From hills to smells...

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  Amritsar, India
Saturday, February 28, 2004

With my much-exaggerated ill health diagnosed, drugged, and dormant, we began the journey to McLeod Ganj, exile home of the Dalai Lama. The travel was fairly painless: an insanely packed night train to Pathankot, and then a speedy (meaning "I thought we would die") bus trip up the twisty road to McLeod Ganj. First, let me correct those naive souls who are right now sounding out "Path-an-kot" (it's "Pat-TAN-kot") and "Mick-Lee-odd Gahng" (it's "Mc-Cloud Gunj"); get it right or some very supercilious Dutch people will roll their eyes while smirkingly correcting your mispronounciation, and it will make you want to sew their lips shut. So I've heard.
So we got to McLeod Ganj and spent the next 10 days doing almost nothing. It was fabulous. One morning, feeling uncharacteristically motivated, we climbed toward the mountain town of Triund. Supposedly it is a really beautiful view, but most of the passes are still blocked by snow, so we settled for looking up at it from 3 km away

Our self-appointed guide

. It was still a nice 6 km climb; Phil got some snow time and the added benefit of a dog companion who followed us the whole way up and down. It wasn't exactly a Disney-moment; the dog had the standard rough-life look common to all Indian dogs, and also had only three functioning legs, but he seemed to cope fairly well with hardship, another Indian dog trait.
We were in town a few days before the start of Losar, which is the Tibetan New Year. In Lhasa and other parts of Tibet, the celebration lasts for 15 days and is characterized by whole-community parties, but in McLeod Ganj it is only three days and marked by spending time with family and friends, and lighting incredibly loud firecrackers in the streets. We met a Tibetan family who invited us to their house during the Losar celebration, and fed us a truckload of Losar sweets and tea. They were so open about the Tibet situation and their experiences as refugees in India, it made the "Free Tibet" campaign more real than just than a bumpersticker slogan. We had hoped to see the Dalai Lama while we were there, since we'd missed him by only two days in Darjeeling, but although he normally gives the Losar blessing on the first day, we were told when we showed up at the temple that he wouldn't be appearing this year. There were tons of rumors about his absence, the most popular of which blamed a Chinese plot to assassinate His Holiness during Losar, but our Tibetan friends said he was gone to a meditation retreat

Phil pretends he's in Michigan in February...

. He will be having teachings during March, but we will be in the land of Communism eating noodles and trying not to mention Tiananmen Square or female infanticide. At least not in the first five minutes of conversation...
Grudgingly, we waved goodbye to our friends Dolma and Dorjee, and headed back to Pathankot, where we caught the train to Amritsar. Although the town itself brings to mind (the nightmare of) Ahmedabad, it is the location of the Sikh religion's holiest site, the Golden Temple. Built, like the Taj Mahal, in white marble with beautiful stone flower inlays, it is set in the middle of a huge pool of holy water where worshippers bathe amongst monster-sized carp. Unlike the dim austerity of the Taj, though, the inside is exquisitely painted in bright blues and reds, and the paintings are framed with gold, braided into a rope design and illuminated by an enormous crystal chandelier. It was definitely one of the "Wow..." experiences of the trip, and absolutely worth the side trip on our way to Delhi. Let's hope we can leave this town easier than Ahmedabad...

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Room-dwelling wildlife, McLeod Ganj

The incredible Golden Temple, Amritsar

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