A holiday with His Holiness – part 1

The snow lion flag of Free Tibet and the barred flag for united Tibetan Buddhism hang together, showing how
intertwined are the country, the people and the faith.

Clip-clop, clip-clop.

Behind me on the dawn-quiet street in the middle of McLeod Ganj, two mules, no mule driver, dodge the ever-present shaggy street dogs and trot past intent on their own business.

I am intent on my pre-dawn business too:  if I can get down the steep hill to the reception of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s office near the main temple before seven am, and deposit the small bag of malas (rosaries) and little statues from me and my Buddhist friends, there’s a chance HHDL will bless these items if he has an audience scheduled.

Tibetan grandma, mother and grandson
wear their finest to see the Dalai Lama

And later this morning, eighty-five-year-old HHDL will open the newly renovated hall at the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts back up the hill, so if I want to go to that event, and then onto work (two kilometres further down the hill – it’s a mountain town after all), I’m going to have to get a wriggle on.

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?

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. 

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

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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.

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.