Advertisement
It's quite an awesome sight, and I still find it funny! A couple of monks gunning it down the track to the road and town with red robes billowing around the enfield!
Just a quick update as I'm in Mcleod again, but for the last time for 5 weeks! Just about to head south for some travelling, including a quick stop in Banagalore, 10 or so days around kerala before heading to chennai to fly to the andaman islands for 8 days. On the way back we're hoping to make a quick stop in Hampi and spend a few days in mumbai to launch my bollywood career. Still to convince bhaarat that a jungle trek in kerala is just what he needs though!
The last few weeks have been a lot of fun, the monks are awesome as always with a holiday mood growing throughout the last week. Yesterday was my last lesson with the little lamas so we had the 'end-of-term lesson' involving a highly irresponsible game of 'simon says' (little kids standing one-legged on desks with eyes closed spinning round... and not one got hurt - oh yeah!) followed by a monster drawing competition. We then
Jungle Bar
In Mcleod, not a bad view had a mini prize-giving for the winners of my 'start lamas' chart, they loved it - tsewang who came first wouldn't stop shaking my hand and telling me how much he loved english at the end of the lesson!
It's was pretty sad leaving too, as our mini-crew of monks will no longer be around when we get back; Birma's gone back to Tibet (good luck to him) and Jimmy and Lekshi are back in the philosophy Institute with only Sundays off, leaving just Khedup to chill out with - we'll have to take im to Mcleod some weekends! We spent a fair bit of time with them before we left too, Birma and Khedup took us to a huge philosophy institute near a large Tibetan village called Bir. The temple was amazing with some really cool religous paintings and the grounds and accomodation was fairly plush too - well tended gardens, little fountain (admittedly no water) and nice monks quarters arranged around the garden. We also got to see the monks debating philosophy: they pair off with one standing and making an eccentric clapping motion to signify a point or question with the other sitting cross-legged calmly answering.
Oh yes
check out those hot hot pants... don't worry I didn't buy them We met Katie in Mcleod last weekend as she arrived having travelled about 40 hours from Jaisalmer in 3 days - jealous. I've spent most of my weekends in Mcleod for the last few weeks, it's been fun but hectice involving a 3-4 hour bus journey each way. There's a nice crowd here, we generally go for drinks on sat evening and maybe one of the cinema halls (normally a cellar with a big tv and pirate dvds) with a trip to bhagsu and it's waterfall on Sunday. It's a nice place to chill out and Dunners, Ebony (token aussie) and Jo always keep things fun! I've also intorduced them all to the joys of street tikkis and samosas! Going to meet Katie was fairly amusing too, we were sitting in Lhamo's Croissant, a nice restaurant in Mcleod which serves salads(!) and shows documentaries, with me sandwiched into the corner. The phone rings and I have to talk to katie... loudly as she's on the bus still then scramble over ebony, jo and dunners to get out - blocking everyone's view of the screen whilst shouting down the phone. They loved it don't worry.
Katie then spent a
Bhagsu
the waters freezing few days relaxing at Tashijong which was nice and chilled out before we sent her packing on the bus back to Mcleod so she can begin her Nepal voyages.
So today I have the 12 hour delhi bus followed by a 37-hour train to Bangalore so it's all fun fun fun for the next couple of days. It's only now trying to sort out transport that I realise just how little time I have here, we'll only scratch the surface of the south and after teaching in june I'll only have a month or so to travel again. I feel we're trying to do too much in may with not enough time anywhere but the andamans, kerala's somewhere I think I could spend at least a month... but at least we get an overview of the south in our limited time. July should be better as I'm thinking of sticking just to Rajasthan though I'd still like more time just to do that! Makes me realise how I want to come back to India and spend a
long time here just chilling for weeks in all the places I won't go near - rishikesh, ladakh, varanasi, kerala, pondicherry, goa,
In McClo's
Jenny, Ebony, Bhaarat the pimp and Katie the whole north-east - especially west bengal.
Time and money the biggest bastards known to man.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.093s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 13; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0465s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Ian
non-member comment
Gissa job!!!!!
Hi Andy, at the moment I seem to have a fair bit of time on my hands for some reason so have been catching up on your blogs. Great to hear you are having such a wonderful experience and making the absolute most of it. If you hear of any vacancies going over there could you put a word in for me? Well done Liverpool, Arsenal deprived Chelsea of the Premiership (we Gooners have to cling to something this season), 'Pool deprived them of the Chumps League now hopefully they will deprive the Mancs of the Domestic double ~ the season could end up OK after all. Looking forward to your return (don't worry we know you would rather stay there). Cheers Ian and Marion.