A week or so ago, Heather and I took a quick trip to Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh. Dharamsala is the seat of the Tibetan government in exile, as well as being a hill station perched in the Himalayan foothills. We flew up mid-afternoon on Friday and landed at Kangra airport, which is in the valley below Dharamsala. Kangra was in the midst of a lazy summer afternoon, but as we wended our way up the mountain to Dharamsala, the fog laced cool fingers through the trees and coaxed the temperature down a bit. Himachal Pradesh has made me feel right at home each time I've visited. It's the home of morning fog, cool evenings, crisp apples and woodsmoke, which are all the more disconcerting for being found just beyond the sweltering plains around Delhi.
The Tibetan government resides in McLeod Ganj, which is aerie to Dharamsala's peak, and high enough to have it's own micro-climate. We stayed at Chonor House, which overlooks the Dalai Lama's temple and residence. Chonor House is the top of the line in Dharamsala - it is very nice, but that fact argues for the whole scale having shifted a bit. The hotel is run by the Norbulinka Institute, which is chartered with safeguarding and sustaining Tibetan culture. There are beautiful Tibetan woodwork, applique, and paintings scattered throughout the hotel and each room has a particular theme. The hotel shop and a store in town sell the beautiful clothes and handicrafts produced at the Institute; Heather got some lovely things and I was sorely tempted, but stuck to a silver ring and a book about Norbulinka.
Once we stowed our gear at Chonor House, we wandered into town to grab an early dinner and see what McLeod Ganj was all about. The town itself is quite small, just 2-3 km of road wrapped around the hillside. We walked to what appeared to be the end of the line, and then turned back to have dinner at J.J.I. Restaurant. Apparently, it was one of the proprietors' birthdays and the staff, consisting of 4-5 members of a Tibetan boy-band, had been drinking all afternoon. Needless to say, I don't really want to know what went into our food before we got it and things were a little shaky on the way to the table. Probably the best response is to just say that the thentuk (Tibetan noodles) and hot honey ginger lemon tea tasted great and didn't make us sick - though we were on the lookout for trouble.
On our second day in Dharamsala, we met up with the brother of a Tibetan doctor that Heather's aunt works with. He was supposed to be a great English-speaker, married with kids, and very handsome...I think we hit 1 for three - not married, English a leetle bit shaky. Kaldup met us midday at our hotel and treated us to a cup of tea at his apartment. While we were chatting, it started to rain cats and dogs outside. We hung out for a while waiting for it to pass before deciding to go boldly forth and strike out for the Dalai Lama's temple. Kaldup took us on a path through the back alleys of his neighborhood that landed us smartly at the temple gates. Along the way, the deluge continued until I had water running over the tops of my feet - no, Mom, no leptospirosis so far.
The Dalai Lama's temple complex has a small but evocative museum covering the Tibetan exodus and all that the Chinese have done to eradicate Tibetan culture. You begin to understand Richard Gere's passion for the subject, however incredible the vessel. I kept thinking, "someone needs to stand up for these people...why hasn't someone done something." As a country that prides ourselves on resistance of the oppressor and fervently carries the standard of democracy, I think we may be missing a golden opportunity. The temple itself is very simple, and very well attended. Most of the community seems to come here for morning prayers, which made the people watching along Temple Road pretty spectacular over our lovely lattes. I have to pause here and give a huge shout-out to Coffee Talk on Temple Road - best latte in India, hands down. Heather and I were in heaven. And the breakfast of omelettes and Tibetan toast was amazing too. We liked it so much we ate there twice... yum, yum, yum. After we finished touring the temple complex, the rain had slackened off a bit, allowing us to make it back to Chonor House and part ways with Kaldup without getting inundated. After a cup of tea, a snack and an afternoon nap, we headed into town to do some serious singing-bowl shopping...whooo-aahhh. We also ducked in to Jimmy's Italian Restaurant for a good dinner and a local jam session, which was a fantastic way to end the day. I highly recommend it. The only regrettable part of the day was hearing about the Delhi bomb blasts over dinner, and the mad scramble of text messaging and calls to make sure that everyone on our teams was ok. We fell asleep to Blackberry vibrations as people checked in on one another - all present and accounted for, thank God.
On Sunday, our last day in Dharamsala, we headed down to the Norbulinka Institute itself with Kaldup, our local volunteer tour guide. The Institute was beautiful; the temple there has some of the nicest paintings I've seen, and it was nice to be able to see the work the organization is doing to preserve Tibetan culture. After the Institute, we visited a modern Tibetan temple down the road, complete with monk dormitories and light-up lotus lamps. Back up the mountain to McLeod Ganj, another latte and some cake, and we were on the road again. Wings up over Dharamsala and the Kangra valley....
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