Medical benefits - the traditional Tibetan way

My beautiful friend in the Men-Tsee-Khang waiting room

“You’ve got sore knees,” says the Tibetan traditional doctor.

“How did you know that?” I ask amazed.

I had literally taken just one confident step into the consulting room – how could he diagnose that I’ve had newly and unusually swollen and sore knees starting 10 days ago, just the week before I left for India?

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.

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?

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.