At the gates of the Himalayas

After a few days in Delhi it was time to hurry up to the north and Daramsala. Dixie was late for her yoga teacher training and I just couldn't wait to see the amazing Himalayas again. We took the night sleeper buss which was comfortable, but not too wide of a bunk for two people. The buss kept breaking down as well during the trip. When we were due to arrive, we were still 3 hours away and the buss had broken down for the 4th time! This time it was serious, we were not sure that we could be able to continue. At last, the guy's fixed the problem by using 3 packs of condoms and by wirer them all around the leaking pipe! So there is another reason to always carry a couple right there! The drive up was beautiful, specially when we came closer to Daramsala and you could see the town, the green fields and the big snowy mountain range rising up like a wall.

Daramsala is the 'larger' famous town, but almost no travelers stay there, most go a bit further up to the smaller villages like McLeod Ganj (were the Dalai Lama lives), Baghsu and Dharamcot. Me and Dixie decided to stay in the bit busier of the three, McLeod. This place is a village with two busy main roads and a small square as a center. This is were most Tibetans live and Dalai Lamas temple and residence is situated here. Also here, cows and big bulls cruses the streets, acting like the natural garbage disposers. I still can't get used seeing a cow's head in a trash dump, munching up yesterdays news paper! If you want to mend your body and spirit, then this is the place for you! There must be over 101 different courses and treatments, like various forms of massage, meditations, Reiki, crystals, yoga, moon energizing to even hip hop dance and learning magic tricks! The town is of course also filled with pictures and information about the Chinese oppression in Tibet and various anti-Olympics posters. Every evening at 6 o'clock there is a candlelight walk ending with Tibetan prayer songs at the temple, as a quiet peace protest. McLeod is by Indian standards a quieter place and it does have a quite nice atmosphere. But the surrounding are really beautiful and you can do smaller nice treks and excursions during the day. We got a really nice room with big windows and a nice mountain view straight from bed! The hotel has a 2 terraces with gorgeous open air mountain views, not a bad place to lay our hats for the next several weeks.

I had a Vipassana course booked in about two weeks time, so I had plenty of time to do other stuff in the mean time. So while Dixie was spending her days twisting her body at yoga, I was learning Tibetan massage, practicing a bit of yoga, reading and lurking about taking pictures. Specially interesting time was when the Olympic torch came to India, there was a big anti-Olympics demonstration that started from the temple and a walk down to Daramsala. It was very emotional to watch the desire of a people, hoping for a return to a free Tibet. Controversially amongst many Tibetans, the Dalai Lama is for the Olympic games in Beijing and is not condescending any protests against it. The Chinese government has, probably due to the international attention, agreed to hold talks with representatives of the Dalai Lama. Maybe they are trying to find a solution, maybe they are just calming the situation down until the games are over. Dalai Lama is not even pushing for a independent Tibet, just for human rights, free press and for a high degree of self-rule within the people's Republic of China. Anyhow, this will be an uphill struggle, but as an Indian bystander told me 'One has to keep on fighting'. Maybe the will for peaceful resistance is soon over I think to my self, as the young monks on the computers next to me throws grenades and unloads machine gun fire on anti-terrorist police, on the computer game Counter Strike.

Something that is VERY annoying in India, is the mobile services. You have to pay for the pre-paid card, then extra for the validaty period you want, then you have to pay 28% tax on every refill and if that's not enough, you keep getting commercial sms:s and phone calls!! Imagine you are in the shower, the phone rings, you hurry out, slipping on the floor. When you pick up, there is music and voice in Hindi starts babbling a recorded message! Another thing that could be quite disturbing was the endless dog fights at night. These battles kept going constantly back and forth, whining and barking, they made poor Dixie having to sleep with earplugs. Other animals that make you life interesting here, are the many monkeys, great fun to watch, less fun being attacked by! Some Indians say use a stick, others say they will only take it from you and chase you with it! Anyhow, I haven't been attacked yet..

One day me and my Danish friend Lise went down to see and hear the teachings from H.H. the 17th Karmapa, wich is the oldest reincarnating lama, older then H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama. Karmapa is the spiritual head of the Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. After listing to him about compassion and other traditional Buddhist values, me and Lise got a blessed string to wear AND just by having seen him in real life, we are now protected for 7 reincarnations from being reborn as anything other then human! That feels good!!!

At last, India at last!

Stepping down the Airplane ladder, I realized I was taking my first steps on a land I've been dreaming about going for over 7 years. Did I have expectations? Ohh yes! Accompanied by my friend Dixie, my athletic/Mormon/body guard from the Idaho, I felt ready as can be for the coming experience.

First lesson: Patience! In probably the smallest international airport in the world, we waited for our back packs in one of the 3 belts for over 1,5 hours, while imagining the boy's behind probably sipping their chai (milk tea). The way the bags came out on the band was, one bag... 4 min wait, another bag... 3min, etc. Interesting enough, it was an Indian guy who lost the patience game first and started shouting behind the curtains. Chai time was over! A few moments later the bags were piled on top of each other, pumping out on the band.

Following the direction from a friend, we bought a pre-paid taxi to Sudder st., the Khao San of Kolkotta and walk out from the airport. Here, my fantasy world collapsed on me. After many stories of 'first India impressions', I expected a chaos of shouting, begging, bag pulling hoards welcoming us. That was not the case, a few taxi drivers were there and asked us if we wanted a taxi. On the way though, things started to get interesting. Sitting in our yellow cab from the 60:s, I was armed and ready with my Canonsaurus and boy did it go hot. Just getting in to Kolkotta traffic is an experience in it self. An organized chaos of all types of vehicles possibly imagined, pedestrians trying to pass through with their body's intact and I heard more horn honking then any other country's I've been, put together! Everywhere there was so much life, smells, colors and interesting things to see. People in cars next to us, super curiuse, inviting us for football games and this and that. India at last! A unique planet on earth! We checked in to a by Indian standards posh hotel and off, strolling about on Sudder st. I imagine it looking like Khao San Rd. could have looked like... 60 years ago, but with internet and street tea stalls! In India, drinking milk tea by small stalls is a big part of life. If there is people, you are never far away from chai.

Kolkotta is quite a cool place, but unless you get involved doing some volunteer work, a few days is enough. It has quite a busy Indian city life, some curious things and places to see and a meat market that would turn Ronald McDonald vegetarian! It was not only the smell of rooting meat on the wooden cut benches or the dead rats on the dirty floor that makes your stomach turn. But you have hundreds of crows flying around, diving in for unguarded pieces and crapping just everywhere! Hmm.. I was going vegetarian from now on! At night we were wondering around town and got caught in a Jain New Years festival. People in nice clothes, good live musicians and a cart with some deities were parading around in the small neighborhood streets. Me and Dixie danced along as the small street filled up with people. Making a circle a'la old school style one by one people did a special dance appearance. I was reluctantly thrown in and they started shoving money between my lips that i had to give to the musicians. Not very sanitary, but it was a great time and in Rome, do like Romans do!

As my friend said, in the Indian cities, the train stations are like small towns in the city. They are huge and have so much people living there and others coming and going. We took the 17 hours train to Delhi and poor Dixie was very sick all the way. She was not having a good first days in India. In Delhi, we grabbed a good room with air-con to wait until she got better, with the help of our friend nurse Ane from Kolkotta. Delhi you have to say is a interesting capital. Where else do you have melting pot of so many major religions, so much contrasts between new and old, ancient history and modernity, mega rich and poorest of poor, + cows roaming the streets doing whatever they like!? The cows are super safe around here. I saw the golden arches and ignorant as i was, my mouth started to water for a good burger and I ran hypnotically through traffic to the entrance. Waiting stoically until opening time, I found out that there were of course no meat burgers allowed in India! Apart from some chicken, here McD. is totally vegetarian... bummer!

P.S If you want to know more about Kolkotta, check out my friend Bex super interesting blog at

http://www.eyes2open.blogspot.com/