Last Days

My plan had been to leave McLeod Ganj Saturday, June 6, spend 2 days in Amritsar seeing the Sikh Golden Temple and then travel to Delhi to catch my Wednesday, June 10th, flight home. But then there was some unrest in the Amritsar area which settled the question--did I really want to see one more sight? No, I didn't.

So I've stayed in McLeod Ganj. I will leave tomorrow evening, Tuesday, June 9 on the night bus to Delhi. Wednesday evening I will be on that flight home.

As it turned out Sunday was Buddha's Day of Enlightenment and the day of his death. As Ngawang's wife said....a very special day. It was a day to visit the temple and walk the kora. Both were centers of fervent activity as devotees flocked to celebrate the day. Along the kora the devotees were even more generous with coins for the beggars - this being a sign of compassion.

The beggars, or those who handle them, knew this aspect of the day and arrived in large numbers. One woman said she saw beggars being delivered to McLeod Ganj by the truckload Saturday night. She likened it to the scenes in Slumdog where the wealthy pimp managed the kids. I never saw the pimps here, but I saw the beggars.

I could hear them from our building Sunday morning. They were already in place along the kora. When I went to walk the kora, I saw some old, some single, some men, some Hindu priests, but mostly families and women with children lined the path...often on both sides...their tents, or blankets, and belongings behind them. Usually I see a handful of beggars in one or two common spots when I walk the kora. Yesterday there were hundreds all along the way.

There were the normal maimed with injuries well-healed, but there were also some men with very raw sores or burns that looked too fresh to be anything but intentional or staged, maybe even faked.--This is the part of India that sets me back.

This morning I hear no voices coming from the kora. It is quiet. I assume the pimps came with the trucks last night and carried the beggars away.

No, this morning I hear the normal everyday sounds....
-the bells on the pack donkeys
-the crows and songbirds
-packs of wild dogs
-one lone dog who whines in distress
-the guests at the guesthouse next door packing up their cars
-a few Tibetans headed to the kora
-a water pump....our side of the hill seems back to normal.

The sun is shining but that doesn't mean we won't have rain, thunder and lightning pass through later today. The monsoon season has begun.

I'm wondering if everything will fit into my suitcase - perhaps I should pack and see. Tomorrow, Tuesday, will be here soon. And then....I will be home. I'm ready for family and friends and Salem routines.

Our Monkeys

Four days until I catch the bus to Delhi and though my thoughts are moving toward home I still want to post this info on the monkeys. When I took some of these photos I wasn't sly enough or fast enough and was hissed at by the one that seems to be in charge. I want my disturbing them to have been worth my fright.

I've mentioned the monkeys a few times in this blog. The first time was in March when I saw them along the road on the way to Ooty. I mentioned them again when I arrived in McLeod Ganj and was told to close the kitchen door so the monkeys couldn't get in. And then there were the quarreling ones at Baby Taj in Agra.




All three incidents were the same breed of monkey. They're common here. They're in the trees, along the roads, and on the rooftops. I tried for some time to get a photo of the ones who walk along our balcony. And here's what I finally got. Guess when the kitchen door is closed they're not inclined to slow down.


There is a spot along the kora, the ritual circuit, around the Tsuglagkhang Temple where a group of monkeys congregate most mornings - the young, the parents and the veterans. Three weeks ago I had one snarl menacingly at me. I now carry a rock, walk quickly, and look straight ahead when I walk the kora. So I wasn't too surprised when I was hissed at taking the pictures. Nothing like a bit of reality to go with your meditation.

Once I saw another breed of monkey on the other side of the temple complex. They were in some trees. They looked bigger. Their faces were black and they had long white or gray fur/hair on their bodies. I saw them only that once.




These are the guys we see most every day in McLeod Ganj.

At Two Weeks to Go

A week ago I realized I had only two weeks left until I leave McLeod Ganj and head for home. With that realization came a slow recognition of things I will probably never do again.....like....hear chanting across the early morning and evening air






-or look at this view during yoga












-or have my morning tea and oatmeal on this balcony











-or walk around a cow on the way to somewhere








-or buy fresh Tibetan bread that I think is like an English muffin, but Tom, who is from England, says is like a crumpet

-or buy vegetables or Tibetan bread or fruit wrapped in newspaper, the Tibetans way of using less plastic












-or buy momos for lunch from this vendor









-or teach in a room crammed with students, mostly Buddhist monks and nuns, sitting on cushions on the floor







-or sing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" for Ngawang's (Lha Director) daughters who still aren't quite sure what to make of me.




-or..... the list goes on......

Tutoring

Since my return to McLeod Ganj, besides teaching the Beginners at Lha, I have been

tutoring three lovely young Tibetan women. Their names are Choezom, Lhamo, and

Choeyang Dolma. I think of them as “the girls,” but they are 21 and 23 years old. We

meet one hour a day Monday through Friday. They are looking to improve their spoken

English but also to raise their English understanding ‘to a higher level.”

All three spent their childhoods in Tibet.....

Choeyang Dolma says the first years of her

schooling were in Tibetan, but after that she learned in Chinese. She attended school in

Tibet for 11 years and was training to be a nurse.

Lhamo says many Tibetan girls do not attend school. Her mother at 16 married a man 12 years her senior. They had three sons and a daughter. At 29 she was a widow. She did not remarry but on her own struggled on their land to raise her four children. She wanted a different life for her daughter so sent her to school everyday. Lhamo learned in Chinese at school.

Choezom says she never liked school and did not attend in Tibet. When she was six she was sent to Lhasa to live with a sister. She spent her weekdays at home tending the plants. But on weekends she went to a teacher who taught English. She had seen English cartoons on TV and told her sister she wanted to learn that language. She learned the alphabet. She learned Chinese in the market.

Choezom and Lhamo left Tibet when they were 14. Choeyang Dolma left when she was 15. Choezom had a sister in McLeod Ganj, Lhamo had an uncle in South India and Choeyang Dolma had a brother and a cousin near McLeod Ganj. Today all three are happy they came. They have met His Holiness the Dalai Lama, a dream come true, and they have continued their education. They have learned Tibetan, English and Tibet’s history. They tell me their friends and sisters who still live in Tibet have married, have children and know little of the Tibetan issues.

In just two weeks the four of us will separate to continue on with our lives. Lhamo will be entering grade 11 at a school an hour and a half by bus from here. Her new school specializes in the arts. Choezom will travel 3 days and 2 nights to South India to attend a school that specializes in commerce. She too is entering grade 11. Choeyang Dolma has quit regular school, but she will continue her study of English and computers here in McLeod Ganj. And I will return home.

I always look forward to my time with “the girls.” Sometimes our hour stretches into more than an hour. We find we have much to talk about and enjoy each other’s company. We talk about school systems, belief systems, our histories, our interests, people who inspire us, our traditions, and so on. I only hope they are learning as much from me as I am learning from them.

Dharamkot

If I was going to live here for a year, and that is not my plan, I may have found the community where I’d live. One of the Lha teachers, who is here for a year, lives there. I can see why. I actually went there twice last week. The first time I was by myself and the second time I was with others.

The community is called Dharamkot. It’s 3km from McLeod Ganj, so a twenty minute walk. The walk is all uphill. The greenery along the walk is beautiful with evergreen trees and tree-sized rhododendrons, not in bloom, flanking the way. Reminded me of home. I passed monkeys and some people.

Dharamkot is small. I liked its quiet and the green and the space between the homes. It’s more rural. As I looked about I could see a woman washing laundry at some steps, a man with two animals threshing grain, a woman tending her cow, and a man with his animal and plow tilling a patch.

There are a few restaurants and a few businesses in Dharamkot. I imagine the residents go to Bhagsu, McLeod Ganj or Dharamsala for supplies and to mingle.

Just by chance Erin and a few from her class decided to walk to a meadow near Dharamkot on Saturday. I went along. Here we are just before enjoying Tibetan (salted) tea, breads, and cookies.

This monk is from Myanmar. He still refers to it as Burma. He is in India to study.

Erin, far left, is now my roommate. She teaches the Advanced English Class at Lha. Tom, the Englishman right of Erin, and I now co-teach the Beginners Class. The tall Tibetan, right of Tom, just arrived from Delhi for a two-week holiday and is taking English, French and Chinese at Lha. The Tibetan behind him shared some delicious ginger cookies, not biscuits, Tom, from Belgium.

The monk in this picture made the tea. He and the others made a fire with twigs. He boiled water, added milk – salt – and tea, and brewed.

We sat and talked about many things. Then we walked into Dharamkot. The Tibetans walked on to Bhagsu to go swimming. The remaining four of us stopped at a pizza place. Interestingly Dharamkot has two pizza places. Since Erin and I are trying all the pizza places in the area, we may have to return to this quiet peaceful little spot one more time.

The Dalai Lama Returned

I went to Tsuglagkhang Complex Saturday, May 9, to see the progress made on the construction the past two weeks. As I neared the gate I knew something was happening. More than the normal monks and nuns were heading inside.

When I stepped into the courtyard there were nuns everywhere and monks climbing the stairs to the second floor to the temples. It was ten to nine. I decided to wait and see what happened. I like to sit and soak in a situation anyway. Eventually a woman told me the Dalai Lama was supposed to return some time that day.

At nine the nuns all hurried upstairs and I went with them. The monks were in Tsuglagkhang Temple and the nuns filled the space just outside. All shoes were removed. Everyone wore their yellow prayer robes over their red ones. They prayed in unison while rising, bowing and crouching as needed. Then a monk, not the Dalai Lama, assumed the seat in front of and below the Buddha. He gave a recitation. When he finished, the nuns surged forward. Perhaps they did something with the Rs. 100 they had been given. Then they and some monks left. Other monks prayed a bit more. Then everyone left.





In the afternoon I could hear drums and cymbals and chanting. Near 3:30 I realized people were lining up along the road below our building. This road is one that runs from Dharamsala to McLeod Ganj. So I started watching. Just after 4 a parade of cars came into view. From the behavior of those along the road, the Dalai Lama was in the second car. He had returned.

An aside: The drums, etc, stopped soon after the parade of cars disappeared. But they started up the next day so I’m not convinced they had anything to do with the Dalai Lama’s return. I often hear drums, bells, horns, cymbals, chanting, etc. Some comes from the neighbors and some comes from the nearby monastery. Evenings I can hear the monks debating scripture. In the picture the red Lha building where I live is in the front left. The monastery is the two yellow buildings up the hill center and right.

Surprises (Third of three)

At 8 in the morning we were at the hotel in Varanasi determined to have a room with air conditioning. But as the hotel employee pointed out, with such a wonderful breeze who

needed a.c.? Fools. That wonderful breeze disappeared and we were under the fans again. Oh,well.

In Delhi and Agra we predominately visited sites from India's Muslim history. In going to Varanasi we were drawn to a Hindu holy place: the Ganges River and its ghats.

A ghat is steps or a landing on a river. The Ganges in Varanasi has many ghats. Our Lonely Planet (LP) guidebook says around 80. Hindus go to the ghats to bathe, wash laundry, swim, fish and pray in the holy waters. Many drink the water. It looked refreshing....IF we looked beyond the sewer pipes, the trash, and even the dead body. LP reports the Ganges in Varanasi has 1.5 million fecal coliform bacteria per 100 ml of water and less than 500 would be safe. So we didn't touch the water while others around us enjoyed it in so many ways. We met an Indian man who said everyday he bathes in the Ganges and drinks 5 swallows of its water.

There are two ways to see the ghats. We did both. We walked the ghats and we took a boat, a two hour sunrise row up and down. From the river the buildings and boats looked especially picturesque.

Dasaswamedh Ghat, in this picture and the one before, was always very busy. During the day people performed the previously mentioned activities. In the evening they observed the nightly performance of a ceremony with music, fire, bells and conch shells.

Our hotel was at Meer Ghat. This picture was taken from the balcony outside our room. Meer Ghat was quieter. However there were always people bathing, swimming or washing laundry. See the boats on the left? We took one of those for our boat ride.

We spent our two evenings in Varanasi at Manikarnika Ghat. It's the main burning ghat. Pictures are not allowed - or so we thought until the second night when Jolie was told several times, for the right money she could take pictures. I took my photo from the river the morning of our boat ride. This ghat is busy all day but more so in the evening.

The first evening as we walked to Manikarnika we saw a dead body along the shore in the river. I immediately wanted to believe it was something else. But we met a weaver who befriended us. He said he was sure it was a body. Not everyone can be cremated. Children, pregnant women, animals, lepers, and those bitten by snakes are loaded in a boat, tied to a heavy stone, and taken to the middle of the river. Some bodies, therefore, do surface. As he spoke he pointed to a boat laden with a body leaving the shore.

As many as 10 fires burned each evening. You never saw a body, you saw a shrouded body. Male bodies were shrouded in white, females in orange. There was no odor. Perhaps because sandalwood is used in the fires.

The weaver pointed out a building where people, who don't live close enough to Varanasi, stay while they are dying. Then within 24 hours of their death they are cremated and their ashes are taken to the Ganges. Hindus believe if their lives end this way, they are freed from the cycle of rebirth.

The people who talked to us about the burning ghat were surprisingly matter-of-fact.

Our last morning in Varanasi we sat at Dasaswamedh Ghat watching all the activity before heading back to the hotel for breakfast. Along the way we passed this snake charmer. For some reason he put me in mind of all the other "charmers," ie hustlers, I've come in contact with while in India.

First, though, let me say clearly - I have met so many more helpful, truly charming, sincere, considerate people across India. They have made my stay here easy and enjoyable. However... there have also been plenty of pushy, aggressive, persistent, irritating sorts. Tourist spots attract these aberrations from the normal local people.

Hustlers in tourist spots want you to buy something: need a taxi? a boat? a shoeshine? a guide? a massage? a rickshaw? a whirligig? to change money? on and on. Buy my flowers, postcards, silk shawls, very nice belts, on and on. There's a constant verbal assault. Many call out in a friendly voice - hello, what's your name? where are you from? do you like India? how long are you here?...Then - come see my shop, look at my bags, etc. In Varanasi people offered interesting information for 5 - 10 minutes and then promoted their shop or business. Remember the weaver? Somehow the walk pass the building for the dying ended at his silk shop. Have people bombarding you like this over and over each day and you begin to cut them short or ignore them. Then you are accused of being unfriendly.

However, there was a little girl at Meer Ghat who made us smile. She looked about 8. Her basket held postcards or flowers or candles to float in the river. She had lines like: You my first customer today - You no buy this morning, you buy now - You break my heart - You bad person. She never smiled. She upped her response with each of our reasons. If I compare her to the snake charmer, then I am the snake. I know. My hope is she's going to school when not peddling.

Both Agra and Varanasi are cities of over a million and Delhi closer to 12 million. We saw only a small part of each....mainly the parts we had gone to see.

In Varanasi , along with the Ganges and the ghats, we saw the narrow alleys running behind the ghats. Most were too narrow for a motorcycle...but not for a cow. Once a massive one sprawled across our path. It took some thinking to know how to proceed.

As the alleys twisted and turned we passed temples, shops, eateries and homes. Everywhere, but especially near the temples, there were many people. So we shouldn't have been surprised by the soldiers - soldiers toting rifles. We passed numerous groups of them - even had our bags searched once.

Getting turned around in the alleys was easy. When that happened we'd ask someone where the river was and once we were down on the ghats, we were fine.

I've come to the end of my (3) Surprises postings. An yet I have more surprises to mention:

1. People in India often ask to have their picture taken - just to have their picture taken. Sometimes they want a photo with or of you. But generally they're just offering to have their picture taken.

2. We made a chilling discovery. Wet a towel, place it over your body, lay under a fan and your body temperature soon drops.

3. One evening the sound of drums led us to preparations for a wedding. later we saw the groom on horseback being escorted by a crowd to the bride's home. Everyone was dressed to the nines.

4. On our 1 1/4 hour flight from Varanasi to Delhi, we were served a full meal...a delicious full meal.

What wasn't surprising? How fun it was to have Jolie here and to see Delhi, Agra and Varanasi with her.

P.S. Jolie is back in Oregon and I am back in McLeod Ganj. We're both enjoying cooler temps.