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Dehradun
Entry 15 of 23 | show all | print this entry |
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The man who helped me book my train ticket in Rishikesh thought I was crazy to go north to Dehra Dun rather than back south to Haridwar. "But your train ride will be shorter if you start in Haridwar!" I had already seen Haridwar and heard about the thriving Tibetan community in Dehra Dun, which was home to the world's largest Stupa! Shaking his head he wrote down my details and booked the train ticket for the next day. I shot Tom an email letting him know I was starting the long journey to Varanasi and hopped the bus to Dehra Dun the next morning.
I arrived in Dehra Dun to find the typical dirty busy streets and honking horns and walked a couple of blocks to the train station stashing my backpack in one of the lockers. I had a day to take in this town and hopped onto one of the shared rickshaws, which followed a predetermined path. I heard that the Tibetan Buddhist Temple was a short walk from the New Delhi bus station so when I eventually saw a crowded area with a large number of parked buses I hopped out. I asked around to see about directions getting a bunch of shrugged shoulders and puzzled looks until one guy said "yes! Two kilometers that way!" I started walking.
The landscape transitioned from storefronts to an industrial area and this excursion was proving to be more of a challenge than I expected. I would keep asking as I made my way down the street getting mostly blank stares as the sun unleashed her fury on us all. I eventually found a Tibetan shop owner and he assured me the temple and grand stupa were "one-point-five kilometers" in the direction of my walk. When I passed a short distance clearly less than a kilometer I asked again getting an unexpected response. "The Buddha Temple is two or three kilometers that way", the person pointing in the direction from where I came. My patience was wearing thin as the intensity of the heat was rising. Drenched in sweat I started walking the other direction thinking the Universe must be playing a sick joke on me!
Just then a rickshaw driver noticing my obvious frustration called me over asking "what you need?" I replied "Buddha Temple! Stupa!" He nodded his head "Yes! You take bus. Three rupees to Buddha Temple" as he pointed towards one of the approaching buses. "Come! Come!" We both crossed the street as he flagged down a bus and then spoke with the driver motioning for me to get on. The bus took a left and I thought "this was the 'minor' detail nobody mentioned." We headed down the unpaved road for a while until I saw a sign: "Tibetan Temple" with an arrow pointing up a trail. I got off the bus and started walking up the path and, finally, I could see the world's tallest stupa in the distance. The houses I passed started to resemble the ones I had seen in Leh surrounded by colorful metal gates with intricate designs. There was something about this area unlike the rest of Dehra Dun; the presence of vegetation.
I reached the stupa which was surrounded by some of the most well-kept gardens I had seen at any monastery. There was no shortage of signs telling people what not to do. No walking on the grass, plucking flowers from the plants, leaving trash, eating peanuts, etc. As I completed a walk around the base of the stupa I saw a groundskeeper screaming at people to place their shoes in the locker before entering. This was proving by far to be the most uptight Buddhist establishment I had ever visited.
This was the first stupa I had seen that was large enough for people to enter and I walked inside viewing the many shrine rooms and colorful artwork blanketing the walls. There were several stories within the structure and each floor exhibited a shrine that was equally as impressive as the previous.
I left the stupa and explored the monastery grounds a little before leaving and while walking out I noticed something in my periphery. There was a massive golden Buddha statue in the distance towering over the houses. I had not heard anything about this and was completely taken by surprise, so naturally I started walking towards it. I didn't know how to feel about the two giant displays this area boasted. They were beautiful but seemed to be complete overkill. I later read that the Buddha statue had been dedicated to the Dalai Lama. As the statue is larger than the Dalai Lama's house one might think the resources would have been better used helping the Tibetan exile community. The misallocation of resources seems to be a human condition for which every society is guilty.
I had three hours until my train departed and didn't want to take any chances so I started looking for the best way to get to the station. As I was walking an Indian man joined me asking the standard questions and he took a particular interest when I couldn't answer how much longer I would be in India. Eventually we came across one of the shared rickshaws with the "#5" printed on the front. This was the one that passed right by the train station. We hopped on the crowded rattling chunk of metal and started weaving our way back to the heart of town. The man spent the entire trip enthusiastically telling everybody else about my situation and when he got off he told the driver to let me know when we arrived at the train station. We eventually pulled up to the station, where I payed the five Rupees and hopped off. I retrieved my pack from the storage room shrugging as I watched a giant rat casually walk along one of the shelves. I walked out to the platform and waited for my train to pull up.
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