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Published: July 15th 2008
Probably one of the worst places in the world to kill a mosquito is right here in McLeod Ganj. Home to a huge population of Tibetan refugees, including the Dalai Lama himself and the Exile Government of Tibet, McLeod has become a magnet for western tourists seeking a taste of Tibet. Tibetan Buddhists believe that we should not kill any animal, no matter how small and insignificant-looking, and some go to great lengths to avoid stepping on ants etc. Surely this should not apply to mosquitos! They are pure evil. When one buzzed my ear in that annoying way of theirs and then promptly landed on my computer screen, I didn't hesitate to squish it with a piece of paper. It's me or him! The owner of the internet cafe saw it and said, "Oh, mosquito murderer!" It wasn't in a mean way, but who wants to be called a murderer?! I had better spin lots of prayer wheels in the coming days!
McLeod Ganj was a bit of a disappointment at first. We had a romanticized image of how it would be: peaceful, serene and holy, with monks walking around in their red robes murmuring mantras. When we arrived
on the overnight bus at 4:30am, we were met with what looked like any other town in India, complete with fighting snarling stray dogs, piles of litter, and dirty streets. Later on, when the town started to wake up, the incessant car horns, which would just miss hitting you by inches, added to the disillusionment. It wasn't the serene place of meditation that we had envisioned at all!
We spent most of our first day sleeping after a tough overnight bus ride. When we checked internet later that afternoon, we found that Patricia and Amanda, a travelling mother and daughter team that we had been in contact with via travel blog, were in town and they had happened to check into the same hotel as us! We left notes on each others doors, arranging to meet up that night for dinner, but we bumped into them before that in a coffee shop. We spent much of that afternoon and night talking with them and comparing India stories (they had lots of funny ones to tell!)
The next day, I started a volunteer teaching placement at a local Tibetan kindergarten school. I would go each day at 9:30am and
stay all day until school finished at 4:30pm (a long day for kindergarteners!). I rotated around the various classes, teaching them some very basic English using lots of songs and games. The Tibetan teachers were always at hand to help with explanations and translations, and were so helpful and welcoming. The canteen staff were wonderful, too, always bringing us cups of milk tea into the classroom. At the end of the week, I was sad to say goodbye. If I had had longer, I'd have loved to create a curriculum and get them really speaking. It was amazing what they learned in only a short time - they are like sponges, soaking up all of the song words and new vocabulary!
I'd been worried that Scott would be bored while I was teaching. Not so as he got really sick. He spent a few days just sitting in bed watching CNN news and snoozing, having food brought to him by our kind Kashmiri hotel owners. He had a fever and the chills and constant diarrhoa, and we even decided to do a malaria test kit we had - thankfully it was negative. It was probably just
Delhi belly, which
is almost a right of passage for travellers to India. Patricia (the friend we met on travel blog) is in the medical field and was wonderful, coming around to check up on him while I was at work and reassuring him that he was OK. Thanks, Patricia, and Amanda! By the time I finished my teaching placement, Scott was also getting much better. We were ready to explore!
The first thing we did was go to the Dalai Lama's residence, located on a temple grounds. The wooded walkway immediately struck us a peaceful and serene, away from the honking car horns at last. We followed several old Tibetans who were performing the "kora" ritual, walking around the compound in a clockwise direction, twiddling with prayer beads and reciting softly as they went. They were very friendly, taking a moment from their prayers to smile and say hello. This was more like what we had expected! Unfortunately, the twittering of birds was drowned out frequently by booming thunder, foreshadowing yet another downpour. By the time we got to the first large prayer wheels, the rains came. Hurriedly, we continued on to the temple where many people were gathered, monks and
"How old are you?"
(Answer: you don't want to know!!!!)average Tibetans, plus the usual handful of Indian and western tourists. We walked around and took in the scene before scuttling to a nearby internet cafe to kill some time while we waited for the rain to stop. The plan had been to go to the Tibetan museum, but it was closed one Saturday each month - this was that Saturday!
The next day, Sunday, the museum was open. We spent time walking around the various exhibits, reading about all of the crimes against the Tibetans that the Chinese have, and are still, committing. It's terrible how many people have suffered at their hands, and for what? Luckily, India, Bhutan, and Nepal were kind enough to grant residency to Tibetans courageous enough to make the daring treks across high and snowy mountains to escape persecution in Tibet. Now there are many Tibetan exile villages with their own schools and monasteries, keeping the Tibet culture alive until things change and they can hopefully return to a free Tibet. Talking to the Tibetan teachers at the school I volunteered at, even though most of them were born in India and have never been to Tibet, all said they would move to
Tibet if it became free. I hope they can some day.
After a lunch of
momos, Tibetan steamed dumplings, we went back to the museum to see their daily documentary video,
Escape from Tibet. It tells the story of a group of Tibetans fleeing their country. Many had been imprisoned and tortured and did not want to stay any more. It is unbelievable to me that this is still going on every day and one-one (i.e. western governments) is helping them. In our hotel room, we had a TV. There was a channel called "Free Tibet" ad it showed various lamas talking (in Tibetan so we couldn't understand) and also video footage sneaked out of Tibet. It was shocking. There was footage of Tibetans (including nuns ad monks) being brutally beaten by the Chinese and it even showed two people being gored to death by the Chinese with spikes in full public view. Their only crime was protesting to free their country. I seriously had no idea this kind of thing was still going on. No wonder there is so much call here to boycott the Olympics. It really makes you question the ethics of the Chinese government. We
had a hard time sleeping that night.
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Patricia Somewhere
Patricia MC
hey friends...
Nice to us at the blog. We truly enjoyed the time we spent together with you guys in McLeod and even playing nurse/"babying" thru Scott's illness. Love you guys and hope to see you again. Be well and stay away from raw food, okay? Patricia and Amanda