Here I go again

A small part of the packing for 2 months in the UK - cat not included

Just about a year after the last packing photo, here I go again: 

• piling up stuff, wrangling gear lists; 

• trying to figure out likely weather; 

• working out how many combinations of clothing and layers can get me through an unseasonably warm UK summer into autumn, through hiking and socialising; 

• getting on and off public transport - so the bags have to be small (no lovely Indian porters and kind locals to take pity on an elderly tourist on this trip). 

Himalayas: the wrap

Remember this photo? What was useful? What should I not have
bothered with?

Six months after coming back from the Himalayas - time for a quick review of how that huge pile of packing worked over a long trip.

Most useful item?

I'd like to say it was the Vegemite. The tube lasted me the whole trip and when times were tough, a smear of brown salty yeast by-product on toast hit the spot. But I could have got by without it.

Without doubt, I couldn't have got by without the Exped inflatable extra-light mattress. I only spent one night in a tent - but right from the first night in a Lhasa hotel, through the whole of Ladakh, and into Dharamsala - the guest house mattresses are solid boards. The only way I (and my mate Glenys later on) got a decent night's sleep was to put the Exped on top of the mattress. 
My Kathmandu thermos mug gets an honourable mention.

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.