Blogs from Kangra Valley, Himachal Pradesh, India, Asia - page 3

It's been awhile since my last post - I have been waaaaaaaaaay too lazy of late to actually bother to type an entry. It's not as if I don't have the time, I do but anyways here it is... That I last left off on our weekend in McLeod Ganj. The bus trip home was entertaining to say the least. They always are in India. The bus was jam packed with people, luggage etc and we were very lucky to actually have seats. I was squished in against the window which didn't seem like a good idea due to my previous injuries in that seat but it turned out to be the best seat as for most of the journey Keri had a rather portly Indian woman sitting in her lap which made me laugh. The ... read more

After the month of hectic traveling, getting back to Tashijong was the perfect remedy; cooler temperatures (slightly), mountain views, relaxing days and just generally being back with Tibetans (who in general are much calmer and give less hassle) - especially our monks! Our work's decreased a lot since before the Holidays, I'm only doing 3 hours a day now and Bhaarat has none at all! All the tuition lessons we gave to monks from the institute have stopped now that their holidays are finished (they're not allowed to study English in term time, the focus is solely on philosophy - they get fined for speaking English or Hindi or playing football!) and Bhaarat's big lamas class at the school are on holiday now (they had to stay behind to do pujas while everyone else was on ... read more

The last couple of weeks have been really good. Life at Tashijong is brilliant, the weather's getting hotter and we're getting really busy. Our teaching load, Bhaarat's especially (but he had less to start with anyway!), has increased quite a bit. We now have a load more private classes with monks from the philosophy school which has now broken up for a 2 month holiday giving them lots of free time. It's good fun, they mostly just come for conversation lessons... so a chat... when we're free in the afternoon. That or they come with questions or a book giving us very little/no prep work. Birma (who's going back to Tibet soon to re-establish his monastery that was destroyed by the chinese), Jimmy, Kidup and Lekshi are the usual crew and they're all a bunch ... read more

I've now been in India over a month, and at Tashijong for over 3 weeks and I'm really enjoying it. Teaching's become a lot easier and I'm glad to have the ultimate freedom we've been given - no syllabus, no dates, no other teacher in the room, it means I can teach what and how I want, not following a strict plan if one day the class doesn't seem so responsive... after all English for them is one hour of a VERY long day (up at 5, study until gone 7pm), it must be like how I treated art, a nice break from everything else! That said I am feeling now that most of students (the little one's especially) are starting to improve a fair bit even if they are a bit embarassed to use their ... read more

Hey all, I've been at Tashijong for a week now so I guess it's about time I wrote something about it. For those of you who don't know this is the Tibetan monastery where I'll be spending the majority of my time in India teaching. We arrived just after lunch on Monday and it was so much warmer than up in McCleoud Ganj. The Monastery (and village) is set on the side of a big green hill with the large snow capped Dhualar Dhar Mountain Range looming behind it. The other foothills continue on either side with the valley infront stretching on for a few miles before another Himalayan range occupies the horizon. All in all it's hardly an unattractive place to live! The hills look really cool too because of all the steps cut into ... read more