One Month in Northern India: Delhi to Dharamsala

2007-05-21T07:13:00.000-07:00

This is part of the Dalai Lama's temple-compound in McCleod Ganj (McClo to locals). To the right is the temple sanctum and to the left, behind gates, fences, and armed guards, is his living space.
You see a lot of monks here.
This is Tsering Wangdue, I spend 9:00am to 1:00pm with him every day helping with his English. He's nice :>
Up the hill from McCleod Ganj and the rest of Dharamsala is the Tibetan Children's Village (TCV). 3000 of the cute little bastards here; its bigger than all of McCleod Ganj.
kids taking recess

soccer field
Classroom
Ok, so one of our tour guides is basically a Tibetan shaman. This tradition predates Buddhism in Tibet and over the centuries the two have grown closer together. What you see here is 3 of the 5 shamans reciting holy words and playing instruments. What you can't see in this picture are the two plates of effigies. These are several demons and evil spirits, about a foot high, made out of dough and dressed in small clothes. They have hair and faces and everything. Each one takes abut 4 hours to make. After they're ready, the shamans transfer the sins and illnesses of the community into them, and bind them there. We sat through this ritual, then one of the shamans asks me to pick up one of the trays of effigies. o_o; Ok, sure. So me and the Tibetan cook both get one, and take them outside.
We set them down on this stone path, and I see about 20 monkies are waiting abut 10 feet away. That's odd, I think. Then as we're walking away, the monkeys descend like a plague and tear the effigies to pieces, stuffing heads and arms into their mouths. I was totally blown away.

So the next day we set off to climb Triune, a mountain north of Dharamsala in the Himalayas. This is typical of the kind of path you walk.
Here's the halfway point, a cafe called Magic View. Notice the bags of Lays potato chips.
This is taken from the trail, where you can see the ridge of the mountains.
this is what the trail looks from the other side

This is what I looked like after climbing the fucking mountain for 5 hours, carrying so much retarded shit.

Btw Brittney repost your list of spices you want and full measurements if you want a Sari, gonna be at the tailor in 2 or 3 days i think

anyone else do the same prz

Amritsar, Golden Temple ect.

2007-05-16T07:22:00.000-07:00

Delhi- Gandhi's inv at death. Notice the sickle D8<
Ghadhi died here.
War memorial, called India Gate. Never did figure out which war. I think maybe more than one? Saw some guards with badass machine pistols and rifles here.
Fleet of Rickshaws taking us from hotel to trainstation.
Punjab, all of it looked exactly like this, for six hours. The odd color is window tint.

Amritsar shithole, way back from Golden Temple.
Same, but darker.
Inside Golden Temple compound.
Outside.
Part of the group at lunch.

Today is our second night in Dharamsala. It's a lovely mountain town, completely in contrast to the low-lying cities of Delhi State and the Punjab. So to get here, we boarded a train in Delhi and rode about 6 hours across mostly farmland into Punjab, which is the major food production center in India. Right now we're in either the hot or dry seasons with the wet (read: Monsoon) coming up next. End result: it's dry as a bone here. What we saw on the trains was people shitting. Seriously, in the course of one hour, I saw over two hundred people shitting on the ground next to the train tracks.

In Amritsar, which is the Sihk (a religion somewhere between Islam and Hinduism) capital, we stayed two nights in a lovely hotel. The full day there we visited the Sihk Golden Temple, which looks like a fortress and yes, the tabernacle (for lack of a better word) is actually plated in real gold. Inside this structure are several books, all named Guru Granth Sahib, which are the living embodiement of God for the Sihks. They believe these books are alive. They wake them up in the morning, feed them, fan them, sing to them, and put them to bed at night. Each Guru Granth Sahib has its own bedroom.
Now, this may sound utterly ridiculous, but you simply can't express what it's like without being there. Also, the Sihks have an open kitchen where anyone can eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner for free. They have a hostel where anyone can spend up to three nights, at no charge. Further, the entire temple system runs off of charity and volunteers. I ate dinner there and it was deliscious. Really though, the Sihks made an impact on me. Many of them were carrying spears and swords in addition to their special clothes; I saw one guy on motorcycle with a spear.
Amritsar itself was pretty much as filthy and gross as Delhi, but no tourists, and therefore no beggars and touts. I think I saw one European the whole time we were at the temple.

VORBEIKOMMEN ICH WIL HAVE DHARAMSALA UND DER HIMALAYAS

this town is awesome btw, i did yoga with buddhist monks :D:D:D:D:D:D

More Delhi

2007-05-14T08:09:00.000-07:00

This is Hindu temple in Delhi, the service especially the chanting, was remarkable.

This is me after totally zoning out in the temple.

Ok, camera battery just died while uploading pictures so have to finish that tomorrow. Also this keyboard is impossible to type on. Will do more tomorrow in Dharamsala.

2007-05-13T05:14:00.001-07:00

Last Day in Delhi

2007-05-13T05:14:00.000-07:00

Today we prowled the Pahar Ganj some more, and I've several observations.

Essential to survival:
You must master the art of looking arrogant. Basically, the only way to get the street people to leave you alone is to project confidence, wave them away, and dismiss them completely as human beings. Otherwise they'll totally smother you. It gets really hard when it turns out to be an old woman holding a baby begging for food or a kid saying he's an orphan (actually I'm just saying that, it makes everyone else uncomfortable with pity, but I just wish they would shove off and leave me alone).

2nd thing is always looking like you know where you're going, even when you're lost. If someone approaches you, lie like a dog, or better yet wave them off.

"Hello sir, where are you from?"
"Canada."
"How long have you been in India?"
"Three weeks."

One weird thing about here is the shitload of Europeans. They're all over the place, mostly Germans I think, although so far I've met New Zealanders, Russians, a Romanian, and a Pole. Weird that you have to come to India to meet Europeans for a conversation, but in this environment Westerners really chum up fast.

The two girls from NZ were really cute, we shopped together for a couple hours before they got on a plane to Kuala Lumpur(sp?) in Malayasia, too bad. The Russians were eating breakfast on top of our hotel while we were sitting around talking, and then one of them threw an entire watermelon int0 the street. It seems like a stereotype, but are they all assholes? The Romanian was very fat and had ridiculous theories about U.S. politics. The Polish girl went with us to see a bunch of the temples and residential areas this morning, and I think she's coming to Amritsar with us tomorrow.

So yeah, tomorrow we leave Delhi and head on a six hour train to Punjab province, then jeep ride to the Sihk Golden Temple in Amritsar, spend the night and then on to our main destination for the trip, Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh.

Getting There and Delhi

2007-05-11T22:49:00.000-07:00

->Dallas
Big shelves of cloud
Hard to tell, but this is France, the very tip out in Brittany, early in the morning.
This is all we saw of France and Germany, pretty much. I think this is over Paris.
Frankfurt Terminal

Over nine hours on that plane was ridiculous.
These are all Saudi jets from the Gulf at Frankfurt
First one of India, this is taken from my hotel(HOTEL RELAX) window.
This is from where we ate breakfast. See the guy down there taking a shower?
This is looking down from where we at breakfast. If you look closely you can see two calves and a goat.

So, the flights were hellish.

One hour Shreveport to Dallas.

Nine hours Dallas to Frankfurt.

Six hours Frankfurt to Bahrain.

Three hours Bahrain to Delhi.

In addition to the layovers, this was almost enough to make a person shit.

The traffic here is incredible if you're riding. Our taxi ride from the airport, it was like we were going to die every 15 seconds. There are lanes but nobody pays attention. Stop signs are non-existant and red lights are vague at best. Horns were so consistent that they were blaring our "Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits" on accident. Overall, great stuff.

more later gtg

Getting Ready

2007-05-05T18:55:00.000-07:00

I am ridiculously excited.

Basic information:

To graduate from my college, you have to complete an "intercultural experience". I didn't know you had to do it your junior year to be eligible for graduation in your senior year, so the only options left when I found out were 1) Paris, France and 2) India. The choice was an easy one D8<

The goal is to learn about the religions of Northern India, including Sikhism, Jainism, Hinduism, and Islam, but focusing mainly on Tibetan Buddhism. We're spending most of the trip in Dharamsala, which is were the Dalai Lama holds currently his government-in-exile (as you might remember, he was forced to flee in 1959 due to Chinese aspirations for control of Tibet).

People going:

1 Professor of Religion from my college

1 Ex-hippy tour guide

1 Reincarnated Tibetan Buddhist tour guide

8 students including myself; 6 girls, 2 guys

25 days in India itself, another 3-4 spend in transit getting there and back (spending a night in Dublin, Ireland on the way back)

The map above is a rough itinerary. We fly into Delhi, spend a few days there, and then take the train up to Amritsar to see the Sihk Golden Temple. Then we jeep up Dharamsala for a week, visit several villages and communities in the mountains, come back for another week, then back to Delhi. From there we go south to Agra to see the Taj Mahal, then back to Delhi and the flight home.

Things I'm looking forward to:

Temples

Parsis (plz pls plz)

Mountains
Eastern Culture

Things I'm hoping to avoid:

Theft

Jail

Rape

AIDS

Malaria

Explosive Diarrhea

Constant bitching from the pampered girls

Sundry medications and preventatives:

My army surplus bag:

Filthy Western Warmonger Gaijin Outlander Ready to Deploy: