May 3 Day 77
We woke up well rested had had a fine breakfast with fresh banana. We spent some time trying to research other places to stay but the internet only gave us ridiculously expensive places. We decided that even if our room was overpriced at $400 a month, we could afford it and the organization the money was going to was a good one.
We met Wangdue at LHA and headed out for more orientation. We went to the Tibetan library, which had a large bookshop mainly in Tibetan but with some English and a detailed museum upstairs. The curator gave us lengthy descriptions of the history and meaning of many pieces. They had mainly come from Tibet, brought by the Dalai Lama or carried by other escapees. They had a powder mandala which we heard about from Werner Herzog's Wheel of Time. They also had an elaborate, three dimensional wooden mandala, the likes of which we had not seen before and an incredible wood cabinet meant to represent multiple techniques in Tibetan woodcarving.
On the way down Wangdue mentioned that the curator loved to talk, but I'll bet that he doesn't get a lot of visitors and likes the company.
We then went to the Tibetan Parliament in Exile and joined a tour with a Russian group. We heard a bit of how it functioned and saw the main room, but everything was very functional and plainly decorated. Apparently no country has had the nerve to recognize its authority so its power is limited.
We then headed to the Museum of Tibetan Medicine. The director gave us a detailed tour of the downstairs, which featured herbs, minerals, pills and tools used in traditional medicine. They had metal rods for curing tumours and insanity and arthritis and everything else. The pills were the same, multiple claims of healing for unrelated conditions. The pills are to be taken in conjunction with astrologers and urine observation. We were told that all pills are more effective if you pray to Buddha first. We were relieve to hear that some particularly gruesome tools meant for cataract removal were no longer in use.
On the second floor were dozens of illustrations taken from ancient texts of Tibetan medicine. They had the development of the fetus, body channels, internal diagrams, instructions on body fluids and many more. After describing a few of them to us, the director said that she couldn't go over all of them or we'd have completed and entire medical course. They had a few on display downstairs and he illustrations were interesting. We held our tongues about their claims, which probably added to a good visit.
We were going to visit another large centre but we asked if we could take a break as we were visited out and hungry for lunch. On the way back, Wangbui showed us where to line up to register for the Dalai Lama's teaching the next week.
In the line we met another LHA volunteer and Meg talked to an Italian couple. We had to show our passport and get our picture taken, generating a card that would get us in, all for 10 rupees. We had a fine lunch at Tibet Kitchen and then went back to our room to get our laundry together.
After dropping off our laundry we attended Sean's final class, writing down ideas of what we could do with the group and wondering how we were going to mark their book reports on Monday, neither of us having read Gilgamesh.
Afterwards we had some tea and pastries at a local cafe, got some food and supplies for our teaching premiere on Monday and headed back to the apartment. We cooked our first meal there, improving pots and pans and going downstairs to get lids and a sparker to light the burners. Dinner was good (we found a store that sold anchovies!) but was accompanied by beer instead of wine. All of the wine we could find in town has been super-sweet stuff often in peach flavour, so beer it was. We saw a notice on the wall saying there was to be no alcohol in the lodging, but it also said no pets. Since the director lived there with her three dogs, we decided to be discreet but not worry too much about it. After dinner, reading and bed. Figuring out a new place takes up a lot of energy!
We woke up well rested had had a fine breakfast with fresh banana. We spent some time trying to research other places to stay but the internet only gave us ridiculously expensive places. We decided that even if our room was overpriced at $400 a month, we could afford it and the organization the money was going to was a good one.
We met Wangdue at LHA and headed out for more orientation. We went to the Tibetan library, which had a large bookshop mainly in Tibetan but with some English and a detailed museum upstairs. The curator gave us lengthy descriptions of the history and meaning of many pieces. They had mainly come from Tibet, brought by the Dalai Lama or carried by other escapees. They had a powder mandala which we heard about from Werner Herzog's Wheel of Time. They also had an elaborate, three dimensional wooden mandala, the likes of which we had not seen before and an incredible wood cabinet meant to represent multiple techniques in Tibetan woodcarving.
On the way down Wangdue mentioned that the curator loved to talk, but I'll bet that he doesn't get a lot of visitors and likes the company.
We then went to the Tibetan Parliament in Exile and joined a tour with a Russian group. We heard a bit of how it functioned and saw the main room, but everything was very functional and plainly decorated. Apparently no country has had the nerve to recognize its authority so its power is limited.
We then headed to the Museum of Tibetan Medicine. The director gave us a detailed tour of the downstairs, which featured herbs, minerals, pills and tools used in traditional medicine. They had metal rods for curing tumours and insanity and arthritis and everything else. The pills were the same, multiple claims of healing for unrelated conditions. The pills are to be taken in conjunction with astrologers and urine observation. We were told that all pills are more effective if you pray to Buddha first. We were relieve to hear that some particularly gruesome tools meant for cataract removal were no longer in use.
On the second floor were dozens of illustrations taken from ancient texts of Tibetan medicine. They had the development of the fetus, body channels, internal diagrams, instructions on body fluids and many more. After describing a few of them to us, the director said that she couldn't go over all of them or we'd have completed and entire medical course. They had a few on display downstairs and he illustrations were interesting. We held our tongues about their claims, which probably added to a good visit.
We were going to visit another large centre but we asked if we could take a break as we were visited out and hungry for lunch. On the way back, Wangbui showed us where to line up to register for the Dalai Lama's teaching the next week.
In the line we met another LHA volunteer and Meg talked to an Italian couple. We had to show our passport and get our picture taken, generating a card that would get us in, all for 10 rupees. We had a fine lunch at Tibet Kitchen and then went back to our room to get our laundry together.
After dropping off our laundry we attended Sean's final class, writing down ideas of what we could do with the group and wondering how we were going to mark their book reports on Monday, neither of us having read Gilgamesh.
Afterwards we had some tea and pastries at a local cafe, got some food and supplies for our teaching premiere on Monday and headed back to the apartment. We cooked our first meal there, improving pots and pans and going downstairs to get lids and a sparker to light the burners. Dinner was good (we found a store that sold anchovies!) but was accompanied by beer instead of wine. All of the wine we could find in town has been super-sweet stuff often in peach flavour, so beer it was. We saw a notice on the wall saying there was to be no alcohol in the lodging, but it also said no pets. Since the director lived there with her three dogs, we decided to be discreet but not worry too much about it. After dinner, reading and bed. Figuring out a new place takes up a lot of energy!
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| Outside of the parliament in exile. |
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| Looking down on McLeod Ganj. |
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