Manimahesh is one of the many imposing, breathtaking mountains you can see from anywhere in Bharmour. It is the site of a major pilgrimage in the month of August when roughly 80,000 people come from all over India to go to Shiva’s home. We decided to head up to see as far as we could get on a daytrip in mid-June ; )
So 7am, we pack our gourmet food from Swarna – paranthas and scrambled eggs with mixed homegrown veggies – and off we go to Hadsar. It was raining when we left Bharmour and we joked about how we were taking enough food for 2 days with us, and we would get there, be stuck in rain, and turn right back around. But miraculously, the weather cleared up as we arrived in Hadsar. Perfect walking weather. A bit cloudy but dry, and that fresh scent of the earth just after the rains…
We had the mountain entirely to ourselves, practically. We came across 4 Chinese/Singaporean trekkers who were pretty hardcore, bouncing ahead…and lots of nomads who live in these hills, who ebb and flow with the snow, rockslides, glaciers, and divine spirits that reside here.
It was breathtaking, at times no peak views above us so we were gladly forced to focus on the wildflowers bursting at eye level – yellows, purples, pinks, and blues…the tastiest wild strawberries I’ve ever had in my life; Tashi collecting them by the hundreds, his pockets bursting with them and insisting that we eat – joking that he had nearly 1kg and we could sell them in Bharmour…
We came into close contact with several glaciers, massive structures of permanent ice that feed the rivers that eventually become the delicious water bursting from pipes all over Bharmour…
The nomads here are friendly, content, at peace within themselves and their universe, and very very beautiful. They were happy to be photographed and we made very faulty attempts at communicating in Hindi with them, but so many smiles and laughs were exchanged.
We decided to turn back at around 1pm, when the rainclouds were gathering, we were reaching the cloud line, and the temperature was dropping dramatically. Tashi has a tendency to try out new roads and explore, and I am happy to follow…but this time…oh this time…
We had seen a path winding up across the way from a cluster of nomad tents we had passed around 2.5 hours up from the bottom. It looked well-maintained, and we saw a few nomads speedily going up the path. So when we came to it on our way down, Tashi and Krishnan agreed it would be a good option to try to go down that way. I obliged.
Turns out it was a road that is currently being built. How the mechanical equipment to pave it has arrived up there, I have no understanding of. So, there were huge sharp rocks that we were walking on – thank goodness I had my good shoes on – but Tashi and Krishnan were both in sandals. No worries. Then we came to what has got to be the scariest path I have walked on in my life – maybe 8-12 inches across, teetering at the edge of a drop that goes straight down into the valley. Magnified by the fact that there is a gushing river with lots of white spray shooting up just asking to be fed. Ahh!! So I tried really hard to go down it, after awhile Tashi grabbed my hand and I was leaning against the mountain with the other arm, after awhile I reached that point of being frozen, one of the nomads tried to get me to go with him, I freaked out. Then they decided it would be much safer and faster and easier to…get a piggyback ride. Yup, 26 year old grown girl carried down the mountainside by a Tibetan monk. Hilarious. As I was about to jump on his back, we erupted in a fit of giggles and he said, “Please, Yuri, you can’t make me laugh (giggle, giggle).” “Ok (giggle), I’ll try not to.”
But when I did get on his back, we were both silent, and I shut my eyes. The feeling of being terrified beyond words, holding on so tightly to someone that it was like we were one being, and feeling so intensely the erratic drops and curves of the path…exhilarating. I have no idea how far he carried me; it can’t have been very long – maybe 150-200m? But it felt like lifetimes. When he put me down, we both rolled over laughing and laughing like insane people…ahh I love this team…
The rest of the walk was comparatively a breeze, more wild strawberries, Tashi teaching me a beautiful Tibetan song after much refusal due to his childlike shyness (which of course makes me just tease him more since I’m evil like that ; )…wonderful.
We effortlessly got a ride back to Bharmour, rested, and had another amazing meal at home.
Tashi asked permission to come with us to Bharmour and his monk leader said no. Then he asked his friend to cover for him for a few days and he escaped and joined us. But it really was getting to be time for him to head back. We thought he would take the night bus the following evening…
But I woke up the next morning and he said he was leaving at 8am. I was shocked. A surge of sadness came up so strongly from deep inside of me…this idyllic perfect holiday where we had become like what we idealize as family was coming to an end. So we took him down to the bus stop, waited with him, and it was like…I don’t know what. Tashi, thank you so much for sharing yourself so fully and openly with us this week. Thank you for being a mirror in the best way possible so that we can see what possibility lies within us.
Krishnan and I decided to do the easy hike to Grimar, a village 7km away from Bharmour. As is typical of us – “It’s the journey not the destination” - Krishnan and I took 2 detours before arriving. The first one led up up up through gorgeous pine forest until we realized that we were in fact on the jeep road for Bharmani Mata…and then we went up up up into a village that we thought was Grimar until a beautiful elderly lady told us this was not the right village, we could refill our water if we wanted, and Grimar was further on…
So lots of giggles later, we did arrive in Grimar. From this village you get gorgeous views of 3 valleys, including one that is on the other side from where Bharmour faces so it was our first time seeing this. An elderly man invited us to come into his home. Himachali homes are elegantly, carefully constructed using a combination of bricks, stones that are in their natural form, and carved rocks. We sat, smiling, totally unable to communicate but just being. He sent his granddaughter to milk his goat for us (we heard the goat…) and we had fresh goat milk chai. Out-of-this-world.
We wandered around a bit more before heading back down to Bharmour and making our obligatory dhaba stop…relaxed in the afternoon and our last dinner with Shiva and Swarna…I would leave the next day for Kashmir.
The next morning we had breakfast at home, hung around the temples a bit and finally headed down to the bus stand. My bus left at noon…the week in Bharmour with these lovely people was like a rejuvenation, restoration, inspiration, and refreshing beyond belief. Breathing the clean mountain air, being in the Gods’ home, eating homegrown organic vegetarian food cooked with so much love, getting up early and walking 15-20km a day…there’s nothing this can’t do ; )
Thank you…
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Bharmour, 10-13 June (Written 13 June 2010)
Bharmour is the former capital of the kingdom of Chamba. The claim to fame of this magical village hidden away in the foothills of the Himalayas are the Chaurasi temples, the main one being a breathtakingly gorgeous Shiva Linga. I had never heard of Bharmour, there is very little foreign tourism here, and it is the one hidden gem of India that I have found. There is no car honking; people are friendly and there is almost no visible poverty; the food is phenomenal; the scenery changes by the hour; am I still in India?
We arrived on the 10th at around 5pm and we were pretty exhausted so we decided to spend a night in the first place our driver took us to. We checked in and went wandering to the main town square where the Chaurasi temples are. From the films and literature I have been exposed to, this town is what I imagine somewhere in eastern Iran, or Afghanistan, or Pakistan. Emerging onto the town square, children play cricket, skillfully avoiding running into the 84 Mahasiddha Lingas. Older men with their folded hats sit with their canes, chatting away. Water flows all over the place, pipes bursting with the freshest, most refreshing glacial river water I have ever tasted. So the first evening we simply wander, and end up at the Chaurasi Hotel and Restaurant for dinner. The place looks totally abandoned, and as we enter there is a man whom we ask if we can eat, and he thinks for a minute and says yes. We order two different dals, a shahi paneer and a mixed veg and wait. And wait.
Meanwhile our hot drinks come out one at a time, and there is a bit of shuffle as they leave to buy some of the ingredients – a true sign of freshness. And it is so worth the wait. And it is cheap. 70 rupees a person for proper restaurant food, and lots of it. I like this town already. We head back towards home, but get stuck in a traffic jam. Yes, I said there is no honking and no traffic in this one-road town. But there are sheep! And so there must also be sheep traffic jams. Two shepherds in wool sweaters and hats whistle at their flock of about 300 sheep as 4WD vehicles patiently wait. This is the rhythm of this land.
The next morning, we head down to the dhaba for breakfast. Piping hot Chana Masala (chickpea curry) and mixed vegetables with paneer – the paneer in this town is hands-down the best I have had in India. It is such a perfect consistency, solid but moist, and it has a lovely flavor of mild milk – often paneer is so tasteless and either too moist and crumbly or too hard…then the paranthas arrive. These are basically chapattis that are stuffed with different things – in this case we are talking about aloo parantha, so potato. Perfectly crisped in the tandoor, they are lightly brushed with ghee and an assortment of herbs. If you dissect the lovely bread, inside you find whole cumin seeds, black pepper, a healthy dosage of coriander, and chopped fresh green chili. Mmm.
Fully inspired by breakfast, we head up to the Bharmani Mata temple after we change hotels. Tashi had gone exploring to find room options for us, and he came upon Shiva and Swarna, a lovely farmer couple who rents out rooms in their house. This one and a half hour walk takes us first through orchards full of apples, wheat, barley, apricots, and plums, alongside wild marijuana plants, and then we wander up through the village. Almost every household has at least one cow, and the cows here are the healthiest-looking I have seen in India. People are drying wheat in their courtyards. Colourful laundry hangs, framed by snowcapped mountains. We go further up and then it becomes terraced green fields. There are white-icing granite mountains almost 360 degrees around us. We finally reach the temple which has holy water flowing alongside it. After awhile, we continue up and split with Tashi, who can barely hide his excitement at going off wandering into the hills. He has spent the past twenty years between Dharamsala and his monastery in Karnataka, South India, and he is totally straightforward about how much he loves this place. It reminds him of home – eastern Tibet with rolling green hills and snowy mountains – his parents are barley farmers, and you can see his childhood coming back every moment here. It is beautiful.
So Krishnan and I sit and just enjoy the breathtaking scenery before slowly heading back. The architecture here is wonderful. Homes are carefully constructed using combinations of wood, stones, and shingled roofs which seem to perfectly blend functionality and aesthetics. We head down to the dhaba for lunch, and head back to our rooms where we find Tashi arriving. He says he fell down twice, but he is saying this with a huge beaming smile. He rolled down, just a few rotations like somersaults, he says. He is proper mountain goat style, hopping from boulder to boulder, kneeling to drink from the river alongside the cows.
In the evening we head up to the temple square, and watch life unfold. Sorry for the blasphemy, but if I was a God and if I had a temple, this is the ideal way I would want my abode to be used. For people to convene, simply be together, play, laugh, and live together.
We head home and have the delicious home-cooked meal prepared by the family. Most of the food in our meal is homegrown, organic, and you can taste the love in the meal, and the food tastes so alive. It’s simple, dhal, an okra sabzi, a simple salad, but the chapattis in this town are so full-bodied. We go to sleep, totally satiated in mind, heart, and body and are ready to face the next day.
And the next day is supremely gorgeous. We had decided to set off early since it seemed that weather gets worse in the afternoon. Swarna had packed us a lovely breakfast of aloo paranthas, and so we headed towards Tennali. This was a much easier walk than the previous day, as we headed 7km on the paved car road eastwards. We passed a few waterfalls, a few Shiva and Hanuman temples, and a big herd of sheep, maybe about 400. As I was photographing the sheep, one of the shepherds mockingly indignant, asked me if the sheep were more beautiful than him, since I was only interested in photographing them. I got an awesome portrait of him.
Finally, we came to the village where we were supposed to turn off the main road and go up, up, up to Tennali. What strikes me about this area is how much the scenery changes. In this case, everything seemed normal until we turned one corner and all of a sudden we emerged on eye-level height golden barley. The layers between the terraces were a deep green, wild deep blue chicory flowers were everywhere, as were wild strawberries, and an array of yellow, pink, and purple wildflowers – and don’t forget, this is all under the watchful eye of the snowy peaks. We continued up through the immaculate houses to the top of Tennali. Friendly locals, including lots of kids, came out of their houses to greet us.
On our way down, Tashi lingered behind us and all of a sudden erupted into joyous song. Krishnan and I chuckled and Krishnan said, he’s deliriously happy. And he was. And we all were. When we reached the main road, we found out that there was a path to get to the riverside. So down, down, down we went, for about an hour. The scenery changed yet again. Now it was pine forest, a landscape of boulder-strewn meadows and rich dirt. Then we reached the river, where we crossed a swinging bridge, and the water gushed by with great ferocity, gathering the green color from the limestone that it has slowly but steadily been eroding for centuries. I am still very much working on my fear of falling and heights so we all had a laugh as Tashi strolled down without even looking down, Sara and Krishnan walked down, and I scrambled on all fours down to the river. An impromptu picnic of mangoes, nut mix, and Tashi made a pine-cone fire and roasted some barley for us. Just like home in Tibet. Ahh. We split up at the river and all found our own little spots to just be. Sadhguru came to me so strongly here. Just watching the creation, the simplicity and complexity of the scene unfolding in front of me, the butterflies, the trees, the boulders, the powerful river, the perfect blue sky and the perfect huge mountains…you melt.
We made it back up to the main road just as the rain started, and the walk back to Bharmour was joyful, as we were refreshed and rejuvenated by the sprinkling water.
We reached the dhaba, famished and enjoyed every morsel. To live with this intensity as we have been doing here in Bharmour – to me, that is one of the many goals that I am working towards. Thank you.
When it rains here, the temperature drops quickly and dramatically, so we took hot showers and had deep, blissful naps. Dinner was served in the boys’ room, and was again delicious.
And today…breakfast at the dhaba, then we went up for a puja at the Bharmani Mata temple. A totally different side of the temple, and the walk up of course was an experience, with dozens of kids running around us and local women in traditional dress, which consists of one huge nosering in the left nostril, and elaborate headscarves. Beautiful. Tashi and I decided to leave the pooja a bit early and took an alternate route back since we had already done the path a few days earlier. We started on the jeep road but then Tashi decided we should go down the path in the fields…this Tibetan monk has stolen my heart. As we descended (“Take your time Yuri, we come for enjoy, we come to go hiking and walking and to be with nature and we are not in rush today, we are here for enjoy”), we talked a lot about Buddhism and the values put forth by HH the Dalai Lama, by the spiritual teachings I follow (or aspire to follow), about so many things…one of the things that amazes me is how he speaks of the Chinese invasion and how he genuinely can put a positive light on it.
One aspect of this is that as a result of the invasion, the Dalai Lama has actually become much more accessible to Tibetans, especially those that are not from Lhasa, like himself. The Dalai Lama has been given a lot of international support to travel and give teachings all over the world, which may never have happened if Tibet was allowed to continue its existence in peace. As for Tashi himself, he was never given the chance to have any education in Tibet since he lived in a small village far from Lhasa, so escaping to India has given him a world of opportunity. He is literate in Tibetan and English now, and has come into contact with so many people, ideas, and his world is so much bigger than what it would have been if he was in Tibet in his village. This is just a glimpse into the comprehensive, compassionate view of the world which Tibetans, not just the monastics, embody through people like Tashi. Wow.
I spent some time teaching some origami to Tashi and he loved it. He spent the whole afternoon trying to wrap his head around the crane, and the sheer joy and satisfaction at finally getting it, was of course gleeful but the whole process was full of so much presence, involvement, and bliss. It’s the journey, not the destination. Thank you Tashi.
Another lovely dinner, this time with corn chapattis (Oh my goodness, think Mexican corn tortillas, I almost lost it…) and this is just another day in paradise.
We arrived on the 10th at around 5pm and we were pretty exhausted so we decided to spend a night in the first place our driver took us to. We checked in and went wandering to the main town square where the Chaurasi temples are. From the films and literature I have been exposed to, this town is what I imagine somewhere in eastern Iran, or Afghanistan, or Pakistan. Emerging onto the town square, children play cricket, skillfully avoiding running into the 84 Mahasiddha Lingas. Older men with their folded hats sit with their canes, chatting away. Water flows all over the place, pipes bursting with the freshest, most refreshing glacial river water I have ever tasted. So the first evening we simply wander, and end up at the Chaurasi Hotel and Restaurant for dinner. The place looks totally abandoned, and as we enter there is a man whom we ask if we can eat, and he thinks for a minute and says yes. We order two different dals, a shahi paneer and a mixed veg and wait. And wait.
Meanwhile our hot drinks come out one at a time, and there is a bit of shuffle as they leave to buy some of the ingredients – a true sign of freshness. And it is so worth the wait. And it is cheap. 70 rupees a person for proper restaurant food, and lots of it. I like this town already. We head back towards home, but get stuck in a traffic jam. Yes, I said there is no honking and no traffic in this one-road town. But there are sheep! And so there must also be sheep traffic jams. Two shepherds in wool sweaters and hats whistle at their flock of about 300 sheep as 4WD vehicles patiently wait. This is the rhythm of this land.
The next morning, we head down to the dhaba for breakfast. Piping hot Chana Masala (chickpea curry) and mixed vegetables with paneer – the paneer in this town is hands-down the best I have had in India. It is such a perfect consistency, solid but moist, and it has a lovely flavor of mild milk – often paneer is so tasteless and either too moist and crumbly or too hard…then the paranthas arrive. These are basically chapattis that are stuffed with different things – in this case we are talking about aloo parantha, so potato. Perfectly crisped in the tandoor, they are lightly brushed with ghee and an assortment of herbs. If you dissect the lovely bread, inside you find whole cumin seeds, black pepper, a healthy dosage of coriander, and chopped fresh green chili. Mmm.
Fully inspired by breakfast, we head up to the Bharmani Mata temple after we change hotels. Tashi had gone exploring to find room options for us, and he came upon Shiva and Swarna, a lovely farmer couple who rents out rooms in their house. This one and a half hour walk takes us first through orchards full of apples, wheat, barley, apricots, and plums, alongside wild marijuana plants, and then we wander up through the village. Almost every household has at least one cow, and the cows here are the healthiest-looking I have seen in India. People are drying wheat in their courtyards. Colourful laundry hangs, framed by snowcapped mountains. We go further up and then it becomes terraced green fields. There are white-icing granite mountains almost 360 degrees around us. We finally reach the temple which has holy water flowing alongside it. After awhile, we continue up and split with Tashi, who can barely hide his excitement at going off wandering into the hills. He has spent the past twenty years between Dharamsala and his monastery in Karnataka, South India, and he is totally straightforward about how much he loves this place. It reminds him of home – eastern Tibet with rolling green hills and snowy mountains – his parents are barley farmers, and you can see his childhood coming back every moment here. It is beautiful.
So Krishnan and I sit and just enjoy the breathtaking scenery before slowly heading back. The architecture here is wonderful. Homes are carefully constructed using combinations of wood, stones, and shingled roofs which seem to perfectly blend functionality and aesthetics. We head down to the dhaba for lunch, and head back to our rooms where we find Tashi arriving. He says he fell down twice, but he is saying this with a huge beaming smile. He rolled down, just a few rotations like somersaults, he says. He is proper mountain goat style, hopping from boulder to boulder, kneeling to drink from the river alongside the cows.
In the evening we head up to the temple square, and watch life unfold. Sorry for the blasphemy, but if I was a God and if I had a temple, this is the ideal way I would want my abode to be used. For people to convene, simply be together, play, laugh, and live together.
We head home and have the delicious home-cooked meal prepared by the family. Most of the food in our meal is homegrown, organic, and you can taste the love in the meal, and the food tastes so alive. It’s simple, dhal, an okra sabzi, a simple salad, but the chapattis in this town are so full-bodied. We go to sleep, totally satiated in mind, heart, and body and are ready to face the next day.
And the next day is supremely gorgeous. We had decided to set off early since it seemed that weather gets worse in the afternoon. Swarna had packed us a lovely breakfast of aloo paranthas, and so we headed towards Tennali. This was a much easier walk than the previous day, as we headed 7km on the paved car road eastwards. We passed a few waterfalls, a few Shiva and Hanuman temples, and a big herd of sheep, maybe about 400. As I was photographing the sheep, one of the shepherds mockingly indignant, asked me if the sheep were more beautiful than him, since I was only interested in photographing them. I got an awesome portrait of him.
Finally, we came to the village where we were supposed to turn off the main road and go up, up, up to Tennali. What strikes me about this area is how much the scenery changes. In this case, everything seemed normal until we turned one corner and all of a sudden we emerged on eye-level height golden barley. The layers between the terraces were a deep green, wild deep blue chicory flowers were everywhere, as were wild strawberries, and an array of yellow, pink, and purple wildflowers – and don’t forget, this is all under the watchful eye of the snowy peaks. We continued up through the immaculate houses to the top of Tennali. Friendly locals, including lots of kids, came out of their houses to greet us.
On our way down, Tashi lingered behind us and all of a sudden erupted into joyous song. Krishnan and I chuckled and Krishnan said, he’s deliriously happy. And he was. And we all were. When we reached the main road, we found out that there was a path to get to the riverside. So down, down, down we went, for about an hour. The scenery changed yet again. Now it was pine forest, a landscape of boulder-strewn meadows and rich dirt. Then we reached the river, where we crossed a swinging bridge, and the water gushed by with great ferocity, gathering the green color from the limestone that it has slowly but steadily been eroding for centuries. I am still very much working on my fear of falling and heights so we all had a laugh as Tashi strolled down without even looking down, Sara and Krishnan walked down, and I scrambled on all fours down to the river. An impromptu picnic of mangoes, nut mix, and Tashi made a pine-cone fire and roasted some barley for us. Just like home in Tibet. Ahh. We split up at the river and all found our own little spots to just be. Sadhguru came to me so strongly here. Just watching the creation, the simplicity and complexity of the scene unfolding in front of me, the butterflies, the trees, the boulders, the powerful river, the perfect blue sky and the perfect huge mountains…you melt.
We made it back up to the main road just as the rain started, and the walk back to Bharmour was joyful, as we were refreshed and rejuvenated by the sprinkling water.
We reached the dhaba, famished and enjoyed every morsel. To live with this intensity as we have been doing here in Bharmour – to me, that is one of the many goals that I am working towards. Thank you.
When it rains here, the temperature drops quickly and dramatically, so we took hot showers and had deep, blissful naps. Dinner was served in the boys’ room, and was again delicious.
And today…breakfast at the dhaba, then we went up for a puja at the Bharmani Mata temple. A totally different side of the temple, and the walk up of course was an experience, with dozens of kids running around us and local women in traditional dress, which consists of one huge nosering in the left nostril, and elaborate headscarves. Beautiful. Tashi and I decided to leave the pooja a bit early and took an alternate route back since we had already done the path a few days earlier. We started on the jeep road but then Tashi decided we should go down the path in the fields…this Tibetan monk has stolen my heart. As we descended (“Take your time Yuri, we come for enjoy, we come to go hiking and walking and to be with nature and we are not in rush today, we are here for enjoy”), we talked a lot about Buddhism and the values put forth by HH the Dalai Lama, by the spiritual teachings I follow (or aspire to follow), about so many things…one of the things that amazes me is how he speaks of the Chinese invasion and how he genuinely can put a positive light on it.
One aspect of this is that as a result of the invasion, the Dalai Lama has actually become much more accessible to Tibetans, especially those that are not from Lhasa, like himself. The Dalai Lama has been given a lot of international support to travel and give teachings all over the world, which may never have happened if Tibet was allowed to continue its existence in peace. As for Tashi himself, he was never given the chance to have any education in Tibet since he lived in a small village far from Lhasa, so escaping to India has given him a world of opportunity. He is literate in Tibetan and English now, and has come into contact with so many people, ideas, and his world is so much bigger than what it would have been if he was in Tibet in his village. This is just a glimpse into the comprehensive, compassionate view of the world which Tibetans, not just the monastics, embody through people like Tashi. Wow.
I spent some time teaching some origami to Tashi and he loved it. He spent the whole afternoon trying to wrap his head around the crane, and the sheer joy and satisfaction at finally getting it, was of course gleeful but the whole process was full of so much presence, involvement, and bliss. It’s the journey, not the destination. Thank you Tashi.
Another lovely dinner, this time with corn chapattis (Oh my goodness, think Mexican corn tortillas, I almost lost it…) and this is just another day in paradise.
Dharamsala to Bharmour, 10 June 2010
One week after I arrived in Himachal Pradesh, I was back on the road again. To be frank, Mcleod Ganj had its negatives, so much traffic; it somehow seems incongruous to think of the Dalai Lama in his temple and Tibetan monks in the road while there are full-on Indian style traffic jams – think incessant honking (or horning, they call it here). But so it is. There was also such a mix of energies, ranging from the serenity brought in by Tibetans, especially monks and nuns, all the way to Israelis who were there to smoke marijuana and chill out and have sex, and then the Kashmiri merchants, and I was ready to get out. Krishnan and I had already been discussing some possible trips away from Mcleod, and it seemed almost like a choiceless decision to go to Chamba Valley. Very little information is provided in the guidebooks about this region, and Krishnan was ready to dish out for transport to Chamba. I said if we were going to head out that way, I wanted to go all the way to Bharmour. Instinct. Thank goodness.
The team: the oddest combination of people ever to be seen in Chamba, perhaps. Krishnan, 49 year old half Indian half Chinese, British citizen, professor of literature in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has been at Amma’s ashram for the past year, is extremely well-read, extremely physically fit, and full of corny jokes. Tashi, 36 year old Tibetan monk who escaped his family, perhaps even more so than the Chinese, when he was 15 and came to India to join monastic life. Krishnan and Tashi met in an English class that Krishnan was volunteering at in Mcleod Ganj in November. Sara, a Mexican girl I met in Amritsar who had been teaching in Jaipur. And me, the half-Japanese half-Chinese, Indonesian born, American-raised, pretending-to-be-Brasilian who constantly gets thought to be Tibetan when I’m in this part of the world. Only adventure and constant laughter could have awaited us, no?
The road from Dharamsala to Bharmour…unearthly. Perhaps because I had no expectations whatsoever, it just blew me away. I assumed we would be seeing more of the same scenery as Dharamsala, namely pretty pine forest with the occasional snowcapped peak behind. Wrong I was. Terraced fields started very soon after we left Dharamsala, which sort of reminded me of the Inca landscape in Peru, except the pine forests just didn’t fit. And snowcapped mountains, so jagged and dramatic.
We arrived in Bharmour and found a place to stay for the night…
The team: the oddest combination of people ever to be seen in Chamba, perhaps. Krishnan, 49 year old half Indian half Chinese, British citizen, professor of literature in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He has been at Amma’s ashram for the past year, is extremely well-read, extremely physically fit, and full of corny jokes. Tashi, 36 year old Tibetan monk who escaped his family, perhaps even more so than the Chinese, when he was 15 and came to India to join monastic life. Krishnan and Tashi met in an English class that Krishnan was volunteering at in Mcleod Ganj in November. Sara, a Mexican girl I met in Amritsar who had been teaching in Jaipur. And me, the half-Japanese half-Chinese, Indonesian born, American-raised, pretending-to-be-Brasilian who constantly gets thought to be Tibetan when I’m in this part of the world. Only adventure and constant laughter could have awaited us, no?
The road from Dharamsala to Bharmour…unearthly. Perhaps because I had no expectations whatsoever, it just blew me away. I assumed we would be seeing more of the same scenery as Dharamsala, namely pretty pine forest with the occasional snowcapped peak behind. Wrong I was. Terraced fields started very soon after we left Dharamsala, which sort of reminded me of the Inca landscape in Peru, except the pine forests just didn’t fit. And snowcapped mountains, so jagged and dramatic.
We arrived in Bharmour and found a place to stay for the night…
Monday, June 21, 2010
Karmapa and Norbulingka Institute, 8 June
The Karmapa lineage in Tibet currently is in the 17th incarnation – that is to say that it could be interpreted as older than the Dalai Lama’s lineage which is currently in the 14th incarnation.
I had never heard of the Karmapa or anything about him or the lineage, until Krishnan invited me to go to the public audience on Wednesday afternoon. So on a stunningly clear Wednesday afternoon, we took a rickshaw winding downhill through the backroads of Dharamsala and down a small alleyway we arrived. A structure framed by snowcapped peaks, the monastery is in immaculate condition and the central temple invites you magnetically to come see what it holds in store.
We registered with our passports and went to sit in the hall, which had maybe 300 people, a mix ranging from blond hippie types, Tibetan families, Buddhist pilgrims from all over Asia…typical for Dharamsala, I suppose. I sat down and started to meditate, and was instantly taken over by what I can best describe as electric shocks running all through my body, up my spine and spreading through my arms. The energy was so potent, strong, pure, and it felt so old. I don’t know how to explain. It didn’t inspire the type of bliss that I have experienced with Sadhguru. More closely, it inspired some giant thunderbolt exclamation mark and a simultaneous question mark. HUH?!
There was a flurry of movement as 3 or 4 monks came in, and arranged themselves in the front of the room. People scrambled up and got in line, which moved very quickly, offering the traditional white scarves (faux pas we didn’t have them), and then receiving a red thread from the Karmapa – who, I didn’t even know who he was because he didn’t distinguish himself from the others in any way on the physical level, honestly I could only guess who he was because he was the one in the middle with the red rope. And as quickly as it started, it was over. We had presumed there would be some sort of talk given – we wondered whether he would speak in English or Tibetan – but no such luck. So in the midst of this confusion and speed, we stuck around for awhile. I was stunned speechless. What the hell was that, and what did it mean? I found it very hard to speak for several hours.
Good thing we went to Norbulingka afterwards. This is a breathtaking, instantly calming, peaceful institution also located in Dharamsala. A cultural institution dedicated to preserving all aspects of Tibetan culture, they have workshops on woodcarving, textiles, and of course a gorgeous temple. All this is interwoven through GREEN foliage and water running everywhere…something so Japanese about the ambiance. I felt at home. Despite all the imperfections I see in Dharamsala and McLeod Ganj, and of course the whole Tibetan situation overall, I am so grateful that there is some hope for Tibetan culture to survive to some extent in this refuge.
I had never heard of the Karmapa or anything about him or the lineage, until Krishnan invited me to go to the public audience on Wednesday afternoon. So on a stunningly clear Wednesday afternoon, we took a rickshaw winding downhill through the backroads of Dharamsala and down a small alleyway we arrived. A structure framed by snowcapped peaks, the monastery is in immaculate condition and the central temple invites you magnetically to come see what it holds in store.
We registered with our passports and went to sit in the hall, which had maybe 300 people, a mix ranging from blond hippie types, Tibetan families, Buddhist pilgrims from all over Asia…typical for Dharamsala, I suppose. I sat down and started to meditate, and was instantly taken over by what I can best describe as electric shocks running all through my body, up my spine and spreading through my arms. The energy was so potent, strong, pure, and it felt so old. I don’t know how to explain. It didn’t inspire the type of bliss that I have experienced with Sadhguru. More closely, it inspired some giant thunderbolt exclamation mark and a simultaneous question mark. HUH?!
There was a flurry of movement as 3 or 4 monks came in, and arranged themselves in the front of the room. People scrambled up and got in line, which moved very quickly, offering the traditional white scarves (faux pas we didn’t have them), and then receiving a red thread from the Karmapa – who, I didn’t even know who he was because he didn’t distinguish himself from the others in any way on the physical level, honestly I could only guess who he was because he was the one in the middle with the red rope. And as quickly as it started, it was over. We had presumed there would be some sort of talk given – we wondered whether he would speak in English or Tibetan – but no such luck. So in the midst of this confusion and speed, we stuck around for awhile. I was stunned speechless. What the hell was that, and what did it mean? I found it very hard to speak for several hours.
Good thing we went to Norbulingka afterwards. This is a breathtaking, instantly calming, peaceful institution also located in Dharamsala. A cultural institution dedicated to preserving all aspects of Tibetan culture, they have workshops on woodcarving, textiles, and of course a gorgeous temple. All this is interwoven through GREEN foliage and water running everywhere…something so Japanese about the ambiance. I felt at home. Despite all the imperfections I see in Dharamsala and McLeod Ganj, and of course the whole Tibetan situation overall, I am so grateful that there is some hope for Tibetan culture to survive to some extent in this refuge.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Gu Chu Sum, 7-9 June
The next day the only thing I did was go to volunteer at Gu Chu Sum. Where to start with this? Tibet has been in my heart since I visited in 2004. Dharamsala has since then held some mythical place in my heart, knowing that it was the home of the Dalai Lama. The real blanket overview story is that Tibet was atrociously invaded by the Chinese government in 1959 and since then, at least 100,000 (a huge proportion considering the entire population is roughly 6 million) Tibetans have been killed, and hundreds of thousands more tortured as the Chinese forcefully take control of the country, in what can only be interpreted as greed, wanting control of precious natural resources, including rivers, minerals, and strategic location. Many thousands of Tibetans have come to Dharamsala, fleeing Tibet, and they have unthinkable stories of walking from Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, all the way to Nepal (from personal accounts I’ve heard the average journey time is 25-30 days of walking through the Himalayas, often times at night, sleeping during the day so as not to be seen), and then they still have to make it to India. This situation grows more complicated as Maoist troops are put in Nepal to prevent them from coming across.
So – Gu Chu Sum. The organization has a program which I helped out with, which takes former political prisoners and puts them through a one-year program in which they are given housing in the center, have intensive studies of English language/grammar, Tibetan language/grammar, computers, Tibetan history, and philosophy. I helped out with the English language portion of the program for the remaining days I was in Dharamsala, and I fell in love instantly and repeatedly with the participants.
My heart connection was with Zonkyi, a nun from Lhasa. I arrived with Sara, a Mexican girl I had met in Amritsar, and she beckoned us over, putting down two cushions for her. She launched shyly, yet eagerly, into her introduction talk, saying how she was involved in the one-year program, and that English was very difficult for her, especially grammar. More students arrived so Sara paired off with another one, but I stayed with Donkyi. She wound so skillfully between all her life stories, telling me of her fateful day at the Jokhang when she was involved in a 15 minute protest in 2001 which was cut short by Chinese troops who beat the nuns (and many civilians) in the street, and resulted in 3 years of imprisonment in Lhasa. The violence, suffering and injustice was interjected with stories of how she has little or no desire to ever again climb another mountain, of how the duties at the nunnery involved carrying things back and forth when their nunnery was being rebuilt, and it was so important to be first because then you could carry something big but light, and if you were late you would be stuck carrying the heavy things. And climbing up ladders with these heavy things, her facial expressions of sheer terror but always with a spark of humor and joyful playfulness.
She spoke of her fellow inmates in prison, in particular a Chinese woman who was falsely framed for stealing from the electronics company that she worked for. When the Chinese lady first arrived, the other inmates, all Tibetan nuns, thought that the Chinese lady turning away from them, refusing to acknowledge their presence, was due to her disgust and hatred for Tibetans. But then the next day they were able to start communicating with her and mutually comforting each other, and then a beautiful friendship formed. When the Chinese lady was released, she came regularly to the prison with her father, bringing food and visiting her Tibetan cellmates, now friends.
And then of course the journey from Lhasa to Nepal. It is something that breaks my heart to know that way too many people in the world know the feeling of not knowing whether you will make it to the other side, to leave everything behind in the sliver of a hope for something better, but no guarantee to survive the perilous path to get there. To be able to tell stories like this with humor, to inspire compassion and laughter simultaneously, is something that I find Tibetans do with great skill. Her walk took 27 days, there were 24 in her party, and 3 did not make it. There were two children, orphans, whom she still keeps in contact with. They are in school in Dehra Dun. She spoke of how heavy her bag was, because it was filled with food and books, and how as the journey went on, from exhaustion she was forced to abandon her precious Buddhist literature, and the food supplies dwindled.
If two people can connect in just two hours – if they are both willing and open-minded and hearted to allow it to happen – if we all did this every day, what would the world be like? This is precisely what the Dalai Lama teaches. Can we practice this? I struggle like hell, despite having experienced countless cases where it does happen for me...day by day, little bit at a time...
So – Gu Chu Sum. The organization has a program which I helped out with, which takes former political prisoners and puts them through a one-year program in which they are given housing in the center, have intensive studies of English language/grammar, Tibetan language/grammar, computers, Tibetan history, and philosophy. I helped out with the English language portion of the program for the remaining days I was in Dharamsala, and I fell in love instantly and repeatedly with the participants.
My heart connection was with Zonkyi, a nun from Lhasa. I arrived with Sara, a Mexican girl I had met in Amritsar, and she beckoned us over, putting down two cushions for her. She launched shyly, yet eagerly, into her introduction talk, saying how she was involved in the one-year program, and that English was very difficult for her, especially grammar. More students arrived so Sara paired off with another one, but I stayed with Donkyi. She wound so skillfully between all her life stories, telling me of her fateful day at the Jokhang when she was involved in a 15 minute protest in 2001 which was cut short by Chinese troops who beat the nuns (and many civilians) in the street, and resulted in 3 years of imprisonment in Lhasa. The violence, suffering and injustice was interjected with stories of how she has little or no desire to ever again climb another mountain, of how the duties at the nunnery involved carrying things back and forth when their nunnery was being rebuilt, and it was so important to be first because then you could carry something big but light, and if you were late you would be stuck carrying the heavy things. And climbing up ladders with these heavy things, her facial expressions of sheer terror but always with a spark of humor and joyful playfulness.
She spoke of her fellow inmates in prison, in particular a Chinese woman who was falsely framed for stealing from the electronics company that she worked for. When the Chinese lady first arrived, the other inmates, all Tibetan nuns, thought that the Chinese lady turning away from them, refusing to acknowledge their presence, was due to her disgust and hatred for Tibetans. But then the next day they were able to start communicating with her and mutually comforting each other, and then a beautiful friendship formed. When the Chinese lady was released, she came regularly to the prison with her father, bringing food and visiting her Tibetan cellmates, now friends.
And then of course the journey from Lhasa to Nepal. It is something that breaks my heart to know that way too many people in the world know the feeling of not knowing whether you will make it to the other side, to leave everything behind in the sliver of a hope for something better, but no guarantee to survive the perilous path to get there. To be able to tell stories like this with humor, to inspire compassion and laughter simultaneously, is something that I find Tibetans do with great skill. Her walk took 27 days, there were 24 in her party, and 3 did not make it. There were two children, orphans, whom she still keeps in contact with. They are in school in Dehra Dun. She spoke of how heavy her bag was, because it was filled with food and books, and how as the journey went on, from exhaustion she was forced to abandon her precious Buddhist literature, and the food supplies dwindled.
If two people can connect in just two hours – if they are both willing and open-minded and hearted to allow it to happen – if we all did this every day, what would the world be like? This is precisely what the Dalai Lama teaches. Can we practice this? I struggle like hell, despite having experienced countless cases where it does happen for me...day by day, little bit at a time...
Friday, June 18, 2010
Dharamsala; Triund, June 6
Triund. I first heard of Triund from the Ghosh’s in Delhi, when we spoke about Dharamsala. It’s the most popular one or two day walk from the area, and I headed that way with Krishnan on Sunday. We had hearty breakfasts at the Green Hotel, and off we went, spinach quiches packed up with us.
Uphill. Lots of it. Like 3 hours of it. But breathtaking views, along with confirming inspirational conversation, made it fly by. I am so grateful for Krishnan’s presence in my life. I really didn’t expect when we first met at Amma’s ashram in January that we would end up seeing a lot more of each other. What really sticks with me from the walk that day is how much I didn’t realize that what I said to him was really how I think, feel, know, right now. I found so many stories and quotes from Sadhguru coming out. Forced to speak about my past, highs and lows, amongst many other things made me really see things clearly. And I am so grateful to be exactly where I am right now in my life, in every way – physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. I am totally lost in a lot of ways, having just left career, the concept of home, and relationships – but I am having that settled feeling of knowing that I am exactly where I need to be. Thank you.
To be able to have the financial freedom, and not have responsibilities that bind me to a place, people, and things, is of indescribable blessing.
What also strikes me is how really, truly difficult it is to embody and practice the simplest concepts of spirituality. I really appreciate His Holiness the Dalai Lama for this, because the majority of his teachings are so simple they can be understood by a kindergartener. But the reality is that love and compassion really are that simple; it is hard to wake up every day joyfully, to pay more attention to the love and compassion within us than the incessant noise and negativity that the mind creates; if we can treat each sentient being as such and acknowledge the fundamental desire for happiness, and the end of suffering, that every being in this world has, we can grow exponentially. But it is oh-so-hard.
Sadhguru says so many things that drove me crazy the first time I heard them, more likely than not because I recognized the incontrovertible truth of them but didn’t want to admit them – if we really want to live, why do we say we only want to live to be 80, rather than 160 like the actual maximum lifespan of human beings? How can we claim to love God, some unknown being above, if we can’t love the person next to us? Would God make you/me/one perfect, and mess up on the rest? We see ourselves as perfect so all of creation must be so…there is so much more. I have not delved into Sadhguru’s works so much, perhaps because I recognize that the little I have been exposed to is more than enough to digest and try to have reflect in my life.
Anyway – we made it to Triund, rolling green meadows framed by snow-capped peaks behind - had amazing spinach quiche, and came right back. And then I got so sick.
I really don’t think I ate or drank anything my body couldn’t handle, so it was either sun poisoning or some sort of internal cleansing (Kali/Durga) for the next 24 hours – that horrible simultaneous vomiting and diarrhea…
Uphill. Lots of it. Like 3 hours of it. But breathtaking views, along with confirming inspirational conversation, made it fly by. I am so grateful for Krishnan’s presence in my life. I really didn’t expect when we first met at Amma’s ashram in January that we would end up seeing a lot more of each other. What really sticks with me from the walk that day is how much I didn’t realize that what I said to him was really how I think, feel, know, right now. I found so many stories and quotes from Sadhguru coming out. Forced to speak about my past, highs and lows, amongst many other things made me really see things clearly. And I am so grateful to be exactly where I am right now in my life, in every way – physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. I am totally lost in a lot of ways, having just left career, the concept of home, and relationships – but I am having that settled feeling of knowing that I am exactly where I need to be. Thank you.
To be able to have the financial freedom, and not have responsibilities that bind me to a place, people, and things, is of indescribable blessing.
What also strikes me is how really, truly difficult it is to embody and practice the simplest concepts of spirituality. I really appreciate His Holiness the Dalai Lama for this, because the majority of his teachings are so simple they can be understood by a kindergartener. But the reality is that love and compassion really are that simple; it is hard to wake up every day joyfully, to pay more attention to the love and compassion within us than the incessant noise and negativity that the mind creates; if we can treat each sentient being as such and acknowledge the fundamental desire for happiness, and the end of suffering, that every being in this world has, we can grow exponentially. But it is oh-so-hard.
Sadhguru says so many things that drove me crazy the first time I heard them, more likely than not because I recognized the incontrovertible truth of them but didn’t want to admit them – if we really want to live, why do we say we only want to live to be 80, rather than 160 like the actual maximum lifespan of human beings? How can we claim to love God, some unknown being above, if we can’t love the person next to us? Would God make you/me/one perfect, and mess up on the rest? We see ourselves as perfect so all of creation must be so…there is so much more. I have not delved into Sadhguru’s works so much, perhaps because I recognize that the little I have been exposed to is more than enough to digest and try to have reflect in my life.
Anyway – we made it to Triund, rolling green meadows framed by snow-capped peaks behind - had amazing spinach quiche, and came right back. And then I got so sick.
I really don’t think I ate or drank anything my body couldn’t handle, so it was either sun poisoning or some sort of internal cleansing (Kali/Durga) for the next 24 hours – that horrible simultaneous vomiting and diarrhea…
Amritsar to Dharamsala, June 2 2010
Actually all wasn’t golden at the temple. I lost my phone on June 1st…I still don’t know and will never know how exactly. The most likely thing happening is that it fell out of my pocket on my way to or from the bathroom…anyway, the response of the guards and the other pilgrims was overwhelming. The temple has dozens (could be hundreds) of guards, most of whom are wearing deep blue turbans and white robes – and a good portion of them carry around huge spears, or giant swords worn at the waist. Most speak broken English but are somehow hilarious and their kindness transcends language barriers. It took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to say thank you (Shukriya) in Punjabi. Anyway, I communicated about my phone being lost, they frantically called the number, and we set out in a search party of about 10 people for the 100 meters between the dorm and the bathroom. To no avail, but they kept on asking me and calling my number with me over the next 12 hours.
I woke up the next morning, dazed, still worried about the phone…it was my birthday!
And then Thomas appeared. And everything changed. I was already in a beautiful head and heartspace, and then what I really understand as Bhava Spandana, BSP, happened with him. Basically, the concept of BSP is that when two things in nature are vibrating at exactly the same frequency, it’s not 1+1=2, but it’s an exponential explosion. And that’s what this lanky, absurdly gorgeous Brasilian man and I experienced this past 4 days together.
It’s difficult to put into words…I woke up, was sitting on the bed when he comes in, asks me if I know about buses to Dharamsala, and I tell him that I am taking the bus at 12:20 and I have a rickshaw getting me at 11:30, and that he is welcome to join me. Then I ask him where he’s from, he says Brasil, and we pretty much leave it at that. We go our separate ways and meet back. When I came back to pack and shower, he was speaking with an English guy and went to buy bandages for his sprained ankle. Turns out they’re complete strangers but he was helping this guy out. This seems to be an insignificant but huge detail to me…I don’t know how to write about Thomas because there is no way I can do justice to the essence of his being…we get on the bus to Dharamsala, he’s got sparkles (ahh as purpurinas) all over his hair and face that he has no clue how they got there…and so this 7 hour bus ride through insane traffic jams on country roads, bumpy butts, and dry heat as we started the ascent into the pine forests that is Dharamsala, somehow transformed into a dissolving of myself.
Litchis in the bus, sticky hands, pouring water onto a napkin – peeling litchis for me so I didn’t have to get sticky…the cheesiest jokes – Urublue, jacared, yellowphant…buying coconut cookies, complaining that they’re artificial and eating the whole pack…trying to figure out whether the estimated 7 hours travel time already accounted for the major traffic jams on tiny country roads…the whole day I kept talking about mangoes and I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to find mangoes in Dharamsala…at the end of the day I brought up star signs and he is a Scorpio, and I told him I’m Gemini, actually it was my birthday that day.
We arrived in Mcleod Ganj, Krishnan came to find us, and we made our way to Hunted Hill Hotel. A lovely birthday dinner and birthday dessert, and that was that. The next day we had made plans to go on a hike to a waterfall that everyone talks about, but it rained like crazy in the early morning so that got cancelled. The next 2.5 days passed in a haze, where we seemed to be doing so much but really nothing at all. Just being, and enjoying each other’s company. But really intensely. As S puts it, “intense but relaxed, one hundred percent involvement...” We covered every topic imaginable from vegetarianism and raw food to ethnic genocide in Botswana to tofu types in Japan to dental procedures…
The day after we arrived, we moved to Bhagsu, which is somewhat of a nightmare for me (at the time I didn’t know it would be that way)…a hippie traveler/Israeli enclave…it’s a fine (or not so fine) line between a chilled-out, laid-back place that is welcoming to travelers, and then there is way over the top, no resemblance whatsoever to the original culture(s) that exist there, and a rambling, thoughtless development that is simply put, garish. This area isn’t the worst I’ve ever seen no doubt, but it really wasn’t the Shangri-La I was expecting. But put the negativity aside because as I was swept off my feet in Tibet in 2004, I have learned that anywhere where anything Tibetan by association exists, has indescribable beauty and bliss.
Anyway, on the 3rd we were looking for the Dalai Lama’s temple, got completely lost, and were helped by this American woman nun who has been in Dharamsala for 9 years now. A hilarious personal tour as she grumbled about the false information that the Indian guides give, she told Thomas not to point at deities and offerings, and then he captured her on camera pointing at a cat (but so sweet, she stopped to chat with every single animal we encountered on the way to the temple…)
More meandering in the afternoon and finally around sunset we arrived in Bhagsu, looking for the nameless guesthouse where Manuela’s friend/boyfriend was staying. That proved to be a humorous endeavor, and finally we were all settled in.
Throughout the day he had been going in and out of little food shops and I had no idea what he was buying – I asked a few times and he said “vou fazer um experimento” – I’m going to do an experiment…so we go to dinner, and then – agh! My teeth fell out! Eating pizza…why am I not surprised? ; ) so anyway, I’m mortified, realize that the support on my left side of the bridge has totally broken off, am panicking thinking maybe I have to go to Delhi to get this taken care of, and we decide to go home. At which point Thomas comes out from behind the restaurant counter, candle lit on a cake! I was so shocked. I had zero concept whatsoever that this was happening – from his ingredient shopping I thought he might be making something but the last thing I was expecting was a raw coconut mango birthday cake! I melted. Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you.
The next day was spent running around to and from the dentist for me, and for Thomas much of it was occupied helping an elderly man. Well, let me recount about the dentist. India is so funny; going into Dr. Tandon’s Dental Clinic you don’t really expect anything horrible or fancy...in true Indian fashion, the walls are cracked, paint is chipped, bad lighting...the usual. But then he opens up the cupboards and there are these shiny brand new boxes of dental tools and equipment, the majority of which I deduce are made in Germany…so that was that. A few x-rays and a quick procedure (interrupted by an electricity cut, yup, we’re in India) and my teeth were fully restored! For 1850 Rupees! (Roughly 40USD) While I was dealing with my oral drama, Thomas was stopped in the street by an elderly American man who had great trouble just walking. What a heart of gold. He spent over 2 hours while I was running back and forth speaking to this man, about healing and healers all over the world, helping him into a café and literally spoon-feeding him. It was heavy for him in many ways and I hate to sound shallow but my dental stuff was quite draining for me, so after our Thai green curry and somewhat Enchilada-y lunch I headed back alone to Bhagsu to decompress. Thomas was going to go shopping – side note – I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a shopper as indecisive and meticulous as this boy…he was looking for Tibetan singing bowls, it was a good practice for me to accompany him and it was also a nice way for me to interact with shopkeepers without any pressure of buying anything.
So I made it back to Bhagsu, and almost immediately after I got back and got ready to head out to a Classical Indian Music concert, this enormous thunderstorm started, with purple lightning lighting up the whole sky, illuminating the mountains. So I stayed in, and wondered how on earth Thomas was going to make it back in one piece. He came in a few hours later, positively dripping on the floor, and after he got in dry clothes we decided to go eat despite the fact that neither of us were hungry.
Hello to the King. Apparently Hello to the Queen is a common and hugely popular dessert in India – I’d never heard of it! Sliced bananas, Bhagsu cake (OH MY GOD! A thick buttery shortbready crust, a layer of thick caramel just like dulce de leche in Argentina, and dark chocolate on top…insanity), vanilla ice cream, and all sorts of other delectable delights…mmm. Afterwards, we poked around to find a tool to play the Tibetan singing bowls, and back we went. These instruments are so powerful. The vibration they create goes so deep within you, reverberating and unquestionably healing you. Sort of reminds me of the electric charge tools that acupuncturists use. So off I went into bliss-land, and next thing I knew it was sunrise.
Thomas’s last day in Bhagsu. It felt like we had just met, but spent lifetimes together. We finally sucked it up and made it out to the waterfall – totally worth the effort. The trail there is forested, winding in and out of views of the surrounding hills, and when you reach the destination, you are rewarded with stunning green water backed by high limestone cliffs. Lovely. We laid around on rocks, each made painfully shocked faces as we jumped into the instantly numbing water, ate mangoes…bliss. We made it back and headed for lunch at the vegetarian Japanese restaurant which supports Gu Chu Sum, a NGO that supports former political prisoners from Tibet. Our lovely Tibetan waitress used the menu to copy lemon soda onto her pad of paper, adorably self-conscious as she realized I was watching her do it. The focus, intensity, and love with which she wrote out those simple letters was so moving. Stomachs full of agedashi tofu and Japanese style potato salad, warm from miso soup (first Japanese meal since I left Japan 1 month ago), we headed slowly through shops back up towards Bhagsu. How to describe the feeling as we parted ways at the bus terminal? First and foremost, it was an extremely settled, stable, firm grounding. It’s difficult to explain – but it felt like it was time and the time that we had been blessed to share was so auspicious and I had no doubt that each of us was so grateful for the past days together. As is always the case when we part ways, we never really know if we will see each other again. But in this case, I had this certainty that we would meet again, or rather, that we weren’t even separating because we will carry each other within us forever.
Obrigada por tudo querido, desde o fundo do coracao…
I woke up the next morning, dazed, still worried about the phone…it was my birthday!
And then Thomas appeared. And everything changed. I was already in a beautiful head and heartspace, and then what I really understand as Bhava Spandana, BSP, happened with him. Basically, the concept of BSP is that when two things in nature are vibrating at exactly the same frequency, it’s not 1+1=2, but it’s an exponential explosion. And that’s what this lanky, absurdly gorgeous Brasilian man and I experienced this past 4 days together.
It’s difficult to put into words…I woke up, was sitting on the bed when he comes in, asks me if I know about buses to Dharamsala, and I tell him that I am taking the bus at 12:20 and I have a rickshaw getting me at 11:30, and that he is welcome to join me. Then I ask him where he’s from, he says Brasil, and we pretty much leave it at that. We go our separate ways and meet back. When I came back to pack and shower, he was speaking with an English guy and went to buy bandages for his sprained ankle. Turns out they’re complete strangers but he was helping this guy out. This seems to be an insignificant but huge detail to me…I don’t know how to write about Thomas because there is no way I can do justice to the essence of his being…we get on the bus to Dharamsala, he’s got sparkles (ahh as purpurinas) all over his hair and face that he has no clue how they got there…and so this 7 hour bus ride through insane traffic jams on country roads, bumpy butts, and dry heat as we started the ascent into the pine forests that is Dharamsala, somehow transformed into a dissolving of myself.
Litchis in the bus, sticky hands, pouring water onto a napkin – peeling litchis for me so I didn’t have to get sticky…the cheesiest jokes – Urublue, jacared, yellowphant…buying coconut cookies, complaining that they’re artificial and eating the whole pack…trying to figure out whether the estimated 7 hours travel time already accounted for the major traffic jams on tiny country roads…the whole day I kept talking about mangoes and I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to find mangoes in Dharamsala…at the end of the day I brought up star signs and he is a Scorpio, and I told him I’m Gemini, actually it was my birthday that day.
We arrived in Mcleod Ganj, Krishnan came to find us, and we made our way to Hunted Hill Hotel. A lovely birthday dinner and birthday dessert, and that was that. The next day we had made plans to go on a hike to a waterfall that everyone talks about, but it rained like crazy in the early morning so that got cancelled. The next 2.5 days passed in a haze, where we seemed to be doing so much but really nothing at all. Just being, and enjoying each other’s company. But really intensely. As S puts it, “intense but relaxed, one hundred percent involvement...” We covered every topic imaginable from vegetarianism and raw food to ethnic genocide in Botswana to tofu types in Japan to dental procedures…
The day after we arrived, we moved to Bhagsu, which is somewhat of a nightmare for me (at the time I didn’t know it would be that way)…a hippie traveler/Israeli enclave…it’s a fine (or not so fine) line between a chilled-out, laid-back place that is welcoming to travelers, and then there is way over the top, no resemblance whatsoever to the original culture(s) that exist there, and a rambling, thoughtless development that is simply put, garish. This area isn’t the worst I’ve ever seen no doubt, but it really wasn’t the Shangri-La I was expecting. But put the negativity aside because as I was swept off my feet in Tibet in 2004, I have learned that anywhere where anything Tibetan by association exists, has indescribable beauty and bliss.
Anyway, on the 3rd we were looking for the Dalai Lama’s temple, got completely lost, and were helped by this American woman nun who has been in Dharamsala for 9 years now. A hilarious personal tour as she grumbled about the false information that the Indian guides give, she told Thomas not to point at deities and offerings, and then he captured her on camera pointing at a cat (but so sweet, she stopped to chat with every single animal we encountered on the way to the temple…)
More meandering in the afternoon and finally around sunset we arrived in Bhagsu, looking for the nameless guesthouse where Manuela’s friend/boyfriend was staying. That proved to be a humorous endeavor, and finally we were all settled in.
Throughout the day he had been going in and out of little food shops and I had no idea what he was buying – I asked a few times and he said “vou fazer um experimento” – I’m going to do an experiment…so we go to dinner, and then – agh! My teeth fell out! Eating pizza…why am I not surprised? ; ) so anyway, I’m mortified, realize that the support on my left side of the bridge has totally broken off, am panicking thinking maybe I have to go to Delhi to get this taken care of, and we decide to go home. At which point Thomas comes out from behind the restaurant counter, candle lit on a cake! I was so shocked. I had zero concept whatsoever that this was happening – from his ingredient shopping I thought he might be making something but the last thing I was expecting was a raw coconut mango birthday cake! I melted. Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you.
The next day was spent running around to and from the dentist for me, and for Thomas much of it was occupied helping an elderly man. Well, let me recount about the dentist. India is so funny; going into Dr. Tandon’s Dental Clinic you don’t really expect anything horrible or fancy...in true Indian fashion, the walls are cracked, paint is chipped, bad lighting...the usual. But then he opens up the cupboards and there are these shiny brand new boxes of dental tools and equipment, the majority of which I deduce are made in Germany…so that was that. A few x-rays and a quick procedure (interrupted by an electricity cut, yup, we’re in India) and my teeth were fully restored! For 1850 Rupees! (Roughly 40USD) While I was dealing with my oral drama, Thomas was stopped in the street by an elderly American man who had great trouble just walking. What a heart of gold. He spent over 2 hours while I was running back and forth speaking to this man, about healing and healers all over the world, helping him into a café and literally spoon-feeding him. It was heavy for him in many ways and I hate to sound shallow but my dental stuff was quite draining for me, so after our Thai green curry and somewhat Enchilada-y lunch I headed back alone to Bhagsu to decompress. Thomas was going to go shopping – side note – I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a shopper as indecisive and meticulous as this boy…he was looking for Tibetan singing bowls, it was a good practice for me to accompany him and it was also a nice way for me to interact with shopkeepers without any pressure of buying anything.
So I made it back to Bhagsu, and almost immediately after I got back and got ready to head out to a Classical Indian Music concert, this enormous thunderstorm started, with purple lightning lighting up the whole sky, illuminating the mountains. So I stayed in, and wondered how on earth Thomas was going to make it back in one piece. He came in a few hours later, positively dripping on the floor, and after he got in dry clothes we decided to go eat despite the fact that neither of us were hungry.
Hello to the King. Apparently Hello to the Queen is a common and hugely popular dessert in India – I’d never heard of it! Sliced bananas, Bhagsu cake (OH MY GOD! A thick buttery shortbready crust, a layer of thick caramel just like dulce de leche in Argentina, and dark chocolate on top…insanity), vanilla ice cream, and all sorts of other delectable delights…mmm. Afterwards, we poked around to find a tool to play the Tibetan singing bowls, and back we went. These instruments are so powerful. The vibration they create goes so deep within you, reverberating and unquestionably healing you. Sort of reminds me of the electric charge tools that acupuncturists use. So off I went into bliss-land, and next thing I knew it was sunrise.
Thomas’s last day in Bhagsu. It felt like we had just met, but spent lifetimes together. We finally sucked it up and made it out to the waterfall – totally worth the effort. The trail there is forested, winding in and out of views of the surrounding hills, and when you reach the destination, you are rewarded with stunning green water backed by high limestone cliffs. Lovely. We laid around on rocks, each made painfully shocked faces as we jumped into the instantly numbing water, ate mangoes…bliss. We made it back and headed for lunch at the vegetarian Japanese restaurant which supports Gu Chu Sum, a NGO that supports former political prisoners from Tibet. Our lovely Tibetan waitress used the menu to copy lemon soda onto her pad of paper, adorably self-conscious as she realized I was watching her do it. The focus, intensity, and love with which she wrote out those simple letters was so moving. Stomachs full of agedashi tofu and Japanese style potato salad, warm from miso soup (first Japanese meal since I left Japan 1 month ago), we headed slowly through shops back up towards Bhagsu. How to describe the feeling as we parted ways at the bus terminal? First and foremost, it was an extremely settled, stable, firm grounding. It’s difficult to explain – but it felt like it was time and the time that we had been blessed to share was so auspicious and I had no doubt that each of us was so grateful for the past days together. As is always the case when we part ways, we never really know if we will see each other again. But in this case, I had this certainty that we would meet again, or rather, that we weren’t even separating because we will carry each other within us forever.
Obrigada por tudo querido, desde o fundo do coracao…
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