Arrived in Dharamsala

Our journey has become something new and beautiful! Delhi is like a nightmare-overload memory. We traveled by overnight train from Delhi to Pathankot, which was a little weird but nice to have first class and ac, our own little cabin. And we woke up, got off the train to a much different place, but still the crowded barrage of stimuli that is India.
We met some other travelers from Canada who wanted to take the bus instead of a cab, which made our journey 4 hours instead of 2. It was quite a bumping but interesting journey. Very tired we made it to the mountain villages of Dharamsala and McCleod Ganj, where the Dalai Lama lives. We took quite a while to find our bed and breakfast hotel, traveling by tukt tukt, a little three wheel buggy all over India that performs miracles by just barely missing everything else in the road; it was all the way back down a huge mountain; just before getting completely exhausted we found our man Grover Shaunty, an expatriot from the states who worked with Martin Luther King and LBJ. We were astounded to see that we'd be staying in a beautiful place with our own rooms, cable TV! and a view over the Himalayas. Grover is quite a character. He left the states in a fit of rebellious hatred for George Bush. He adopted 5 Tibetan refugees and is obviously an eccentric, fascinating old man. He has no interest in Buddhism, but he says he loves people here. He will take us where ever we want to go, and we have a ready car driver to help drive us up the giant hill, where the teachings of the Dalai Lama will be. We're excited to meet new travelers and seekers and a more peaceful populous. The view of the himalayas from our balcony-porch is amazing--we can see huge jagged snowy cliffs jutting up into the sky; it's a heavenly.
We giggled ourselves to sleep for a nap. It certainly is Kara who inspires such luck and good fortune when it comes to homes! We have to pay a relatively small amount for a priceless place. We are often caught off guard here, and virtually shocked, although we're moving beyond shock perhaps to equanimity, that this country and its kalaidascopic scenes become so absurd. The conglomeration of stimuli is not only a cultural eye opening education, but an invitation to let things be, in a sense reaching a state of absurdity. The absurd here is more intense than in Mexico or South America, perhaps because of the variety of people and the traffic of colliding religions, welcoming faces and ever present poverty. Just a moment: listening to Willie Nelson in a clean but makeshift Indian restuarant that sells pizza, chinese food, and tandoori, followed by holy Hindu singing, hearing the beeps mopeds, cars and watching the meandering cows and wounded dogs eating garbage together. We had a good meal and hoping our food from Delhi is doing okay still digesting in our gurgling bellies. We hope all of you are well and wish upon you our own grateful sense of coming from the 2% of the well-off world. We are very happy to be here and will try to get some pictures on this blog as soon as we can. With LOVE, Knk

---

---