Feeling like I'm 108

Around here, this is an Auspicious day.... My 65th birthday and the one day of the year when everyone is nice to dogs.

So we had an auspicious breakfast when an auspicious birthday card arrived painted by one of the nuns.  Good isn't she!

Then we auspiciously circumambulated the stupa 108 times....auspicious number.... We did have breaks but it took us all day. Around 22 miles, leaving David with toe-ache and me with feeling old.  

Also, walking with David for a full day without him consulting a map was a first for me.  

It felt a very special thing to do. 

(In other news, we had a short audience with Khenpo Rinpoche yesterday)

The stupa dogs had a good day though, everyone feeding them biscuits and putting garlands around their necks, which they were not very impressed with.  

They may not be so keen on the Diwali/Tihar fireworks which are starting now and sounding like nuclear warheads

Nepal has troubles, but we have none...

Plan A (= travelling overland from India to Nepal) did not work out so we arrived by plane, very late at night into a country with severe fuel rationing.  Fortunately the delightful nunnery whose Guest House we are staying in had organised a driver and a happy sign saying KATE in very big letters.  A sweet nun opened the huge iron gate for us and found us our room.

motorbikes waiting after a rumour of some fuel

Now a few days later, we are their only guests.  Tourism is vastly down (it should be high season) and the streets are very quiet because no fuel is crossing the India-Nepal border for reasons that neither side can feel very proud of....and no cooking gas either.  

The government has hardly released any of the money earmarked for the earthquake damage, so there are still many stories of real hardship, especially outside Kathmandu.   

The nunnery is about 5 minutes walk from the stupa.  (This comes with sound-effects day and night) Also next to an orphanage from where we hear the sweetest songs)

David settled on "the best bed ever" i.e. hard

Our days begin at 6 and we are out at the stupa well before 7, doing kora with an enormous number of Tibetans.

We first wander past a row of monks

row of blind people, perhaps 20 on a good day

Then the row of blind people

(the Tibetans are very good with their 'social services', offering them money as they pass)  Following their example, we are getting a bit better too.  

Then we are pretty much into the river of people with some very bent but determined old ladies setting a stiff pace.  You need to be careful not to trip over someone prostrating, sometimes sideways to the flow.  All in all, you need to keep your wits about you.  

Back for breakfast, work, then picnic lunch in our room which has a little kitchen. 

More work, sleep, read, walk....

6pm out for another 7 rounds of kora, then out to supper somewhere. 

bed by 9.30...

The wonderful Boudha stupa was damaged

and the restoration-so-far has involved further demolition.  I was so disappointed that David couldn't see it as it has been (and I'm sure will be again) but we were very lucky to arrive on the day that serious rebuilding started - see http://dspieg-is-not-at-home.blogspot.in

Stupa as I last saw it

and now... no eyes, no prayer flags, some rubble, but actually
it still has a real 'muscular' presence

A day in the life....

Left is downtown McLeod Ganj, so you won't be feeling sorry for us. 

And below is our front gate.  We are living opposite a monastery.  (If this conveys an image of local peace and quiet, you don’t know about Tibetan Buddhist monasteries.  Its still dark when the trumpets start.  At any time of the day or night there may be chanting, clashing and clapping or a noise like a football crowd when the home team is winning (that’s the sound of monks debating).  The little street is really too small for vehicles but pedestrians, monks and lay people, are prone to muttering aloud (mantras not the nonsense we mutter to ourselves).  There is also a young girl (?) who determinedly sings (?).  For the avoidance of doubt all this backdrop is completely delightful. )

We are up around 7, make tea. Wash with a bucket and jug.  The grey (sometimes very grey) water goes onto the flowers outside.  Head out for a kora, a wide circuit around HHDL’s temple precinct.  This involves spinning 389-396 (number disputed between us) prayer wheels as we plod around with muttering Tibetans.  Coming in the other direction are only cows, dogs and monkeys, none of which take much interest in the one-way humans. Back for breakfast, perhaps taking in the vegetable stalls. We eat well, drink a lot of tea.
Then we work, David on his palliass, me in my little nest on the floor, WiFi streaming in from next door (thanks!)
Books are going well....

Then a picnic lunch.  We might go out later (separately) for a cup of tea and a ‘little-something’ - there are more cafes per inch here than anywhere else I have known.  Then we work on until it gets dark around 6pm.  

Next I go for another little kora (just around the temple itself, usually with a few prostrations thrown in.)  At this time of day there are often goings-on in the temple – pujas or groups of monks intoning some liturgy.  

This is a debating lesson, supervised by the senior monks at the front.  Take-away pizza arrived during the session, handed out to all the participants (and us).  Delightful atmosphere, though we had not much idea what was going on, but philosophy has never seemed such fun.

let us show you...

23 September to ....end of October?  Our 'home from home' McLeod Ganj

So this is where we are - and hoping to stay until the end of October.  It is in high Himalayan India...wrong time of year for snow on the mountains but we can peek a white peak from the road.

'Upper Dharamsala' is the town where Tibetan refugees have aggregated around the Dalai Lama whose base is here - when he is not in his near-perpetual orbit.

our doorstep

We are incredibly fortunate to have a 'wish fulfilling' friend, Jane, who rents a couple for rooms from a nunnery here.  Jane is in England at the moment and we are staying in her place.  (For those who know McC-J it is down near the temple, so a quick kora before breakfast is on our doorstep)

our front door

cupboard decorated by the resident before last

We have been living a very quiet life, working on our respective books.  We have www. access from our cushions (Kate) and sofas (David)

man at work

where we work/eat/spend our day

The weather has cleared from thick mist when we arrived >1 week ago to clear blue sky virtually dawn to dusk.  Its Saturday morning now.  We have just run down the road to see His Holiness arrive, back from the US; it's wonderful to watch how the Tibetans' delight in welcoming him home.

my new heart-throb

Amritsar 21 September 2015

 Amritsar and Lahore are about equidistant from the only (legit) road crossing between India and Pakistan; the border is at Wagah.  Lorries are allowed 1Km into ‘enemy territory’ then have to unload, turn around and go back home.  Up in Kashmir soldiers are camped glaring at each other from either side of the 'line of control'.  But every evening at the Wagah road crossing, the gates are closed and the two national flags pulled down in a ceremony that knocks the socks off the Trooping of the Colour or the Edinburgh Tattoo.  We went, joining a convoy of overloaded rickshaws full of families, happy for (free) entertainment.

On both sides of the border there are huge grandstands for spectators. We were searched 3 times but foreigners then get a privileged view – among around 2000 Indians.  Perhaps half an hour before kick-off amplified pop songs were played and a man looking like Freddie Mercury with a microphone, whipped up the crowd into a frenzy of patriotic fervour and dancing (we couldn’t see what was going on on the Pakistani side).

Some soldiers started appearing, all exceptionally tall with wonderful complexions and impressively moustachioed.  They had improbable red fans on their heads, a bit like the chickens in Aardman’s Chicken Run.  A soldier with a drum-kit on a raised dais choreographs the whole thing, pacing the marching to massive cheers.

Two beautifully coiffed lady soldiers start things off with a quick march to the border-line.  Then the men in ones and twos and with a huge amount of stamping and fierceness march extremely fast up to the gates.  The Pakistani soldiers have been doing the same thing on the other side of the gate in their black, more whimsical uniforms and silly hats.  There ensues a huge amount  of stamping grimacing and aggressive straightening of the fans on their heads; most impressive are the high-kicks which would put the Folies Bergere can-cans to shame.  The soldiers must be chosen by how high they can kick, as well as their catwalk good-looks.  And they must rehearse and rehearse – with their Pakistani opposite numbers.  The whole thing was completely delightful.

Towards the end and after a lot of swishing of ropes  the two national flags are lowered in unison so that neither side is ever the superior.  Then after a bit of clashing of gates and the quickest of handshakes between the Indian and Pakistani commanders, everyone marches off at the double/triple and the audience flood down to try to get a selfie with the soldier rock stars………  

my new heart throb, isn't he wonderful

News from the Memsahib

Kashmir.  15-20 September 2015 

Downtown Srinigar is mad and crawling with police and soldiers, few women on the streets. But get out to the lakes and the atmosphere changes completely. For a start, the views are to die for.  

moving about is by shakira

the Bollywood film-star look

passing floating cafes serve tea. 

Fans of 'Jewel in the Crown' will know that we Memsahibs spend the hot season in a houseboat on the lake.  Unfortunately the pink gins are long gone (dry state) but the houseboats are still there in their hundreds.  We stayed on the smaller of the two lakes on a boat called Fantasia, which for £30 per night for dinner, bed and breakfast was a fabulous bargain.  Meals were served very 'correctly' by an assiduous waiter in our wood-panelled dining room.  

view from the balcony (kingfishers zooming about)

passing flower-seller

our wonderful host and me in the sitting room