.  Meg had a good talk with Tsewang's daughters and showed them some pictures she took with him in Toronto.  The girls and their mom are waiting to join him but timelines are uncertain.  Our friend Roshni also came down and we got her contact info, Meg gave her some books for the kids she works with and said goodbye.  Most of the LHA staff was pitching in making dinner for a group of visiting Japanese people and so we said lots more goodbyes before getting into our cab.
The trip down was congested but Jackie taxi got us there on time.  This bus was newer and cleaner than the last one we took but also full.  We left a little late, maybe waiting for late people or hoping the rain would pass, which it pretty much did.  We made many short stops along the way to pick up scattered people and take on or drop off parcels.
The driver wasn't as reckless as some others but he drove very quickly over a curvy road and two passengers were audibly sick for what seemed an impossibly long time.  Whenever they seemed to be finished and we went around some tight, fast curves they started up again.  Thanks goodness for earbuds as I missed most of it.
The chairs reclined quite a bit and we got a better sleep than one would expect from a bus.  We stopped for dinner at a place by the side of the road that had overpriced thali, which we shared, and more mosquitoes than we had seen elsewhere.  Amazingly, one of my students, Tenzin, was there on break from another bus.  He was heading to Nepal for a wedding and had another two days of bus rides to look forward to.  We had a nice chat and finished up our food, hoping it wouldn't hurt us later on.

June 5 - Last Day in Amritsar

June 5 Day 110
We woke up a little late again and had breakfast at the hotel and lumped around and got stuff done on the computer.
In the afternoon we headed out to a local panorama of a Sikh hero that was within walking distance of our hotel.  The walk was busy, as any sidewalks you can find are used as parking lots for scooter and motorbikes.  The two main streets had pedestrian lights, but they were only reen for about 5 seconds and were completely ignored by the vehicles in the road.  We made it through two busy intersections and followed a shady path beside a prk until we found an entrance. 
The path through the park went beside an empty children's amusement park full of creepy guys who seemed to have nothing to do but watch us.  We spotted a local squirrel that was coloured sort of like a badger and then came upon the building that housed the panoramas.
We talked to teachers from two different school groups, as this place was apparently a magnet for them.  We toured it between the groups.
The bottom floor had paintings of events from his life and a room full of doll-sized dioramas of his early life and first few victories.  Upstairs was a life-sized spectacle of his major battle victories complete with a soundtrack of cannon fire and shouting and screaming.  Downstairs was another roomful of doll-sized dioramas of him getting the koh-i-noor diamond and some more battle victories.  The final hall had some more paintings outlining how he hated bloodshed and loved his horse.
On the way out we encountered our second school group, whose teacher we had been talking to earlier, and took pictures with them.
The walk back was easier since we knew the way and we stopped at the recommended Crystal Restaurant for lunch.  The ground floor was the original restaurant, the Crystal Lounge on the second floor had the same menu but was run by a different branch of the family and there was a take away with some of teh menu available for eating more casually.
We stuck with the main floor and it was really posh and had the AC cranked up to freezing levels.  Prices were a little higher than we were used to but the place was way posh and the  food way really good except for a pickle that must have consisted mainly of salt.
On the way back Meg wanted to get us over our avoidance of tuktuks so we took one back with a slightly bargained down price for the short ride back to the hotel, fairly painless.
We packed and lounged until 5 pm as we paid for an extra half day to feel cool and clean before our bus ride.  The bus office was less tan a 5 minute walk away but they directed us to another stop to get our bus that put us back right in front of our hotel.
The bus was as dirty as before and the AC usually worked.  There were only about 12 of us on the bus so there was lots of room to spread out.  Our driver wasn't as aggressive as before so the ride was only moderately hair-raising.  The overhead lights didn't work so I had to use my Kobo light once the sun set.
We stopped to fix a side view mirror and then in the middle of nowhere for the driver to go into an unlit house.  Just before our destination our driver stopped for a 30 minute dinner.  We had butter naan and onion parathas with curry, which hit the spot.
Once we reached Dharamshala a huge number of backpackers were sitting there waiting for us, so the main purpose for the bus was the last leg to Manali.  We got a taxi for a good price and asked them to call our hotel as our phone reported having no service.   The woman who promised us a room and told us to call to get the key (we were arriving at 11 pm, after the desk had closed) said there as no room and acted as if she couldn't remember us.  This caused us a bit of anxiety as we headed up the hill with our maniacal taxi driver.
We got off at the Green Hotel and it as indeed closed.  The phone worked and the woman said that she'd send a boy.  He asked about our reservation and what our room number was and we said he should know, not us.  He then produced a key and showed us to our room.  No balcony or fan but we weren't going to do any better as the rest of the town had closed down by now.  We settled in and had a pretty good sleep.

A detail from one of the life-sized dioramas.

One o the classes visiting with us.

A local we met on the way back.

June 4 - The Golden Temple

June 4 Day 109 -
We slept in and it was delicious!  We quickly got organized and crossed the street to the railway station.  The pedestrian walkway was a convenient way to cross the busy street but it was full of homeless people trying to sleep.
At the train station we wandered around for a bit before finding the free bus to the Golden Temple.  It was arriving and took off as soon as it was loaded.  There was lots of room and it got us there quickly, nice.
The area around the Golden Temple is mainly pedestrian walkways so we followed the crowd and didn't have to worry so much about being hit by vehicles. 

One of the few pictures taken before being told that we couldn't take pictures.

An old, faded glory kinda house.

On the bus heading back, soaked with sweat.

Soon the crowd thickened and we saw a gate that everyone was going through with some shiny buildings behind it.  To get there, you have to check your shoes and cover your head, yellow scarves are provided for this.  Two people asked to have their pictures with us and we realized that we could spend all day doing this if we didn't start saying no.
We walked barefoot through a water trough to clean our feet and then we were in view of the temple.  According to our guidebook, the water surround it is the real attraction as it is supposed to have healing powers.  Men bathe in it and women can go into one of two enclosed buildings to take advantage of the powers.  We took a few pictures before being told that it was not allowed (our guidebook said that it was only forbidden inside of the temple).    A few people were still taking selfies, but so few that you knew most people knew better.
We walked along the outside seeing many people lying in the shade and places to drop off wet clothes, pick up your communion or get a bowl of water to drink.  We kept walking until we got to the lineup for the Golden Temple itself and joined it as it slowly made its way upon the walkway into the temple proper. 
The crowd was quite a squeeze as we slowly made our way forward, as the guards would raise a barrier to let people into the area into the main entrance and wait until the area was clear again.  At least the walkway was covered and lined with fans blowing down from the ceiling.  There were very few tourists and many people stared as if they had never seen a foreigner before.  The kids were okay, but, as always, the young males were more abrasive.  They would turn and stare at us and look Meg up and down until a counterstare sent them off.  The ones behind me would push with their bellies and toes into you.  When I leaned back into them they pushed by other people to get to the front first.
Once there, the temple was tiny but almost impossibly ornate.  Musicians constantly chanted their holy book, which was piped throughout the complex.  Relief musicians were on the carpet behind them and a select group sat in front of them.  All of the stone and metalwork was finely done, like the best mosques and palaces in Istanbul, and had a mixture of Muslim and Hindu features.  We went outside to look around us then up to the second floor, which had a balcony view to the main chamber as well as delicate paintings protected under plexiglass and many people gathered on the floor, looking down and/or praying.
The top floor was a roof with nice panoramic views and a room where people were praying to a holy man.  We made our way back downstairs and exiting was much quicker than coming in. 
We made our way around the temple in search of langar, the largest kitchen in the world where the Sikhs practice generosity by giving free food to everyone who shows up.  We got our trays, spoons and bowls and waited to get into the main dining chamber.  While we waited, a rude bunch of young males kept trying to take our pictures.  I grabbed the phone off of one of them and covered their view with my tray while the people around them gave disapproving looks. 
The doors opened and everyone got up and headed in to take their place on the floor on burlap strips.  people came around with chaipattis, rice puddling, dahl, water, squash curry and rice.  We all ate on the floor together while servers constantly walked around with their buckets and scoops, seeing if anyone wanted seconds.  We got a few curious looks but people generally left us alone. 
After about 20 minutes the next group got ready to come in and they quickly squeegeed the spilled food off of the floor and directed us out through a large stairway.  Our dirty dishes were dropped off and we made a donation.  Apparently they welcome volunteers to help with the dishes but we had tourist stuff to accomplish.
We walked back and got our shoes quite easily.  We retraced our steps and Meg spotted a post office and quickly got stamps and dropped off some postcards.  Taxi drivers were constantly offering us trips to the border and you couldn't address them all nicely or you'd never leave the square. 
We found an overpriced but air-conditioned coffee shop and started to feel human again.  We decided to stay downtown and headed to the partition museum.  partition happened when Pakistan split with India and the Punjab was one of the hardest hit areas with millions dying due to ethnic violence and 40% of the city destroyed by riots. 
The museum gave some good background and had many many first-person testimonials.  It covered a lot of the background history of the area and could have used more detail on the politics of partition, but is still worth seeing.
Back in the heat, we looked, unsuccessfully, for a pedicure place for Meg, and then found a place selling kultcha for me.  This is a local food which has oily bread stuffed with good stuff served with chickpea curry and yummy mint pickle.  In spite of he heat, we managed to find our appetite and polish the treat off.  Of concern was the ice in our drinks, but no ill effects were had.
Meg unsuccessfully tried to find a scarf she liked in a shop and then we decided to head back.  The bus to the railway station waits until it is full before it headed out and there were still a few seats left when we showed up, on the sunny side of the bus.  As we slowly baked and waited for the bus to fill, Meg struck up a conversation with a Sikh family and photos were taken, although the conversation was limited.  Eventually the aisles were full of people standing and we headed out.
Back at the hotel, the AC was delicious and we hung out unril dinner.  The tv was weird as there was a payment system for all movie and international news channels except Al Jazeera.  The charges were small, 1-15 rupees but figuring out an Indian designed payment system was a frustration we didn't need, so Al Jazeera it was.
Dinner was in the hotel's Bottoms Up bar.  The kitchen was good and the beer was cold.  We shared the space with some Sikh men drinking from cold beer pumps at their table and watching a cricket match on tv.  It wasn't exactly rowdy, which was good.  We only saw one other foreigner at the hotel, a grumpy bearded computer guy, and most rooms were continually empty when we passed them.  It really was off-season, we guessed.
We had another solid sleep in our nice cool room.

June 3 - To Amritsar and the Bizarre Border Ceremony

June 3  Day 108- to Amritsar
After a few days staying in a hotel and saying goodbye to everyone, we got an early bus to Amritsar.  The McLeod Ganj bus station was closed so we needed a taxi to Dharamshala to the gas station where the bus was waiting.  It was definitely dirtier than the bus we took from Delhi, with grime and cherry pits at the bottom of our drink holders.  The woman behind us kept dramatically wailing to her family about some need or other she had but the other passengers were fine, almost all Indians.
It was a relief when we got going as the driver turned the AC on.  The trip was supposed to be 4 hours but we heard it could be 6 hours on the internet and 7 hours according to the guidebook.  There is no certainty when you're travelling in India.
Our driver certainly wanted to make time, as he had us leaning over from the force of his curving and smelling burning gears over a gravelly stretch.  Anyone who wasn't going the same speed as him got tailgated and honked at until they got out of the way.  He was a little more cautious about passing, but his aggressive driving got us there in 4 1/2 hours with one stop for breakfast.
We got off by the train station and were set upon by a swarm of taxi and tuktuk drivers, but they did not get to us.  I had booked the Grand Hotel close to the train station so we were there in less than a 5 minute walk.
The hotel had a quiet, green courtyard that we waited in while the owner did a strange dance.  He acted as if he didn't have ur reservation, which he did, and then encouraged us to look at upgrade rooms.  We initially didn't bite, but when Meg found out that the toilet didn't flush we got the upgrade.  For all of our trip around India, AC was a must as the temperature was solidly over 40 and sometimes approaching 50 degrees.
We had a nice lunch and settled into our room until our 3 pm tour to the flag ceremony that we booked at our hotel.  This is the tour to the Pakistan border where citizens on both sides try to outdo each other as the military of their country does high kicks and folds up the flag at the border's closing.
The taxi had AC and we could see tuktuks packed with 10 or more people all heading along the highway with us.  We also passed many bases for the border authority which went on for kilometres of high walls and barbed wire.  Since we were foreigners we got to use the close parking lot and saw streams of locals walking beside us, as if they were going to a popular concert or a sold out hockey game.
We got into the foreigners and reserved seats line and saw many Indians quickly leave it once the military started to check if people were actually on the guest list.  We were so obviously not Punjabi that we got waved through most of these checkpoints but Meg had to circle back to the bag check when we found that the books we brought could not be taken in.
Past security there were restaurant and vendors selling snacks and drinks as we walked towards the stadium-like building at the border.  Locals got the large bleacher area but we went to the posheforeigner area which had metal seats.  We were next to the similar reserved seats and across from the VIP seats, which had plastic lawn chairs.
We were entertained by loud Indian dance music while the stands filled up and snack vendors worked the crowd.  They were actually charging reasonable rates, perhaps because the whole things was being overseen by the border guard agency.  As thousands of people filled the stands and cheered to the music on the Indian side, the Pakistani side was quiet and empty and no one could tell us why the difference was so great.
Wen the stands were full at 5:15 the ceremony started.  One guard grabbed a mike and got the crowd riled up while a huge crowd of women with a few children lined up.  The women took turns running around with 7 flags to music while the guard got the crowd screaming.  After about 15 minutes of this, the rest of the women were led into the space to dance to various songs for another 15 minutes.
The real ceremony then began with a few soldiers waving flags around in a surprisingly imperfect formation.  Then two guys with fans on their hats did some super high-stepping and were followed by a group of about a dozen soldiers.  On the Pakistani side, you could see soldiers mirroring what was happening on the Indian side and now about 50 people were in the stands.  When the Indian soldiers took to the mike, you could hear that music similar to the Indian side was being cranked out on the Pakistani side.
Some Rambo-sized soldiers holding very large guns and some border dogs were marched out before they opened the gates.  The dogs got a big cheer when they both bowed down at the same time.  The gates were opened and there followed a few theatrical marches toward the gates to face the Pakistani guard and both sides would high kick, flex their muscles or twirl their mustaches. 
This went back and forth several times until some soldiers grabbed the flag ropes and slowly lowered and folded the flags.  Meg tried to beat the rush by leaving early but wasn't allowed out until the flag had left the premises.  Interestingly, throughout the whole ceremony, people kept arriving and being sent to seats and even as we left, people were still coming in.  Yet another thing we didn't understand about this bizarre ritual.
We did beat most of the crowd and had a pretty quick drive back to our hotel.  The bar and restaurant there was fine, the first decent draught I've had in a long time.  Many Sikhs were there watching a world cup of cricket match.  We headed back to our room and had a great sleep in the cool chamber.

The crowd in the stadium at the border.

Relegated to the foreigners' section.

Our military cheerleader with the open border behind him.

June 1 - A Home Visit

June 1 - Home Visit -
On the Temple Road there was this dignified looking musician who often smiled and said good morning to us.  Meg had started a conversation with him and gotten an invitation to his home.  We had been discussing the date back and forth and asked that it only be for tea (tea being a confusing term for anyone using British English) and so on the 1st we met him at 5:30 and walked through town to his home.  On the advice of friends we had brought a carton of milk and another of juice as gifts.
He lived down the hill from the main tourist part of town in a concrete building reached by paths rather than the road.  His family had one room for mother, father and four children.  Half of the room was taken up with a bed, there was a blocked area around the sole spigot for washing and a shelf against the wall where food and the gas burner was.  The rest of the floor had a carpet which we sat upon.
He played music for a bit and a daughter sang a few songs with him.  I tried his instrument and made some horrible sounds  It had a full octave of steel strings but you played a horsehair string that crossed them with a bow.  He had long fingernails on his left hand for touching the string which went across the others and had bells on the bow which could be used for percussion.  He was from a musician caste and was proud of his heritage but lamented his financial state.  When we passed him in the street he usually only had 50-60 rupees in his basket.
         He spoke about the land (he used the word "desert") he owned in Rajastan, where his mother lived in a tent.  His daughter was married but her husband had died in a motorcycle accident, leaving her alone with a child. 
While we were talking his wife and oldest daughter heated tea and made chapattis from scratch.  She served us tea and chapattis with vegetable curry and yoghurt.  This was more than we wanted but we finished one and insisted on splitting another.  One daughter was eating but everyone else seemed to be waiting for us to finish. We avoided the yoghurt as we knew of only one store in town that kept it cold and they didn't have a fridge, so milk products seemed more of a risk than the food itself.
Meg tried to find alternatives for him but he said hotels never called him back as they wanted modern guitar bands.  He also said only tourists bought his CDs and now that was fewer as CDs were no longer a thing.  We agreed to buy some CDs when we saw him the next day and made our exit before it got dark.
On the way back the girl who was singing followed us for a few minutes and then tried to beg money off of us.  She tried to be cute and said please several times but we weren't biting so she went off.

After this was over we had planned to meet our friend Firoz for a goodbye meal and he invited Roshni, another volunteer at LHA who was quite interesting herself.  She had been volunteering with the daycare facility and was spend full days with young kids before coming to the conversation class at LHA and so was justifiably exhausted most days.
We had a good meal and chat about our home visit amongst other things before walking Roshni home and saying goodbye to Firoz.

Performing with his precocious daughter.

Me looking good but sounding bad.

The musician at home.

May 26 - Triund Trek Day 2

May 26
Meg had been suggesting that we could get our revenge by getting up early and singing loudly amongst the tents.  We were outfoxed, however, but the same group of young dudes who were yowling until 1 am the night before.  They were up at 5, talking and shouting close to the tents so that no one else could sleep.
We grouchily got up, feeling like crap, and decided that we weren't going to try for the snowline today.  Many people were up as we headed to breakfast and Suneil's Tea House was very busy.  Our breakfast was good and we talked with some women from Delhi who were as appalled with the behaviour of our fellow campers as we were.
Eunice showed up and agreed that she wasn't up for the snowline and had the luck of hearing someone vomit behind her tent in the night.  The bitching made us feel better as we saw the shadows of the mountains stretch over the town and the sun rise behind the mountains themselves.  It was a clear day and too nice for a poor night's sleep to ruin.
We packed up and headed down quickly.  There were fewer bluetooth speakers this time around but groups of young males were still howling to each other and pushing the other hikers on the trail, whether they were going up or down.  Most of the hikers were actually nice, but these groups certainly aroused our grouchiness.
We talked for a bit with our friends from Delhi and decided to walk back to town since it was all downhill.  We didn't really know the way but followed a long stone stairway that everyone else seemed to be using.  This made Meg's legs feel rubbery and we had to rest quite a bit before we got to Dharamkot.
Dharamkot is a small town north of the main city and we got lost a bit in its pedestrian streets before settling on a place for lunch.  It was noticably western, with few Tibetan or Indian faces but lots of yoga studios and meditation centres.  We were braced for a long walk down from there but a short trip showed us the entrance to the meditation centre I had been using and the rest was easy.

With friends in Suneil's Teahouse.

The mountains in the morning.

A morning visitor by our tent.

May 25 - Triund Trek

Trip to Triund May 25
Triund is in the mountains above Mcleod Ganj.  You can go up and come back in a day or opt to overnight.  Longer treks are based out of there but we only have 2 day weekends with our teaching schedule, so the overnight option was our choice.
We tried to do it with our friends John and Nataya but I got sick just before we were supposed to leave and so it didn't happen.  We had already booked our tent, which was only a $10 per person loss.  We had heard that the rental sleeping bags were dirty and so the head of LHA, Dorji, who lives in our building, offered us some sleeping bags that she had in storage for a group coming over the summer.
We held onto these and went the next weekend, after our American friends had departed for France.  We booked a cab to take us as far as the road could go and had to take our tall backpacks in order to accommodate the sleeping bags.
The morning was sunny and the 30 minute cab ride got us up to the trailhead.  This was along a very narrow road that kept getting rougher and rougher, more suited to a fully loaded Jeep than the little Suzuki cab.  We jostled over bumps, skidded our tires a few times and shut our eyes as the narrow, guard-rail-less road skirted the edge of steep drops.
We got there and headed onto the trail, which continued as a rough road and then became a well-blazed path with many stone steps and fortifications.  This was even busier that the W trek in Patagonia as many families from Delhi and the Punjab come up for the weekend.  People were coming and going both ways, but the annoying thing were the groups of young hikers carting Bluetooth speakers.  We didn't go hiking to hear music varying from hiphop to Hindi Bollywood classics to Roy Orbison.  We tried to let them pass so that they could fade off into the distance but they invariably stopped for a tea break and then passed us again.
The trek was lined with shops and tea houses which were usually lean-tos with tarps overhead selling a surprising variety of drinks and snacks.  Every once in awhile we have to step off the path as a mule train came along, the only source of supplies for the many establishments along the trail.  We stopped at the Magic View teahouse at the halfway point of the trail, which lived up to its name, actually had a partial stone structure and did a proper masala chai, although after watching them wash up we were glad that the tea was served boiling hot.
The hike itself was a little over 3 hours of constant elevating, with the trail getting rougher and rockier as we went along it.  Of course, as the we got higher the views back into town and up to the mountains kept getting better and better.
We arrived at Triund around 1 pm, which is on a plateau which usually has a great view of the surrounding mountains.  Unfortunately, we had been hiking through a slight mist for most of the last two hours and it was thick at the top.  Sometimes visibility was down to almost nothing and certainly the mountains, which we knew were there, were not making an appearance.
We found our tent, dropped off our bags and looked for lunch as the rain started.  Our campground had an unattractive kitchen where we could have dahl or boiled noodles so we went elsewhere.  We found the largest place, Suneil's Teahouse which had a varied menu.  Once we ordered we were invited to the back where there were two blanket covered bunks to recline on.  The place was made of woven blankets covered in tarps but was quite cosy.  We had tea and stuffed parathas, which were tasty.  We ordered an extra roti as we heard heavy rain and hail bounce off the tarp above us.  The couple across from us were a French/Spanish mix and the employees let us lounge there and wait out the storm.
We came out into sunshine and finally saw the mountains, which were very impressive.  Meg preened the inside of the tent and had a nap while I read my book and enjoyed the scenery.  The campground was starting to fill up and groups of young men spent the entire afternoon posing and taking picture sof each other.
After Meg got up we decided to try making it to the snowline before it got dark.  This trail got a little rougher and had many narrow spots with steep drops off to one side.  We leaned into the mountains and saw mist coming up from the river below.  Soon we had no view and it was getting much darker so we turned back early, as there would be nothing to see at snowline anyway.  We planned to try again in the morning.
Back at camp it was a little clearer and we could see that the mist we had been experiencing was really clouds which we were high enough to be inside of.  We went back to Suneil's to get some of the delicious bean curry we had smelled at lunch and met a fellow Canadian from Vancouver, Eunice.  We talked and made plans to hit snowline the next morning.
Once the sun set we went into our tent and tried to sleep, but the weekenders would have nothing of it.  The group around us had selected a bonfire site close to our tent and were yelling, shouting and playing Bluetooth tunes all evening.  At 11, when everyone else had retired to their tents and quieted down a bit, a group of young boys came back from where they had been either drinking or doing drugs and started screaming, giggling and tripping over tent poles.   We had heard groups howling in the distance but now the boys had returned.  They kept this up until 1 in the morning or so and sleep was impossible.
During the night, Meg heard strange grunting and crunching noises and ended up having a close encounter with  a grazing horse.  Cattle were all over the campsite and a large herd of goats went back and forth several times, so the ground was actively fertilized.  There was no washroom for campers, so human stuff was on the ground as well.  There were little holes in the ground full of soggy toilet paper and you didn't want to look in any cracks in the rocks.  Some tents clusters had toilet tents, but these were a minority.  It was kind of gross.
Litter was less of a problem here than in McLeod Ganj.  There were anti-littering signs all along the trail and some was visible, but not like other places we have been.  The noisy people next to us left some cups and bottles on the ground but the site was less littery than we were expecting.

Meg at the top once the mist lifted.

The campsite, many more tents would be added before nightfall.

The Magic View Teahouse about 20 minutes before we arrived there.

Month of May - adapting to a new home

Life in McLeod Ganj.
On an average day we'd wake up and get ready at our apartment in Ahimsa House.  We had a shared kitchen off of our room with our bathroom across it.  Filtered drinking water was provided and we had a nice porch to eat on when the weather permitted.
I would often walk up to the Tashita Centre for morning meditation at 9, with the walk serving as good exercise as well.  We had a 15 minute walk up a steep hill to get to the town centre.  The road had barely enough space for two small cars to pass each other along the road so it was tight for pedestrians.  Walking to town was like a video game with random actions and obstacles along the way, but one of the early levels of the game, as opposed to Delhi which would be a much higher one.
We would take a shortcut outside of our gate which would lead us up a steep path which was mainly rocks and dirt.  It had a smattering of garbage, including broken glass and at least one razor blade but was still better than the road.
The road started with a hairpin turn which vehicles had a tough time negotiating.  Some cattle and dogs were regulars on this stretch as well as a few monkeys as there was an overflowing dumpster at the curve in the road.  All the animals dug through the garbage and sometime someone left a pile of vegetable scraps for the cattle to eat.
Along the road people were constantly honking and buzzing close to the pedestrians, who are far down the pecking order.  Our street is one way, which means little, and you want to be at the very edge of the road.  When you meet people coming the other way you avoid being forced into the road as you never know when someone might come down quickly.  Dogs and cows add to the mix and some people walk down the road without seeming to care about the trucks honking at them and never seem to get hit.
We walk by the Dalai Lama's temple after about 5 minutes, which also holds the Tibet Museum which shows Tibetan-themed movies twice a day.  Past the temple the street gets busy with a crowded taxi stand and many more people.  As you head up the hill, shops and cafes are on your right and vendors selling tourist materials are in wooden booths to your left.  Most of the vendors are Tibetan and laid back, so there is little hassle from them.  On the other side you get some "yes sir, please enter my shop" but nothing bad.  The worst part remains the traffic.  There is some construction going on along the way, creating a terminal for a cablecar from Dharamshala.  It is usually women carrying basket of rocks on their heads to the cement mixer.
As you keep going the stalls drop away and you have full time shops on both sides.  The street gets busier and you begin to get beggars coming up to you.  On the lower street, a few people with deformed legs are by the road asking for money.  On the upper part, women with children will grab your shirt sleeve and follow you for a long time, saying ," no money, want food."
The whole question of what to do about beggars is one we have discussed at length.  We've heard horror stories of people who give them something and are immediately surrounded by 50 people grabbing for more.  We have also seen signs around town telling us now to give them packaged food as they resell it to vendors.  A friend of ours who works with the poor told us that in order to sleep on the street you need drugs or inebriants of some kind, so that's where the money goes.  There are so many beggars, you can't help them all.  Online literature suggests that you donate to organizations that help the poor rather than give them money directly, but that's the sort of rationale that goes through one's head when one sees a beggar and rare is the time that the actual donation occurs.  We'll let you know if we come up with a solution that we're happy with.
The shops along the way are very small, there's no supermarket here.  Over time you learn who has what, and if they don't have it then magical "shop #5" has it, which has actually turned out to be true.  Most places sell yoghurt and butter out on the shelf but we have managed to find a place that keeps it in the fridge.  Anti-perspirant and lotions without whiteners have been difficult to find but we located them at a place that sells imported stuff at a premium.
One thing you'll see and hear a lot of is horking and spitting.  Paan accounts for some of it, but much of it is cultural.  Indians and Tibetans do not have the absolute fascination with mucus that the Chinese do, but horking ans spitting are quite common and can be stomache-churning to be around.
Further up the street we join with the other main street, parallel to ours.  Meg figures it used to be a boulevard, as the two streets are very narrow and the line of shops between them are also super thin, with many shops opening onto both streets.  These streets are often bottlenecked with traffic and the best ATM in town is here, often with a lineup of 20 foreigners.  An annoying thing is that people cleaning just dump their water in the street.  You can often avoid the little streams, but the people cleaning their balconies and roofs do the same thing, so often you feel some liquid dripping on you as you go up the street and you're not sure what it is.
In the morning I continue through town and this is the best opportunity to use the ATM.  Going up to the Tashita Meditation Centre is another 1 minutes of even steeped walking with a little less traffic.  This road is even narrower and heavily populated by monkeys so you have to be on guard.  By the time you arrive at the centre you've got a good sweat going, as if you just had a quarter hour on a stairmaster.
The meditation lasts for an hour and is well guided.  They have chairs and cushions in a large hall decorated as a Buddhist temple.  It is a beginners' class and the attendees are all foreigners.
After the meditation I usually do some chores and then head to the museum for a movie.  They ask 10 rupees (20 cents) and put on a burned DVD which has Tibet in its context.  Usually 8-10 foreigners attend.  There are many places in town offering language classes, Tibetan culture, political information, Buddhist studies and snake-oily stuff about healing through chakras, singing bowls and other things offered by creepy looking gurus.
The LHA Charitable Trust is where Meg and I hold our classes.  She does a beginners' class at 10:30 in the morning and I do a 3 pm advanced group.  The office is on the main Temple Road not far from the main square.  You go up some narrow concrete steps to the dark and dusty main floor before continuing up more narrow steps to the office.  On one side are the administrative offices and the other is mainly classrooms.  There's a library where the language co-ordinator stays.  This room is full of textbooks as well as fiction and a few materials such as word cards.
When the class before mine lets out we all take off our shoes and enter the room.  Students sit on cushions on the floor and range in age from about 17 - 40.  Many are monks and a few nuns attend each class.  Monks and nuns are so common here that no one bats an eye.  A big difference from Canada is that there my class is made to show up so many kids would rather not be there.  Here the students choose to come to class because they really want to learn English, so the attitude is very different.
Most of the class is verbal as we don't have a lot of materials.  If they have to share something they often take pictures on their phones and use the picture.  Classes vary from 10-20 students and attendance varies from day to day, making continuity difficult.  There's a tv on the wall that can be used to access Youtube but it's unreliable.  Simple paper, textbook and verbal lessons are the norm.  Fortunately, our friend Firoz helps out in my class every day before he joins the conversation group and is an invaluable help.
After my class, sometimes before I'm even finished, people burst in for the very popular conversation session from 4-5 pm.  This allows volunteers to contribute to LHA even if they have no formal skills and are only around for a day or two.  Students sit in circles, filling the classrooms and the rooftop are and Nihma sorts the volunteers so that they're sitting with groups of between 3 and 15 students to talk about whatever and practice their English.  The conversations get loud and animated as many people are jammed into a fairly compact space.
After the tsession, LHA shuts down quite quickly.  Rarely can we walk home without meeting someone we know and we eat out with others for about half of our dinners.  This is aided by the sheer number of cheap and excellent restaurants in town.  Most are Tibetan with a fair number of Italian places and a few Indian.  Many cafes serve proper coffee but only a handful sell alcohol.
The few shops that sell alcohol focus on spirits.  We can find decent beer but wine is tricky.  Most of the wines are sickly sweet fruit wines.  We were going to try some Indian wine but they wanted more than $30 a bottle, come on, this is India.
Another thing that is plentiful here is books.  After struggling to find used books to read almost anywhere we went, you could overdose on good books in McLeod Ganj.  At Ahimsa House, every room has a shelf of used books.  The library at LHA lets you borrow them for a deposit and many restaurants have a shelf that you can use to trade books.  I wonder if they were solicited by the Tibetan community and they ended up with more than they could use.
The Tibetans here have quietly been taking very good care of us.  When we almost moved to another place (the person whose place we were to take over's landlord didn't allow sublets), Dorji offered to have us move beside he kitchen, even though we didn't speak to her about this.  When Meg was asking about buying a secondhand Tibetan outfit (a chupa) with someone in the office, again Dorji let her try one of hers that she said didn't fit.  When we were asking about renting clean sleeping bags for a trek, Tashi showed up at our door with two new ones which had been donated.  People are very quiet and reserved in this community and you don't know whether they are really agreeing with you or avoiding conflict.  Obviously, getting things done by constantly talking to one another has benefited us greatly during our stay here.
One way to entertain yourself in India is to send a parcel, which is a ridiculous production.  First, you get two forms from the office.  Then you go to the photocopy place (intentionally) next door and get your passport copied twice.  Next, go to the parcel maker (again intentionally) next door to get your parcel made.  Sit in the parcel maker's shop while you itemize what you are sending and fill out the forms.  Once this is done, he will put your stuff in a box and cover it in sacking, which he will sew up and seal with melted wax for less than $2.  You then write the "to" on one side and the "from" on the other.
Finally, take it to the post office.  They have never checked to see what is in your parcel but accept it, check the paperwork and will send it off once you have paid.  There are seven people there but five are continually on tea break.  It comes as a surprise when you hear they have digital tracking on your parcel as the office has more of a vibe of the post office you'd find at a Canadian pioneer village, so the mention of technology comes as a shock.  Even the slow parcels are supposed to arrive in three weeks, let's see if that happens.

A street dog asleep on a vendor's space before they set up.

Temple Road with traffic and cattle.

Meg and her class on our last day of teaching.

May 10-12 - Attending a teaching of the Dalai Lama

Attending the teaching with the Dalai Lama. May 10-12
Our first problem was finding out what to do and what it would be like to attend.  Wangbue was able to drop us off at the sign in centre, which had a short line.  We handed over our passports, posed for a picture and paid 10 rupees for a pass that would let us in to the teaching.  Wangbui also lent us two radios which were necessary to hear the translations, as he spoke in Tibetan.
We got differing advice on what to bring, what time things happened at and what the space would be like.  We had visited the temple and knew it wasn't huge and had also heard the intentions of everyone we spoke to of attending.  Some people apparently lined up at 5:30 to get in but we decided to try to get there for 7.  We were worried that there would only be standing room by that time but brought our cushions anyway.
We went with our friend Corinne, who had been to one before.  The line up was long but relatively fast moving.  We passed line ups for people checking their phones and late registrants.  Foreigners had their own line with a metal detector that everyone ignored and a pat down for all entrants.  Men and women were in separate lines for this reason, with the men's line being significantly shorter.  I got to go to the front of the line as I had no bag.
After a typical airport patdown I got in.  The upper level was teeming and the bottom level close to the temple had people's names taped to the floor to save their spots.  There was still lots of space in the yard so I set down our cushions in a spot with a clear view of the screen, figuring we had no chance of seeing him in person.  We happily chatted with those around us for awhile.
Corinne left the area where she had her name taped due to crowding and reported that there was an area with actual chairs that she was told was available.  We had heard that chairs were only for the elderly and disabled so we changed spots and it was all true.
We sat in our chairs as the area slowly filled up over the next two hours, with monks on the ground and a combination of monks, locals and foreigners in the chairs.  We were served bread and yak butter tea as we waited.  There was a large screen in front of us and by the time things got started the floor everywhere and around us was packed with monks.
The screen had just shown the frequencies to hear each translated language but switched to a view of a car outside the temple.  We saw the Dalai Lama come out and slowly walk in, supported by monks on each side and surrounded by security.  He stopped to talk to people and bless them on the way in.  most surprised was the army security guy who got a blessing and didn't look comfortable in receiving it.
We watched on the screen as he came inside the temple, walked up the stairs, did a loop of the central temple before entering it and getting seated.  The whole process took about 20 minutes and was shown on the big screen.  Everyone was quite quiet with hands in praying position during this time.
On he got seated, all of the monks and devout Buddhists prostrated themselves three times, then he started speaking.  The teaching as sponsored by the Russian Buddhists so he greeted them and everyone else who showed up.  The Russians had place of privilege around the central temple throughout the teachings.
The English translation had technical problems for the first 30 minutes or so, with much cutting out and loud static.  Our translator could be heard asking what was going on and complaining that he had missed saying much of his translation.  Eventually someone threw a switch and it was clear from then on in.
There was no translation while the Dalai Lama spoke, which was often for long periods, so he had long breaks in between his talking.  We noticed that the Russian translator almost invariably went on much longer than our English one, which made us wonder if we were really getting all of the information.
We caught him talking about Buddhism being not just belief but logic and that it should be questioned and not merely accepted.  He said it was the only religion to parallel with modern science.  He mentioned the need for non-violence to be taught in the modern world and for making happiness and compassion priorities.  He mentioned the gap between rich and poor.
He hailed Russia as being an important link between Europe and Asia and the importance of Mongolia.  He then said the text was too long to read on that day and spoke of the importance of emptiness and clear light and the three wheels of the sutra.
After this he said he would deal with the text tomorrow and started to head out.  They cleared attendees from the grounds beneath the stairs so that he could get right back into the car.  As he came down the stairs we had our only clear live view of him that day before he got into the vehicle and went away.  He had spoken for under an hour total and looked very tired as he left us.
Another high up Monk started giving a talk about the details of what the Dalai Lama spoke about and Meg went off to get string so that we could tie our cushions onto the chairs to reserve them for the next day.  The area had to be cleared for the Russian delegation's lunch, so we took away our cushions and I waited for her return.  Corinne stayed to hear the after lesson but we took off.
The second day we got up at the same time, worried that the usual influx of Indian tourists on the weekend would make today more crowded.  Not so.  We went straight through security and got a much more thorough pat down than the day before, with everything from my pockets emptied and inspected.  At least I knew that as a male without a bag, I would get through first and save spots.
Our chair area was still there with almost no one in it.  An hour later there were still excellent spots available, but we were enjoying chatting and looking around.  We took turns walking upstairs, which was packed, at the reserved Russian area and the mainly Tibetan surrounding spots.  Everyone walked clockwise around the main temple and people in their finery were crammed into every bit of floor space.
We had bread and salty tea again and this morning the Dalai Lama's car showed up earlier.  As he walked in we stood up and were only  a few feet away from him.  A western man beside me leaned in and got blessed and the Dalai Lama took more time to talk and bless people today.
Once he got settled in he went over the text and added several points to expand on it or clarify points.  The translation was clear today and they came around with masala chai during the talk.  After he finished he walked down, got into his car and went away.
Almost everyone left at the same time today so it was much more of a crunch to get out.  people here don't have the same sense of personal space so there was much pushing and people stopping and blocking the crowd behind them.
The third day we came later but still got our same seats.  We had tea and bread and some young monks were sitting in front of us.  One was 6 or 7 years old and was acting silly, including using his photo pass to see the Dalai Lama as a gun and pretending to shoot the monks around him.
The Dalai Lama walked in as before and it was announced that photos would only be taken with the Russian delegation in groups of 50 at a time after the talk.  He did a ceremony that was supposed to bless those further along in their studies.  He spoke at length of past sages from all branches of Buddhism and told us to envisage them as we confessed our errors, celebrated helping others and he then gave us a prayed that we should recite three times every morning once we wake up.
  He then ceased his talk and the video shut off as he got ready for his photo shoot.  Since he hadn't left, the main exit was blocked so it was even more of a squeeze leaving today.  We got separated but all managed to find our way back to our lodging safely.

This was the spot where he gave his talks, we only saw it on a tv screen.

He was quite frail and needed support but still took lots of time to greet people on his way in.

We're concentrating on the broadcast.  If you blow up the picture, I am blocked by the second pillar on the right and Meg is right beside it.