Mcleod Ganj: Proof of Life – Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, India

Mcleod Ganj: Proof of Life

Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, India

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Bhagsu from the Trek

It’s rather bemusing thinking about things in retrospect. Like when I got robbed by two women. It was scary when it happened, but comical when I look back. However, moving on to more recent events like getting to Dharamsala from Rishikesh, makes my dimples visible even through a dense foliage of stubble. In the hills, days start early. That day I remember getting up early enough to catch the sunrise and I remember wondering how metaphorical it was. The sunrise, that is. It was dawn in all of Rishikesh but was a little later than dusk on my trip to this very holy of destinations. And as the sun moves on, I had to too.

A hot cuppatea always gets me going. So with the backpack across my shoulders and my camera diagonally across my neck I set off with the others focused on our next objective: Mcleod Ganj. It was quite a long way out you would think, but then that’s the fun of it. Traveling that is. It was time to check out. So at 12, after a well deserved breakfast, goodbyes to the friendly folks at Hotel Ishan and a picture taken with my back to the Ganges I was ready to go. But go where? To the bus station some really smart bloke suggested. Good advice comes free, so I took it. After careful and intricate deliberations with the cab driver we settled on Rs. 170. Passing through Rishikesh the town is like passing through Karol Bagh in Delhi. Quite fascinating I must say. But more than fascinating was the spelling on billboards. There was one I distinctly remember ‘ledgies teelar’ (ladies tailor).

At the Rishikesh bus station we boarded the bus to Haridwar (Rs. 35 per person) which took us through a series of canals, through the Rajaji National Park where they say there are still some tigers left. Walking to the bus station in Haridwar was easy, so was finding the bus to Dharamshala, and even better was buying tickets (Rs. 200 per person). But soon after that I heard myself saying to myself “damn that Murphy guy”. The seat on the bus was alright but there was just one problem. There was no place to keep the backpack. And after a rather prolonged argument with the conductor and the driver of the bus we decided to keep it between my feet. In India if you travel, get used to the concept of ‘adjusting’. Everybody adjusts.

The slightly obese driver sat on a stool kind of thing all along the 14 hours to Dharamshala. To say the least it was a bad bus, the driver would not stop honking, I could hear the horn even through my headphones. Maybe I was expecting too much, but whatever it might be I’ve learnt the difference between a Tourism Corporation Bus and a Road Travel Corporation Bus. From Haridwar we reached Chandigarh, the only town in North India with a KFC, in about 5 or 6 hours. From Chandigarh it is around 6-7 hours to Dharamshala and then another half an hour to Mcleod Ganj. The Bus rolled into Chandigarh at around 8 p.m., left at 8.30 p.m. and we reached a chilling Dharamshala at about 4:30 in the morning. At 5 in the morning the view is surreal. The cab we took felt like a plane when I looked out the window. The lights from the lower settlements gave the illusion of flight. I was ‘high’ enough already. Mcleod Ganj was dead at that time, nothing and no one and it was as cold as it can get in the second week of November. Thankfully my brother had arrived a day before us and already had a room in Hotel Bhagsu for Rs. 1600 a night. A tad expensive for a drifter like myself. The doorman was kind enough to let us in and my brother was ‘kinder’ enough to let us stay and also provide us with refreshment we had been denied not by the will of god but by the will of man. Red wine feels so good on a cold morning especially after 14 bewildering hours on a corporation bus. The other thing very remarkable was the night sky, from that altitude the stars are always bigger and brighter and there were so many of them, that I am sure there is one for every man and woman alive or dead on this planet.

Five hours of sleep and by 10:30 a.m. I was ready to get my peeps and accommodation we could afford. McLeod Ganj is really two streets (about 200 meters) each running parallel. But finding a decent place was more confusing than at least I had imagined. So we looked and we looked until we found a place right in the middle of it all called Friends Corner Hotel and Restaurant. It is right at the official bus stop in Mcleod Ganj. After another arduous climb we were in our room with two double beds, a colour TV, a sitting area, a bathroom with an amazing view and a broken lock. Nevertheless we hardly took time to settle down. After hot showers taken in full view of the Dhauladhar Mountains, we were ready to feast. We dug in like a tiger with a limp. After releasing the demons in our respective stomachs we were geared up to walk the mile.

In two files of two we set foot in unknown territory. Namely a trek to Bhagsu, about a half an hour walk from Mcleod Ganj. It was a Monday and everyone there takes the day off, except a couple of shops and restaurants. And after a couple of stops to ask for directions we were well on our way making vivid records for posterity with our complicated cameras. Cameras at a place as stunning as this are an unwieldy distraction and offer only a restricted view through the view finder, unless of course you own a fish eye lens – of which was not a privilege I got pleasure from having been employed for all those years and also being unemployed for all those months. Progress in such picturesque surroundings is, of necessity, slow. Theirs is so much beauty in this part of the world that it would be unfair to admire it at even 1 km/h. The trees striped in sunlight, the kids coming home from a long day at school, the remote cafes, the petite shops, the women carrying loads of firewood on their heads, the shepards grazing their cattle, the fluorescent green earth and rocks in the way of seasonal waterfalls (they are green from the sulphur in the water), the colourful Buddhist flags hung from trees, the kite dangling from a high branch. It was time to take a seat, lie back, breathe and keep a general look around.

The Epitaph

In all this beauty there was an eyesore. Tourists, who leave their dirt for mother nature to clean up. Plastic bags, chocolate wrappers, water bottles even chewing gum, you name it, it was all there. I mean if you can’t keep it clean, at least don’t make it dirty. But no one cares. It’s shameful, so I guess we must be shameless. Anyway coming back on track the view of Mcleod Ganj bathed is bright sunlight is quite stupefying. At Bhagsu, there’s a Vipassana Center made famous (almost) in the book Holy Cow by Sarah MacDonald. An Australian writer and I reckon radio personality, she came here to basically meditate and say nothing for a week or two. Maybe that’s why she wrote about it later. Much to my dilemma they even had a job opening for a helper or assistant of some kind. I was in two minds to at least give an interview but the deficiency of a proper CV on my person declared my second mind the winner. I was astonished at the setting of some of the hotels for they were especially obscure and walking was the only way to get to them. But I guess if this band of merry travelers could get there, anybody could.

Bhagsu is a half an hour walk from Mcleod Ganj, but is an eternity away from any corporate influence that is so evident in Mcleod Ganj. Where Mcleod Ganj has everything from miniature cinema halls, to shops loaded with Nike, Converse, Adidas, Reebok, travel agents, Internet places, Italian, Tibetan, Indian, Chinese, German bakeries and restaurants, Bhagsu is brimming with domesticity. Bhagsu is as Indian or maybe as Tibetan as it gets. Only the Hindu temples have been branded, apart from that the walls show no signs of abuse. Bhagsu is home to a waterfall, which I might add is a haven for photographers and others with digital cameras. A sign on the passage to the waterfalls warns ‘The path leading to the waterfall is dangerous, do not go there’. But nobody cares, and neither did we. And after overcoming some very nasty but invisible obstacles we were there. It was fun and we even saw a monk’s robe lying next to what can be best described as a part of a woman’s lingerie. Well so much for celibacy, it wasn’t really his fault, if I am right in how events unfolded at that very spot a little earlier. The place is perfectly hidden from staring eyes, and those who have been to India, know how Indians stare.

After partaking of our share of tea at the ‘No-Name café’, right above the Bhagsu waterfall, it was back to Mcleod Ganj and time to feast. Two beers, one whole tandoori chicken, one whole boneless butter chicken and 3 butter naans and we were in great company. Pierce Brosnan had eaten at that very restaurant very conveniently named ‘Maclo’. They even had a picture of him eating there, wow. After dinner, while we were thinking of what to do next, when we realized we had a colour TV. It was easy after that. Besides none of us had ever watched TV at that altitude before, like they say, there’s always a first time. Sienfeld at that height above sea level is funny if not funnier and Friends still comes on at 7:30 on Star World. The TV was still on in the morning.

The morning was beautiful as we woke up to Oprah and horny bus drivers (pun intended). The next stop was at St. John’s in the Wilderness. It’s about a 20 minute walk from Mcleod Ganj. Take my word for it, it’s worth every second of that walk. It’s simply and honestly put, beautiful. I am in no mood to paint a word picture that I know will suck. All I will say is that for me, St. John’s in the Wilderness was proof of life. The graves are testimony to my last sentence. It scared me to say the least, sent a bolt of lightening down my spine. Coming up next on this screen in front of you is the ‘Dal’ lake. A dirty lake with hungry fish, flanked by a Tibetan school on one side and another international school on the other and reached by a rickshaw with leopard skin seats in our case. From the moment we got there we didn’t want to stay any longer, more so after sighting a dead fish, bloated and floating in the lake. A little further and higher up from the lake is another very lonely but lovely place, unfortunately I can’t recall its name (from now on I’ll take better notes), that affords the most spectacular view of the entire Dhauladhar Mountain range. You can pay Rs. 10 per person to see it closely through a gold–plated telescope. After that it was back to Mcleod Ganj for another round of beer and non-vegetarian food.

Mcleod Ganj from the Cemetary

We had walked quite a bit that day and to be honest, I was running out of steam and film rolls. The cab put us down by a handsome sum of Rs. 150 from the telescope place back to square one. Back at the restaurant, we sat around. No one spoke a word, except monosyllables, everyone focused completely on their beers. Maybe afraid of talking about what we dreaded the most, leaving. Personally I was seriously contemplating taking up the job at the Vipassana Center.

The next morning there was no Oprah but the drivers were still horny. Our standard breakfast place was Om Hotel’s rooftop restaurant. The view of brilliant and I was in love with their mushroom omelette. The little puppy there was a riot, a real chick magnet. An adventure in shopping was followed by a visit to the Tibetan Museum, which opened my eyes to the Tibetan cause. The images portrayed the kind of suffering I had seen only in movies and heard about from people, and if the texts at the museum are true, I am really pissed off with the Chinese. A sentiment I happen to share with the shopkeepers, nothing made in China is sold here. Then to the monastery, the home of his His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I have had the good fortune of seeing and hearing him talk, although he spoke in Tibetan I did understand most of his words. And trust me when I say this, the man actually has a halo. He radiates a kind of energy that can be believed only when it’s experienced.

Back at Om Hotel’s roof top restaurant, it was time to sip our final cups of tea, finish rolls in our respective cameras and philosophize about the prettiest sunset this side of the hills. The time had come. It is only when you’re leaving, when you want to stay the most. We did too – the hands of time, however, dragged us to the extremely dark corner where our bus back to Delhi was due from. This time around the backpack wasn’t a problem. Neither was sleep. The night passed unceremoniously, and before we knew it we were back in the capital and back to reality.