We left our Palace in the jungle and headed for Dharamsala.
On the way we saw many tea plantations. we drove another twisting narrow road to get to Dharamsala where the His Holiness the Dalai Lama lives and the headquarters of the
Tibet Government in exile. The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 in advance of the
Chinese invasion. There are approximately 20,000 Tibetans living in this area
attempting to preserve their Tibetan Culture and Religion.
We first visited the Norbulingka Institute in Daramsala.
This is an institute that teaches Tibetan artists the classic Tibetan arts, which range
from painting, to metal working to woodworking. The object of the
institute is to preserve traditional Tibetan arts. Masters teach students under
very strict requirements over a minimum of 6 years. The intricate work is then
sold to support the institute.
The Dalai Lama is in Dharamsala now, he is elderly (79 years
old), not in the best of health and often travels the world to spread the word
about the plight of the Tibetans. We last saw him in January of the this year at the Jaipur Literary Festival. He is amazingly jovial and wise. He
twinkles! The Tibetan culture says there will only be 14 Dali Lamas and he will
be the last. But that might not be so. He has stated that there might be
another. He also said that the next Dalai Lama might be a woman from New York.
Who knows?
India has given land to the Tibet refugees to set up an
entire government in exile. We went to their parliament building and a very
nice woman took us into the new parliamentary hall and talked about Tibet and
the Government in exile until we ran out of questions. It was very
enlightening. One amazing thing is that when I asked if she ever expected to be
able to return to Tibet (she was born here in Dharamsala) she said yes. She is
obviously an optimist!
I for some reason assumed the Tibetan Buddhist were
vegetarian (don’t kill animals and all), but they aren’t. Apparently Tibet is
located at such a high altitude they can’t grow vegetables so they must eat
meat.
We are staying at Chanor House. It has maybe 10 rooms max.
The guest rooms have all painted by Tibetan artists, each room is different.
Richard Gere always stays here. It is located in McCloud Ganj. McCleod Ganj is
at 6500 feet above sea level and is reached by a very narrow decrepit one lane
road. The streets are so narrow it is impossible to park a car. We will be hoofing it up and down the narrow streets. Apparently McCleod was part of the British Raj and got a part of upper
(very upper) Dharamsala named after himself. Chanor house overlooks the Dalai Lama's house. Nice location, indeed.
We walked around McCleod checking out the stores. It is a
very poor area. On the street you see lots of monks dressed in their
traditional robes. Everyone seems to be smiling. It is quite nice to see all
these happy faces.
Chanor house is also situated next to the main Buddhist
temple. We sat on our balcony drinking wine, listening to the Buddhist monks
chant at sunset. It was quiet an experience. Two bottles of wine later we
decided to have dinner. Chanor house serves traditional Tibetan food, which is more like Chinese food than Indian: momo (dim sum), eggplant, rice, noodles dishes, chicken,
etc are all part of their diet. They allowed us to bring our own wine to dinner.
This isn’t your mothers Buddhism.
Our rooms have balconies that have spectacular views of down
into the valley below. We are repeatedly warned to lock all windows closed
because of pesky monkeys that could enter our room and reek havoic.
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