After surviving my share of a bottle of Royal Chateux "red wine" -- the second most toxic tasting alcoholic beverage I have ever encountered, after the vile orange-flavored stuff that the Punjabis were drinking -- shared with a couple of Englishwomen, I ended up at a bar in Dharamsala with a bunch of other gringoes for a proper New Year's Eve celebration. The bar, unfortunately, stopped serving fifteen minutes before midnight. Doh! |
I stayed at the Dip Tse-Chok Ling Gompa (Buddhist monastery) in McLeod Ganj, which is a new version (a reincarnation, perhaps?) of a Tibetan monastery that was destroyed in the Cultural Revolution. Dharamsala is the larger town, and McLeod Ganj, where HH the Dalai Lama actually lives, is a smaller area north of Dharamsala. The gompa was actually a few hundred stairs below McLeod Ganj; it was a hell of a hike to get back out with my backpack. |
These were three of the five young Punjabis that were in the same compartment of the toy train to Kangra as me. They were taking a quick Christmas-break trip to see the temple at Kangra, and the temple and waterfall at Bhagsu, a small town next to McLeod Ganj. with the additional the ulterior motive, I think, of having an opportunity to be away from their parents to drink and smoke (cigarettes) a little. This is at the Shiva temple in Bhagsu; the names of these three are Raman, Ashok, and Sunny (not sure on the spelling of "Sunny"). |
Yours truly with the Punjabis, again at the Bhagsu Shiva temple. |
Detail of a prayer flag at the Dip Tse-Chok Ling Gompa. |
Prayer wheels at the Dip Tse-Chok Ling monastery. |
Indians looking out the window of the toy train to Kangra, the closest railway station to Dharamsala. |
