As bad as the ride was the accommodation totally made up for it. And I'd be lying if I said that his Holiness Himself the Malai Dama greeted us, nevertheless we got a beautiful room to comfort our troubled tummies for 4 nights – for which Ems was more than grateful. The first thing was to hit the beds and zzzz...
In the afternoon we went for a short walk and to grab something to eat. We realized 3 things:
The general impression about the town was a quite positive one: 2nd cleanest during our visit promoting recycling and living for a cleaner environment. On the bad side (but this has more to do with Mr. Monsoon): the air humidity was un-bear-able. Our clothes were always moist. And the clothes that we washed on the 1st day might have been more wet after 3 days then right after washing.
The 2nd day (on Monday) was the weekend for the locals, therefore we could only visit the Buddhist Temple Complex of His Holiness the 14th Ladai Mala, and watched several Tibetan apprentices clap hands, tap their feet and shout at each other. As it turned out, they were Tibetan Buddhist students learning and debating in orange/red robes continuing ancient customs/rituals. But we're telling you: “There was definitely some monk-ey business going on in that temple”. Trapped by the rain for an hour or so, we just read more info, and replanned our trip, and even after that we couldn't visit anything else so we just strolled around the center, had a pleasant dinner – which was literally a whole lot that we've bargained for – and the first shared Kingfisher beer in weeks (since we were constantly overdosing ourselves on antibiotics).
After dinner we rolled up to the Dhal lake, that was 3km outside McLeod Ganj. On the way back we passed the Tibetan Children's Village. All in all it was nice little exercise before strolling home and crawling into bed.
The third day opened our third eye, and we've learned about the sad history of the Chinese occupied Tibet, the oppressed Tibetan culture, and about a population forced to flee their country over the Himalayas on foot and to live in exile in Nepal, Bhutan or India. All this through a nicely organized museum and revealing documentary.
This was also the memorable day when we set aside our fears and gathered courage to try out any food that we came across on the streets. Some of them were tasteless stuff, but others were a tasty & cheap treat. Fortunately none of them resulted in diarrhea.
The same day we hiked to a nearby waterfall that ended up in staring more at a pack of goats than at the waterfall itself since the rain trapped us on the way down in a small cottage. Interestingly enough the goat family found the same spot a welcoming shelter as well. It is good there are no laws in goat-land, because we witnessed them committing public affections of love while repeatedly hitting our legs.
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| Our tent from inside |
- The majority of the population was lighter skinned and had “differently-shaped” eyes – to be politically correct (Tibetan refugees and their descendants).
- Our shelter was quite an uphill walk from the town, and were closer to the next village, Bhagsu
- An apple a day keeps the doctor away... If you throw it hard enough.
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| McLeod Ganj from upper entrance |
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| Keep it cool & green guys |
The 2nd day (on Monday) was the weekend for the locals, therefore we could only visit the Buddhist Temple Complex of His Holiness the 14th Ladai Mala, and watched several Tibetan apprentices clap hands, tap their feet and shout at each other. As it turned out, they were Tibetan Buddhist students learning and debating in orange/red robes continuing ancient customs/rituals. But we're telling you: “There was definitely some monk-ey business going on in that temple”. Trapped by the rain for an hour or so, we just read more info, and replanned our trip, and even after that we couldn't visit anything else so we just strolled around the center, had a pleasant dinner – which was literally a whole lot that we've bargained for – and the first shared Kingfisher beer in weeks (since we were constantly overdosing ourselves on antibiotics).
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| JABT - Just Another Buddhist Temple |
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| The Meal - that deserves a capital M - and the beer |
The third day opened our third eye, and we've learned about the sad history of the Chinese occupied Tibet, the oppressed Tibetan culture, and about a population forced to flee their country over the Himalayas on foot and to live in exile in Nepal, Bhutan or India. All this through a nicely organized museum and revealing documentary.
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| Pipty years of resistance |
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| Kind lady offering 4 momos for less than "pipty rupee" - 10 rupee (0.12EUR) |
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| On the way to the waterfall |
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| The Bhagsu Nag |
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| Go-at-tack |
However the evening took a sad turn, we got bad news from home which forced us to end the journey and head back to Romania.
The replanning took us from McLeod Ganj directly to Delhi, where we boarded the 1st plane to Doha. Though we had almost a day layover time, without a visa we were trapped in the international zone of the airport. Next stop: Bucharest/Home.
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| Rooftop sunset before leaving, and after a hands-on tutorial about the using of the photo machinery |
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| Illegal picture of Doha while landing |
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