Free Tibet

This weekend was amazing! Minus the 14 hour bus ride there and the 11 hour taxi ride back, McLeod Ganj is one of my favorite places on earth (so far). The surrounding area reminded me of The Enchantments by Leavenworth and made me feel at home. The town is small and sits atop a hill on the foothills of the Himalayas (which are correctly pronounced "him-ah-lie-ahs"). McLeod is in the Indian state Himachel Pradesh. India gave the land to the Tibetans after the Dalai Lama and others fled Tibet. His Holiness was in France this weekend but we did get to tour the monestary compound and the Buddhist temple.
There was no photography allowed inside the temple which is a real shame since it's very out of the ordinary for western standards. It's gawdy and brightly adorned with gold. The life of buddha is painted along the walls and there are multiple Buddha statues around the temple encased in glass. Within the glass were offerings from patrons that made Katie and I laugh. The people gave Buddha snickers, crackers, biscuits, skittles, and various other "junk food" type snacks. No wonder the happy Buddha is so fat! :) There was a Lama in the temple praying while we were there...listening to his ipod while he prayed. I love this country.
On saturday, after we checked into The Yellow Guesthouse (600 rupees a night for three people = $4 USD), we walked to a nearby town called Bhagsu. We hiked a bit up to a "waterfall" that turned out to be no more than a trickle coming off of a rock. The rest of the day was spent shopping with Lisa and getting my favorite pair of flip flops repaired on the side of a narrow road by the shoe doctor. On our walk back from Bhagsu we ran into an American, Mac, who invited us to this restaurant called Carpe Diem later that night. So that's exactly what Lisa and I did: siezed the day and went to Carpe Diem for some dinner and interesting conversation. Mac goes to Vassar and is traveling around after he got done studying abroad. His friend Talc is Israeli and here on holiday. We mentioned to Talc that we wanted to hike to Triund on sunday. He knew the way and agreed to take us up there!
Triund was beautiful! It was a 18K round-trip hike up to the top, ending at a little over 9,000 Meters. From the top you could see beautiful peaks and valleys and waterfalls! Since we had no idea where we were hiking to, none of us brought any jackets or rain gear. So of course, the minute we got to the top it started to rain and hail on us! We sought shelter under one of the venders' huts and had chai to pass the time. It amazed me that there were three vender huts up there! They have mules and horses pack their supplies up. There were also huts and tents to house travelers so were going on to other Himalayan destinations. It blew my mind to be there in the Himalayas! But it's a good thing that I didn't know where our final destination was. Once we got back to McLeod, we discovered that we could see Triund from our hotel wwaaayyyy in the distance. I may not have wanted to go had I known it was so far. But having gone, I wouldn't have missed it for the world. We started the hike at 8am and got home around 4:30pm. Just in time to shower and catch our taxi ride home.
All the buses to Delhi were full up and a taxi was our only option if we wanted to make it to work on monday. The roads in India do not have rules, or rather no one follows any type of rules. So here's how it works: you speed as fast as you can until you come upon another car. At which time you flash your headlights and honk like crazy until you can pass the car...no matter if there is traffic coming from the opposite side of the road or not. If there are pedestrians in the road, you don't slow down....you just honk and honk and honk some more before swerving to avoid them. Slow cars don't pull over and people don't move far over to the side of the road. All the while the roads are usually narrow, bumpy, and congested. Needless to say, a few people were getting sick by the time we stopped for dinner. Anyway, got back at 6am this morning and was at work by 10am. sleepy time :)