We met a girl called Leesa heading to Dharamsala to research Tibetan women. She’d paid 350 rupees for her ticket. At that point it became clear we’d been well and truly ripped off!
Our journey didn’t begin at a bus station but on a pavement, where scruffy-looking travellers sat waiting with their bags. A taxi dropped us there and disappeared. When the bus finally arrived, we lurched through the teeming squalor of Delhi before drifting out towards the city’s edge.
We stopped in Majnu-ka-Tilla, a Tibetan refugee settlement on Delhi’s northern fringe, to pick up more passengers. As the bus filled and the driver topped up the tank, we noticed prayer flags strung across the rooftops of concrete flats and Free Tibet painted on the backs of rickshaws. Here we met Leesa again. Then, slowly, Delhi began to thin and the road north opened up.
It was a fairly horrendous overnight journey. At some times incredibly bumpy, through scary passes…the bus suddenly diverting over a stony riverbed instead of using the bridge…other views down great chasms. Stop first at an amazing westernised burger place…then in the middle of the night stop in the middle of nowhere…I had to pee in a ditch while a black-and-white TV was blaring in a nearby cafe…I felt totally exposed! As we get nearer Dharamsala the road gets even more frightening, round hairpin bends and from Dharamsala to McCloud Ganj the road was really narrow. But finally amazing views up to snowy mountains. Crash out in Hotel Tibet.
Easter Sunday and we are COOL at last! A bright and sunny day to start with. We found another room at Hotel Green and ate there – Charlie had farmers breakfast – potatoes and fried onion topped with melted cheese and fresh apple juice. I had chocolate cake and ginger tea. Wander around and booked our bus ticket back to Delhi.
Later we went for a walk, trying to find TCV, the Tibetan Children’s Villages above McLeod Ganj. TCV offers education and accommodation to nearly 2000 refugee children. Charlie had worked in Leh with a similar refugee school and he wanted to make contact. We climbed into the foothills of the Himalayas, through huge pine trees, with the rhododendrons just finishing, never quite sure we were going the right way. After about two hours we came down scree to the back of the school. A boy guided us through the hostels, where children of all ages live in the village.
Later we went for a walk, trying to find TCV, the Tibetan Children’s Villages above McLeod Ganj. TCV offers education and accommodation to nearly 2000 refugee children. Charlie had worked in Leh with a similar refugee school and he wanted to make contact. We climbed into the foothills of the Himalayas, through huge pine trees, with the rhododendrons just finishing, never quite sure we were going the right way. After about two hours we came down scree to the back of the school. A boy guided us through the hostels, where children of all ages live in the village.
We meet the director but Charlie’s colleague Liz is away in Delhi.
Even the taxi back down the ordinary road took us ages to get back to the hotel, then suddenly
thunderstorms and pouring rain!
Getting back to our room we found a monkey had broken in! We had forgotten to close the windows…and it had stolen all our biscuits and crisps and tried eating soap and tubes of paint! Charlie’s pills were scattered on the floor and it had even eaten into my small sewing kit bag. The guy in reception said didn’t you read the warning about not opening the windows because of the monkeys! 🙈
Next day we were up early for a walk along the path to the temple: clear light, beautiful scenery, old Tibetan women heading down to pray and turn the prayer wheels. We walked the Kora, the sacred path around the Dalai Lama’s residence, lined with prayer wheels and mani stones carved with the Tibetan mantra Om Mani Padme Hum.
In the afternoon we go up to the waterfall at Bhagsu, past a Hindu temple with a tank full of people swimming and jumping in.
I laid on the rocks and paddled in the icy Himalayan stream. Charlie sketched while two Tibetan boys watched, then they go skinny-dipping and come out freezing.
Dinner at the Green again with a power cut, the soup didn’t taste as good and I’m not very hungry due to mountain sickness.
