My McLeod #3: people and animals and places

Eating and meditating (and working) were my primary occupations in McLeod Ganj over the last 3 months, but for me the real richness of this crazy friendly big village were the people and animals and the special moments of beauty.

Favourite beggar

Meet Shara - always neatly turned out, politely chatty, and ready with a cheery greeting. Like all the beggars in McLeod, she is southern Hindi, not Tibetan; unlike many of the other beggars, she isn't disabled or old or disadvantaged. Her professional “I’m a beggar, it’s my job,” positive attitude ensured a daily donation of 10 Rs from me (and many others) and has enabled her to bring up two adult children to the point where her daughter starts nursing college this year. 

My McLeod #2: mind and body solutions

Thosamling Nunnery

McLeod Ganj and the Dharamsala area is a magnet for world travellers who want to find themselves, find a way out of samsara, find a place to be more than just a tourist, find a decent haircut after months on the road. I should know because that was my reason for spending three months here (and the haircut became a necessity after that amount of time).

These are my favourite places to find what your mind and body need. I would have included somewhere to get a pedicure but it got so cold up here that I couldn't countenance taking my socks off for more than 30 seconds unless I was a) in a hot shower b) in a warm bed with a hot water bottle tucked under my feet.

My McLeod #1: staying and eating

Porridge and fresh fruit and chai (Vegemite and iPad
Supplied by the author)

After nearly three months living and working in this magical town, I would like to share my favourite places, things and people. If you are lucky enough to come and spend time here too, you might find this information handy. (No personal liability is accepted for these recommendations - we bloggers love power without responsibility.)

Favourite guesthouse team

It has got to be Surinder, Sanjay, Akshay, and The Boy who run Kailwood up between Tushita and Tipa roads. Cheerily turning out omelettes and noodle soup, advising on the best way to humanely get rid of monkeys, playing backyard cricket or washing floors - these guys are the tops. They also get my award for favourite breakfast for their bowl of porridge/fresh fruit and favourite chai for Surinder’s morning mug of magic with fresh spices, and also guesthouse view for the horizon views from the south-facing terrace above the whistling kites.

Library Life

Norbu from the Tibetan translation department stops in front of me, “Rose-La, what is cognitive empathy? It is the final term I need to translate for a psychology book I am working on with Geshe-La.” 

Loving the library life

Up till that moment I was dreaming in the sun trying to warm up after a morning at my editor’s desk in the cold box of my office at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives. But I can help Norbu - his team and the English publications team of the LTWA are the reason I am here working even as the temperature plummets.

All other foreign travellers are leaving for Goa, for Karnataka, anywhere warmer than Dharamsala.

But I am here till Christmas because I promised my charming boss, LTWA director Geshe Lhakdor that I would work for him for three months. And because I like my team.

Who’s in the team in this higgledy piggledy labyrinth of Tibetan-style buildings, alleyways and narrow steps?

Colour and shadow in Amritsar: 24 hours in the Sikh capital

Crossing the border from Himachal Pradesh into Punjab, the haze in the

sky increases to become brown-grey smog; shadowy bullock carts loom out of the murk and then fade away as a truck belching diesel takes its place. 

We are travelling to Amritsar on the weekend that smoke from the burning crop stubble in the Punjab has combined with vehicle emissions in Delhi to create an air pollution horror story in global media. Will the murk and gloom affect our view of the Golden Temple, we wonder? 

Five hours after leaving McLeod Ganj - our temporary hill town home where the smoke has obscured our views of the Dhauladar Range for the last two weeks - the Suzuki Swift taxi drops us in a huge multi-storey car park around lunchtime. Driver Anu herds us down to ground level, and points us off into the light traffic with vague instructions about finding our way through Amritsar’s heritage pedestrian precinct.

The colour of the city hits us, bright against the dun pewter sky: deep red sandstone pavers and colonial buildings; brilliant citrus sequinned fabric lengths flow down the front and side displays of shops and onto the women around us; primary coloured turbans bob on the heads of grave bearded gentlemen; polished brass pots on the bikes delivering milk to the dhabas (breakfast and lunch shops). 

A big(gish) day out #2: rocking on the rattler

On the Kangra Valley rattler

“Yes, all our rooms are empty,” said the man on reception at the Himachal Pradesh Forestry Dept guesthouse.

“Then can we have two rooms for tonight?” asked our friend Sachin.

Head waggle from reception man followed by, “No, we are not allowed to take guests - not during the election campaign.”

We retreated in the face of such government weirdness and spent the night in Mr and Mrs Puran’s homestay in their family compound in the neat little village of Nagrota Suriyan 2 km from Maharan Pratap Sagar (see previous post).

A big(gish) day out #1: ancient gods and modern wetlands

McLeodganj is the easiest place to live in - so it was time to step out of the comfort zone, loop down the winding roads from our deodar covered ridge and see what the rest of Himachal Pradesh has to offer. 

The solid walls of Kangra Fort

At 7.30 am one recent hazy morning, we jumped into the Suzuki Maruti taxi with our friend Sachin and his mate Sonny behind the wheel (and a spare battery in the passenger foot well) and headed down the Kangra Valley, following the Beas River.

First stop was the stone pile of Kangra Fort, defensively perched high on a 100 metre arrete between two rivers and only accessible across a narrow tongue of land, and even then only by crossing a defensive ditch and passing for 200 metres under a crenelated curtain wall pierced by arrow slits.

The people speak: electioneering in the world’s largest democracy

[NB most of this post is only really relevant to the downtrodden exploited victims of a corrupt political oligarchy, that is, the average Queensland voter.]

I don't know what it says but voters stuck in India's usual
dreadful traffic congestion will have plent of time to read
all the political messaging.

A state election is looming in a largely rural state with a small for size population; the death grip on power has see-sawed between the two main parties for the last few terms; both large parties are despised and possibly corrupt but they are throwing everything into their campaigns; the smaller parties and independents are struggling to match the big money promises. 

Sound familiar?

But it isn't Queensland - it is Himachal Pradesh which is going to the polls on Thursday 9 November. And the state election campaign has taken over the airways, every chai stall, every village, and every roadway. 

On the kora: walking in circles in McLeod Ganj

Om Mani Padme Hum in Tibetan characters is carved on most stone
  offerings placed along the kora. Chanted and written it is the
heart mantra of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, emanation of
the Buddha of Compassion.

Tsuglakhang Temple is the heart of the Tibetan diaspora, and circling that heart is the kora. 

Strung out along forested ridges in this ex-hill station town, McLeod Ganj, home of the Tibetan government-in-exile, in no way resembles Tibet, but the old ways of Buddhist devotion are maintained. Clockwise circumambulation - or kora - around a revered site like the Tsuglakhang is a popular devotional practice that combines a daily constitutional with walking meditation. 

Getting to enlightenment - how to do the Dalai Lama’s teachings

Grabbing a good spot at Tsuglagkhang

People come from all over the world to listen to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama teach in the Tsuglagkhang Temple in McLeod Ganj. This is the exiles’ concrete equivalent of Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, and it is the hub of the world for Tibetan Buddhists for a few days every October when HHDL comes home from travelling and teaches to his home crowd and many fervent students like me.

You won’t find out from this post how to achieve liberation from samsara, but there are things it helps to know to make your teachings experience easy and more enjoyable.

What you take

A cushion, a mug, an FM radio and headphones, an exercise book and pen. And to get your spot in the temple, you need a texta pen, a flattened cardboard box, a roll of packing tape. 

Don’t take your phone or a camera - you can’t take them in with you and you will have to leave them at a deposit office.

Partial gear failure #2: digestive system

Kullu Valley people are rightly proud of their apples.

After surviving a month’s altitude sickness and the night mini bus from Leh to Manali that follows the switchback, dangerously unmade road over snow-swept Rohtang La (bone-shaking, exhausting and spectacular,  Lonely Planet’s usual hyperbole; I’d accept unhygienic, tiring and cramped), I thought I was going to bound out into Himachal Pradesh’s Kullu Valley like a new being.

Not quite.

The snow on the pass transformed to pouring rain by the time we got to Old Manali and the Dragon Inn so we and our bags were soaked. Whether it was the soaking or the veg burger for lunch, I had typical travellers gastric upset by the end of the first day. 

Into thin air - hiking the Markha Valley

“There is a griffin vulture.”

Stanzin hands us the big binoculars and we stand for a long time in the middle of the arid valley path, beside the tumbling stoney river, watching the wide wingspan cut the bright blue sky and the zigzag mountain range tops. 

Chotak the porter points to another part of the sky - he has picked up on our excitement and being a local wants to show off his valley - he has spotted a lammergeier circling even higher.

It’s the third day of the Markha Valley hike and we are having the best time. 

The Sham Valley is the real deal

When I signed up to do the Sham Valley trek, also known as ‘the baby trek’, I expected a gentle 3-day amble along a river valley; a pleasant stroll through a Ladakhi Dovedale with stepping stones and shady willows.

I organised to go with a female guide from the Ladakhi Women’s Travel Company who I hoped would hold my hand and gently encourage my confidence to return after my recent brush with bad altitude sickness.

That’s not quite how the Sham Valley trek turned out. The ‘baby’ trek’s dusty rocky paths cross 5 passes in 3 days - and Lazes, my young guide, was blunt about telling me what to do.

La La Ladakh

Author's note: there are no photos loaded to illustrate this post because of Ladakh's woeful lack of internet capacity. See point 3 of this article. Sorry about that.

Simon: What are you going to write about Ladakh?

Me: I just can’t get my head round this place.

The reason I can’t work out my reaction to Ladakh, and its main city Leh, is because of its weird juxtapositions.

Peace and war

Ladakh is where the nuclear-armed forces of India, Pakistan and China stare each other down over a disputed border. The uneasy truce often descends into stone throwing, armed incursions and threats of annihilation. 

Last seen in Lhasa

Canggu nunnery: nuns prepare mantras

We got a couple of extra days in Lhasa because we didn't complete the Kailash kora - I think we put the time to good use. 

We wind through the back alleys to Ramoche Temple, a tantric university where lamas come to learn to lead chanting, to sing internal complex tonal harmonies and manage the rituals of their own monasteries. 

Gear failure No. 1: lungs

Kailash: worth the effort

I had thought I might write a post or two about the inevitable gear failures that always happen. (I’ve already bitched on endlessly about how my boot soles peel at inopportune moments.)

I hadn’t anticipated that the first bit of equipment to fail would be my respiratory system. 

Yup, sadly Altitude Sickness scotched my intentions to hike the kora around Mount Kailash. I got as far as the first valley but, as elderly fat Hindu ladies in bedroom slippers sprinted past me, my oxygen levels plummeted, I started to cough, my legs stopped working and we all turned round and came back.

Peak Practice - at Everest Base Camp, Tibet

Interested in getting to Everest Base Camp? Don't want to hike for days to Namche Bazaar? Don't like dodgy mountain hygiene or the risk of avalanches? Like to sip a hot drink in comfort while viewing the Mother of Mountains?

At the end of the bus route

Biggest travel tip ever: if you can get into Tibet (ok, it’s a big IF), get a comfy car, drive along good roads to Rongbuk Monastery, stay in the guest house which serves great lemon/ginger/honey tea, and take the shuttle bus to Everest Base Camp. Look down the valley. 

In good weather, there is Everest/Quomolunga looking as if it is 10 minutes stroll beyond the glacier moraine. 

High plains drifting - across western Tibet

The pass overlooking the holy lake 

Leaving Lhasa we head west in our 7 seater van down to Xigatse, Gyantse and Sakya. The roads are good, and the public toilets plentiful even if they are only a concrete slab with 4 to 5 slits to squat over and a low wall between each. Communal, but the smell and lack of facilities doesn't encourage lingering to chat.

We enter tourist country. The famously fierce flock protecting dogs that keep the sheep safe from wolves and snow leopards now pose for photos with dyed yak hair extensions and sloppy tongues. 

A sense of devotion - moments in Lhasa

.

Lhasa is a flat modern Chinese city. Creamy mid-rise apartment buildings; giant malls under construction; long straight highways run into the city streets that are organised by traffic lights and lane markings. All drivers ignore the rules.

The Potala is almost too big to comprehend.

We slip into the remaining Tibetan quarter of rendered row houses and shops, laneways and courts, tiled roofs, white wash walls and hopper windows with painted black window surrounds under fluttering pleated window curtains. And over the next few days in Lhasa and beyond we gain a sense of the city and valleys as home to ancient culture and still living religious fervour and devotion.

The middle kora around the Jokhang Temple

In the still-beating Tibetan heart of Lhasa, there are three koras (ritual circuits around spiritual places): inside the 7th century Jokhang Temple; the middle kora around the walls of the Jokhang in the old Barkor market; and circling the entire city in the outer kora.

Kathmandu corners - little bits of beauty

A welcoming offering to guests at the
entrance of the hotel.

Mud, mosquitoes, and mould. That's Kathmandu's monsoon season reputation.

Added to the year-round chaotic traffic congestion, why come to Nepal's capital in the wet season?

Don't get me wrong, I have always enjoyed my time here. As we got off the plane on Friday after crossing a couple of time zones sustained only by the queues, dubious vegetarian meals and dodgy in-flight movies provided by Thai Airways, a blast of city dust and humid air hit me - and I realised I was wearing a great big smile. Happy to be back.

Kathmandu has a way of charming visitors. The careless and careful placing of flowers in water at entrances to delight your senses. The patience and humour of Nepali people in the face of crazy rudeness by us foreign tourists.

Leaving on a jet plane

That's the packing and prep done,
now we can start the travelling.

And we are off!

The apartment is clean, the fridge is kinda empty, there's a cardboard box for the tenants to put our mail in.

Our bags are zipped and padlocked for the last time.

Now there is just time to sit in the departure lounge listening to Simon cough (because he finally came down with the respiratory tract infection that has knocked me around for the last 3 weeks), and wondering why the Bluetooth keyboard won't talk to the iPad. 

Is this a harbinger of future tech snags and gear failures?

And there might be a problem getting our Tibet visas .....

The joys of travel. 

What's your worst departure experience?

A quart into a pint pot - packing it all

My overwhelming pile of stuff. Do I really need 2 tubes of
Vegemite and a sketch book with 5 pencils?

An hour into the first Jaws movie: Roy Scheider is cheerfully shovelling burley into the ocean from the shark-catching boat owned by Quint (Robert Shaw). Without warning, without fanfare, the truck-sized head of the monster shark pokes above the waves, jaws gaping, teeth bared. Shocked and appalled, Scheider's character turns to the skipper in the wheelhouse and murmurs, 

"I think we're going to need a bigger boat."

Two tiny bags

I reached that stage in my packing last week. 

Larger than a monster shark, the mountain of accumulated stuff on the spare bedroom floor loomed over my two tiny empty bags, which looked hopelessly inadequate. 

Laundry on the road

Travel laundry challenges that happened to me and fellow travellers:

Typical hotel laundry costs -
but at least this one offers
to wash your monk robe and
safari suit

• It took me one whole week to dry my wet jeans in an Iceland summer
• Meg says she has to stay 2 nights everywhere just so she can dry t-shirts
• Felicity sent her travel pants to the Moroccan hotel laundry, who set them on fire.

But you can travel with a small bag of clothes - or even just cabin baggage - and keep moving from place to place once you figure out how to wash and dry items overnight, without running up outrageous hotel laundry bills (or having your clothes charred beyond use).

Imelda Marcos in the Himalayas - what shoes shall I pack?

From the Pyrenees to the Himalayas, my boots have
seen a lot of the world.

Planning travel footwear needs thought.

Clothes are soft, fold flat, roll up, squish down and you can wear a lot of layers if you run out of room in your luggage. 

Shoes, on the other hand, take up a lot of space in a bag and you can only wear one pair at a time.

Choosing a pared-back footwear list has been a challenge during my packing planning. For someone who prefers to walk around barefoot, I already have way too many pairs of shoes lurking in my closet: heeled courts for a woman who has poor balance and dodgy ankles; two pairs of tango shoes although I haven't danced Latin for 10 years, four pairs of streetwear boots even though I live in sweaty Brisbane.

The last trip for my Keens. Despite
the wear on the heel, they will
have a new life with a friend on
the Granite Belt.

In this Himalayan adventure, I plan to travel across deserts, over mountain passes and around mountains, up and down valleys and across streams, through markets and towns and villages. I don't plan to go clubbing, dancing or going to cocktail parties - but why rule out the possibility?

What shall I take to wear on my feet? How shall I choose which pairs to take and whether to buy new pairs?

Show me the money - getting the travel budget together

Best ever op shop bargain: my 60 Degrees North jacket
sourced from the Reykjavik Red Cross shop,
being modelled on the Icelandic island of Videy

Heading overseas for months is an expensive business, even if one is a) retired with a pension, and b) going to inexpensive India. 

We worked out that our daily travel budget should be $85/day.

No-one has actually been upfront enough to ask this question yet, but an obvious query is:

How can you afford to do this?

Picking a pack - how will I carry my gear?

My new Osprey Kyte, 33 L
of useful pack.

Goldilocks had it easy. Choosing a bowl of porridge for one meal or a bed for a single night means a bad choice only lasts a short time.

But I'm trying to make a decision about which bags will carry my gear across the Himalayas for months. What I choose will affect how I live, where I can fly, whether I'll keep my gear secure, and whether I'll suffer a bad back in this trip. 

These are the factors that I have to think about. Some airlines we have booked only allow 20kg maximum checked luggage so I've got to get the best value out of cabin luggage. My packing list is getting longer and longer and longer - I've realised I can't carry on my back all the bits and pieces I need for the simple nomads' life we have planned.

Taking the leap - here's our plan

Nepal, Tibet, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh. Kathmandu, to Lhasa, to Mount Kailash, to Leh, to Dharamsala.

That's where we are headed at the end of July 2017: the Himalayas.