Three nights ago, Mum and I took a 12 hour bus ride to McLeod Ganj, a small town in northwest India. McLeod Ganj is home to a community of Tibetan refugees (including His Holiness the Dalai Lhama) who have settled in India due to the Chinese invasion and occupation of Tibet. It's a heavily Buddhist population - at times the number of monks on the street out numbers the number of laypeople! Men and women in maroon robes are sitting at the computers on either side of me as I write this and a thangka (Buddhist cloth painting) hangs in front of me. The Dharma is very much a part of life here.
It's also quite touristy. There is a plethora of guest houses, book shops and restaurants. Nevertheless, I find the people here to be much less aggressive than the people in Rajasthan. Even the tourists are noticeably more friendly and caring.
There are many more words to describe this place, amongst them is cold. The majority of yesterday was spent shuffling from shop to shop stocking up on warm clothes. I think I bought at least 3 sheep's worth. Mum and I whinged to each other and sipped cup after cup of hot tea and coffee, wondering how on earth we were going to survive in the Himalaya next month.
"Let's not do the Annapurna circuit but say we did," Mum joked, "Let's go to Thailand instead."
We kept asking people how cold they thought it was, expressing something like relief when they mentioned any figure below 7C.
"See it is cold," we'd tell each other, "We're not that weak after all."
So you can imagine I experienced something close to euphoria when I awoke this morning to find it had been snowing.
"Yay! If it's this is sub zero then I can definitely hack it in Nepal!"
Mind you, I practically flew out of my sleeping bag into 6 layers of clothing and ran to get hot coffee at the restaurant down the road. But that's not the point.
Now it is raining. Pouring, in fact. And there is an electrical storm going on that makes the one in Ko Toa seem like the brief flick of a light switch. We're pretty limited in what we can do with our time here. Hiking is out of the question but I've bought some beautiful Buddhist texts and want to study them before we leave. The Dalai Lhama begins teaching in a few days and Mum and I have registered for that also. We didn't even realise he would be teaching whilst we were here until we had difficulty finding somewhere to stay. How fortunate are we!
Mum is also considering doing a Reiki course. I'm going for something a little more main stream and learning how to cook Tibetan style.
Oh and in other breaking news, I almost forgot, we found a shop that sells Marmite! It's not quite Vegemite, but after 3 months without the beloved Aussie condiment I'm far from complaining. Tomorrow the nations of India and Australia will unite when I spread it all over my chapattis (this morning was a union between Tibet and Aus as I had Tibetan bread for a change). I'm currently riding a vitamin B high. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Also...
Adam - I have sent you a physics book that you may find interesting. It's coming via sea mail so I may beat it home, if I don't, please enjoy!
Andrew - There are some table clothes coming your way (again sea mail). Pick which ever one you want, it was the elephant one I picked with you in mind. He he.
