India: Dharamsala/Mcleod Ganj

Dharamsala/Mcleod Ganj 22/03-29/03

We took a 7 hour government bus up through the mountains from Amritsar to Dharamsala. The local buses are definitely not made for people over the height of about 5ft 6in so the whole way my knees were cramped up against the seat in front of me. Nina was engrossed by her Ghandi book and read it for 7 hours straight managing to finish it just as we arrived. Dharamsala is known for being the home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government in Exile. However, it is actually split into two and the temple complex that houses the Dalai Lama’s official residence is a few kilometres up from the main town in Upper Dharamsala, more commonly known as Mcleod Ganj. We decided to stay in Mcleod Ganj and immediately loved it, so much so we extended our stay to a week. It is only a small town, but it is set right in amongst the mountains of the Himalayas providing amazing views and fresh unpolluted air! We felt when we arrived like we had stepped out of India and into Tibet as the population must be over 70% Tibetan. As a result there was also a huge variety of different Tibetan and Chinese food on offer which provided us with a well needed respite from the 2-curry-a-day diet we had been on for the last 3 weeks.

We decided to visit the Temple Complex that houses the Dalai Lama first. The temples themselves were very different from those which we saw in Sri Lanka, despite both being Buddhist in nature. There were lots of prayer wheels and prayer flags in the temple and we saw monks practicing debating in a very specific style. They are quite theatrical and slap their hands and stomp whenever they make a point. We visited the Tibet Museum which documented the sad history of the country since the Chinese occupation and watched a documentary about the self-immolation protests of monks. Nina bought the Dalai Lama’s autobiography to complement her newfound knowledge on Ghandi. She is already becoming extremely wise beyond her years! As it was significantly colder in Mcleod Ganj and I had left my only hoody on a camel in Jaisalmer, I bought a thick fleece from one of the hiking shops and Nina got a lovely Yak-wool Tibetan shawl which kept us nice and warm in the chilly nights.

Prayer wheels in the Dalai Lama's temple complex

View from Mcleod Ganj

There are loads of walks that you can do from Mcleod in a day and we did two long ones in our time there. The first was a sort of warm up for the much longer second and it involved a leisurely walk to the neighbouring town Dharamkot, on to the sacred Dal Lake and back to Mcleod. In total it was about 8km and it had great views over Dharamsala and the surrounding area. One problem was that we couldn’t find the lake, but instead were treated to a small waterfall and distant snowy peaks. The following day we tackled the much tougher walk to a place at the top of a mountain called Triund. We had to wake up and leave by 6.30am in order to do it in a day. We took a taxi the first 4km to Galu Temple and had breakfast chai and bananas. Then we tackled the ascent of the mountain, climbing about 800m in 5kms to an elevation of 2875m! There were small shacks along the way that offered much needed chai and chocolate breaks. When we reached the last part of the climb it started getting really steep but we were rewarded at the top with spectacular views of the Dhauladhar Himilayan ridge. One of the best things about the walk was that the final view was blocked from sight the entire way until it was revealed just as you reached Triund. We had saved a precious Cadbury’s fruit and nut and some ginger nut biscuits for the top and sat to enjoy the amazing view. We begrudgingly had to leave after a while in the knowledge that we still had 9km to walk back down to Mcleod. As we entered back into town around 3 30pm we were exhausted and our legs had turned to jelly but it was totally worth it.

The view we stumbled across when looking for the lake.

Just doing some sewing

Tibetan prayer flags

7am chai stop in my new warm fleece

Nina showing off her new yak-wool shawl

A nice place to stop for some chai...

The view from Triund

Nina making herself look big

The rest of the week we spent enjoying good food, doing some much smaller walks and we even went to the cinema (basically a room with chairs and a projector). We also experienced the Indian festival of Holi. We headed out of our hotel in the morning to get some breakfast and before we knew it we were surrounded by Indian people covering us in green and yellow paint. We then went for a walk around town and more people kept coming up to us and adding different colours to our faces and clothes. Before long we were absolutely covered!

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Holi cow!