Bored out of my mind, when I find out that my flight had been canceled I booked a "deluxe" bus trip from Dharamasala to Delhi. I want to stay in a hotel, watch television and stay somewhere with central heating and a bathtub. The places I have been staying in are nice, but have been spartan, no television, small space heaters and with the weather verging on 30 degrees, in Dharamshala, 50 degrees in Delhi I have been very cold for a while. I think about it and and book a nice business hotel in central Delhi and board the bus. It was raining on an off for hours in Mcleodganj and our "deluxe" bus is leaking at all windows. Our bus driver sits in a glass partition of about 3 feet where a bench suspends itself against the entire width of the bus. Three other drivers take turns sitting on the benches as the driver drives. The ride is twelve hours long and eventually we get out of the rainy area to realize that all the windows leak air and although the seats are clean, with the damp air running around the area I am really cold. Around 2am our sparesly populated bus is crammed full with Indian workers with their canvas cloths and dusty looks shoving past my seat and filling up the back seats. The bus now smells of urine and body order and something really bad.
I sit next to a British man who has renounced his regular life in London to become a teacher in meditation in the mountains and I learn that Mcleodganj, the home of the Dalai Lama isn't so safe as I guessed it might be. As Tibetan refugees arrive regularly there are welfare offices and several volunteer services that work to assist the refugees. Some of the refugees have walked on foot over the Himalayas and into India-sometimes waiting for days in the mountains for the Chinese troops to move. As a result of waiting, many people lose their limbs and fingers to frost bite. When these refugees arrive to either India or Nepal, all are treated in hospitals but many are returned to China/Tibet. With China's might growing daily, I hate to say that their case seems quite hopeless to me. Without the Dalai Lama to congregate around, I don't see how they can continue their fight and he is already in his 70s. The stories are heartbreaking but the lives they build afterwards and where they will go in the next few decades remains to be seen.
With much western assistance and their higher standards in cleanliness and order the Tibetans in Mcleodganj are quite prosperous. I personally know I was overcharged for many taxi rides and my hotel was expensive by Indian standards at less than $40/night. Despite this I lost all interest in fighting or getting angry because at this point, their services are much nicer and they are sweet, they can use all the help they can get, and really I spend $40 dollars on dinner sometimes. The Indians in the area feel that it is a shame but there is also tension between the Tibetans, and the Indian Kashmiri refugees in the area who are also trying to sell their services and goods to the same foreign market. The Tibetans are much better at making money and it irritates and creates Jealousy for the local Indians. The locally born Indians also have different intentions and beliefs from their refugee parents which also adds another dimension to the tension. Mcleodganj and the neighboring areas are popular foreigner vacation spots and particularly Israelis have summer homes in the mountains. With the help of celebrities like Richard Gere and other prominent Buddhists, Mcleodganj has many westerners who come for the Dalai Lama and his teaching and to help the Tibetans.
While this portion of the story I could tell from visiting-the second portion I learned from my British guru adds a twist. In the mountain town of Manali, Mariuana and other drugs are easy to obtain and many foreigners act as mules between Manali and the Dharamasala area. My Tibetan cooking teacher informed me that the Israelis party hard in the mountains and many of them die from either the drugs or by getting into trouble with the local drug markets. Yearly dozens of foreigners disappear into the mountains. My British guru informs me that not only is there lots of drugs but many foreigners disappear, are killed or raped in the area on a regular basis. There are many "nature" trails in the mountains and its quite easy to get lost in the area. Some people accidentally die in the mountains and when locals discover their bodies, they sometimes simply rob and dispose of them. For three weeks my British friend had a dead foreign body floating in his drinking water with the face hacked. The local bar apparently has a full bottle of rophynol available for single women tourists--this was discovered when a male tourist asked for a bottle of water and the bottle of rophynol was accidentally placed in front of him instead. In other shocking news a visiting prostitute was once delivered to the hotel without her head and a long-term foreign volunteer was also stoned to death in one of the remote villages.
So after a twelve hour bus ride of hearing such stories-the majestic Himalayas got quite a bit of grit on them and lets just say that I'm glad that I cut my night activities down to cooking classes with Tibetans and another foreign couple. The people I met in the hotel, classes and restaurants were nice and we had many good conversations so I did actually have a good experience there--but the bus ride and the stories on the way back made me quite glad to check into my hotel this morning and walk in civilized (sort of) Delhi, shopping and hanging out in daylight near my hotel. I guess you can take the girl out of the city but you can't take the city out of the girl. I feel most comfortable in cosmopolitan areas where I feel like I have more control of where I can go-by foot with maps on grids. Tomorrow I return to my friend's house and I keep in mind that stories and news like this can and probably do happen everywhere--I probably just sat next to a person who liked sharing this particular info. I do think that beyond the safety issues-that I am ready to go back home and will spend my last few days shopping and looking at crafts in Delhi.
After being on the road since the 19th of December, I have been to close to nine cities/locations in the interim and I am missing my bed in Chicago. Although it is -4 degrees Fahrenheit there.
I don't know how I managed 74 days traveling the last time.
Travel note to self and those who read this. If the weather is good, fly to Dharamsala, don't go anywhere off the beaten path alone and be careful of what people give you to drink/eat. Otherwise the people are friendly and kind and the Tibetans really are a peaceful and easy going people. Oh and DO NOT TAKE THE DELUXE OVERNIGHT BUS unless you really really have to.
No comments:
Post a Comment