Udaipur is a very nice romantic city with castles and temples and a picturesque lake that was also the setting for the movie James Bond Octopussy. Unfortunately, our time spent in Udaipur was mostly in bed sick. It was not the digestive/stomach sickness that we expected we would get in India but rather a bad cold and fever (knock-on-wood…but, our stomachs seem to be finely tuned to the food in this part of the world by now so we haven’t had to put up with the “Delhi-belly”). Elise fared pretty well and remained functional enough that she still claims she hasn’t truly been sick on this trip, but I was in bed with a fever and developed a brutal cough. Though we spent way too much time in our hotel room sick, we did get to enjoy some meals from the rooftop restaurants with nice views of the surrounding area, attended a festival celebrating Krishna’s - the Hindu god’s - birthday, and an Indian cooking class. We are now armed with some good recipes to try at home, most importantly Masala Tea, various types of chapati and naan, and any type of curry dish we desire.
Our next stop as we made our way north was Amritsar in the state of Punjab. This time our overnight train from Udaipur was in the much more pleasant 3AC class so we had an ok night of sleep. After the overnight train we had to spend half a day on a layover in the suffocating heat of New Delhi and then catch an afternoon train to Amritsar. While there would be some interesting sites there, we don’t have plans to spend much time in Delhi. This time of year, the lowland of India has almost been unbearable. The heat and humidity is like nothing else I have ever felt even growing up in the heat and humidity of Texas. Just standing in it results in our clothes clinging to our bodies while we drip in sweat, breathing what feels more like dirty steam than air. Add trying to get over a cold and the chaos and crowds of India and we’ve had a few moments where we’re wondering what in the world we are even doing here. I pretty much lost my temper when we had to wait for over an hour in the stagnant humid morning to submit our bags at the bag-check counter at the Delhi train station because the workers with hunt-and-peck typing skills were required to input everyone’s name and address into a computer to print out a computer receipt (it is completely unnecessary to computerize any of this in my opinion, especially by people who can’t type). They made everyone wait in line while six people stared at a computer and then had the nerve to close the place for their morning half-hour tea break and make the long line wait longer. That was one of those “what are we doing in this hell-hole” moments…
Amritsar was not much better in the weather and chaos factor, but it has a very nice Sikh temple –The Golden Temple – which, as the Sikh’s holiest site, attracts tens of thousands of pilgrims a day. Punjab state is primarily a Sikh state, which is a religion with roots in this part of India. Our visit to the Golden Temple also included attending the community lunch. Everyone is invited to eat and a dahl, chapati, and rice pudding lunch is offered for free (donation appreciated). What was impressive about the lunch is that they apparently feed up to 60,000 people per day. The idea is that people from all walks of life and religion are welcomed to sit on the floor and share a free meal together. We found ourselves in a waiting area and then herded like cattle (a common feeling in India) into a large room to sit in neat rows on the floor. Then volunteers came by and filled our plates. Seconds and thirds were available until everyone had enough. When we were finished, we were to take our plates out of the room and hand them to a massive assembly line of dishwashers. As soon as the eating room cleared, workers would come by and squeegee up the floors and send the next mass of people in the waiting queue into the room to eat. When we handed our plates to the dishwashers we could also see the massive vats of dahl being cooked, and chapati-making assembly lines. It was quite a process. I am amazed by how in India some things are completely inefficient and unnecessarily complicated (visa process, online train reservations, the Delhi bag-check, for example), and others – especially relating to spiritual things like the Golden Temple lunch – can be amazingly organized and efficient. The Golden Temple was beautiful and it was fascinating to see those bathing in the holy waters, and how excited everyone is about this holy site and the fact that we also are visiting it.
Visiting Amritsar also gave us a chance to make a personal visit to check in on the current India-Pakistan relations at a border closing ceremony. India and Pakistan – who have nuclear weapons pointed at each other and have been fighting over the border-disputed areas in Kashmir – have a land border crossing about 30km from Amritsar. The draw to this border is a daily border-closing ceremony where Indians and Pakistanis gather on their respective sides of the border and participate in a comical display of national bravado in a gate-closing and flag lowering ceremony.
The thought had previously crossed my mind that being in India is somewhat like being back in high-school (i.e. unnecessary pushing and shoving, worrying more than normal about things getting stolen from you) and this border ceremony added to that analogy. It was exactly like attending high-school pep rally where the students gather in the gym and are pumped up for the next football game against their arch-rival. After being humiliatingly herded like cattle through the security checks, we scurried to our seats in the VIP section for foreign tourists just in time for the show. Thank God for the VIP section because there were so many Indians attending that the grandstands were overflowing. Thousands of Indians and a handful of tourists turned up for the event to wave flags and cheer, "Hindustan Zindabad!" with a big show of national pride to the Pakistanis doing the same thing on the other side of the border. Silly costumes are worn by the military border guards and there was even a tall, good-looking guy in a white jumpsuit (embroidered with Indian flag and B.S.F. which stands for Border Security Force) whose job it was to pump up the crowd to loud energizing music. The only thing missing were the cheerleaders (Indian and Pakistan aren’t quite that liberal with their females yet – though Pakistani cheerleaders in head-scarves, and Indian ones in their saris would have been awesome). The border guards in silly costumes do a macho show of marching, stomping, and kicking, their kicks so high that they basically kick themselves in the head. There is a long drawn out flag-lowering ceremony where both the Indian and Pakistani flag are lowered at the same time with border guards from both countries pumping up their chests and having staring contests. At the end, the captains of both sides shake hands and the gates to the border are slammed shut and the border is closed for the night. It was hilarious and incredibly entertaining!
So, we successfully travelled the Indian subcontinent almost all the way from south to north by train in under two weeks which is quite a feat. We were warned beforehand about India being a one-of-a-kind and “in-your-face” travel experience and now know exactly what that means. Travelling the rest of southeast Asia is simple and super-comfortable compared to India. Though we have definitely had our moments and struggled to get through an illness, and India is definitely a place that will challenge a foreign traveler, we are still enjoying it. We just needed to get out of the heat so our next stop was in the Himalayan foothills – Dharamsala and McLoed Ganj: home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile.
Our timing could not have been more perfect. The Dalai Lama, was scheduled to give three days worth of teachings at the Tsuglagkhang Temple Complex. Amazingly, attending the teachings was basically free (10 rupies, or 13 cents, and two passport photos was the cost of a security pass). Although the Dalai Lama speaks fairly good English, his teachings are in Tibetan. But with an FM radio, we had direct English translation. We attended only one 2-hour session and sat on the floor with many monks and pilgrims from all over the world to hear the talk in a very intimate setting. Though we had only a partial peek-a-boo view from our seat of the Dalai Lama (about 20 meters away), we did get to see him very up close while entering the temple with his entourage only a few meters from where we were sitting. The atmosphere was very energized and, though we personally are not very educated in the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, we could tell we lucked out and got to experience something special. This was the equivalent to a Catholic attending a teaching in an intimate setting by the Pope. The gist of the particular teaching that we attended was that we need to end corruption in the world, focus more to achieve good heart and mind – less on achieving material things, and help and build the wealth of those less fortunate than us. I will admit that I did find my mind wandering as the teaching went into detail on a particular Buddhist text, much like I find my mind wandering during a Christian church sermon when we start analyzing Bible verses. Nevertheless, the Dalai Lama is a very friendly guy who displays an air of wisdom and promotes peaceful resolution to tough issues in the world. He has a great sense of humor and a deep jovial laugh that reminds me of a Tibetan version of James Earl Jones. He made several jokes during the teaching that got everyone who could understand Tibetan to laugh very hard. We’d find ourselves anxiously waiting for the English translation to come through the radio only to find the translator guy didn’t translate the punch-line and left us hanging. Oh well. But it was very entertaining for us to hear His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama, chuckle at himself as he cracked himself up at his own jokes.
With it being the home of the Dalai Lama, McLoed Ganj attracts an interesting variety of people. Monks and pilgrims from all over the world come to study Buddhist philosophy and learn from the Dalai Lama. There are many volunteers teaching Tibetan exiles English, as well. It seems every Western tourist who wasn’t there to teach English has come to study Buddhism or take meditation or yoga classes. To our amusement, most western travelers who were present, in my opinion, seemed to be the hippy/space-cadet type who outwardly revered the Dalai Lama maybe a little too much. It was nice to spend some time at the Tibetan Museum and watching a documentary that helped us understand a little better the history and tension between Tibet and China. It is a tough political issue, and while a Tibet independent from China is not likely ever going to happen at this point in time, I think we understand the history a and sensitive issues a little better now.
After the crazy trans-subcontinent journey, it was nice to spend a while relaxing in McLoed Ganj. The weather this time of year is very rainy – heavy rain showers once a day – and the air is still heavily damp because of the monsoon. But the temperature is pleasant and it reminds us of the rainy spring in the Pacific Northwest. We hiked around the countryside, read a lot, enjoyed good Tibetan and Indian food, and took another cooking course for Tibetan momos. We are very excited about the chocolate momos we learned to cook. They are technically not Tibetan as chocolate is not a common delicacy in Asia, but are fantastic.
We have since moved farther into the mountains to the outdoor and ski resort town of Manali for some more outdoor activities and enjoying the cool mountain air.
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