lost mountain wave: India Dharmasala to Mcleodganj

Of all the places in Delhi we chose to spend the day at the red fort it was only 106 degrees, but buried in the accolades of military accomplishment, under an arched hallway, there was a shop that sold old artifacts, like a peacock eating a Scorpion, ancient spear blades and a Tibetan traveling shrine, like a mezuzah except with Buddhist prayer flags inside, which put Clark under a spell which could only be broken by looking at everything in the tiny store for a few hours. Our dismal hotel, which was mostly dismal because we had no windows and its pretend glamour and location which would encourage no one ever to visit it for any reason ever except maybe to get a small industrial project done or to buy some dilapidated building material.

The gift of making people want to have their picture taken, great pink shirt and lavender scarf.

This is the Volvo bus for which we all longed, fearing the smiling hotel travel concierge had never ordered or if he had, it was missing important compenonts like enough seats. The bus stop, the very sketchy bus stop on the side of a road is featured below.

It was a 12 hour bus ride, as promised, ending in the early dawn with mountains topped with snow, the edge of the Himalaya. We drove to Dharmasala then to Mcleodganj high on the mountain, only to find that our hotel, called the holy synod was located 30 kilometers back down the road...very disappointing, we found that we were the first visitors to the place for a month, in Chamunda. But it turned out well, as we discovered hidden treasures in the town, and through the tricky interviews of taxi drivers, about 56 of them, we discovered Mahi. But more about Mahi later.

This is a little school we visited in Chamunda, we just walked through the rye field and said we would like to meet the English teacher. Instead, they gave us the lovely math teacher and we taught class for awhile. They want us to come back and do an art project. These things happen because we keep staying up all night riding buses.

The hotel holy synod is close to a famous Hindu temple, Chamunda Devi temple, which we visited and were offered a leaf with which to eat our ice cream. Because Emily is 9, and very fair skinned, people stop us constantly to have their pictures taken with them.

The rye fields from the hotel window.

But we moved back up the mountain to a rather remote, 6 km from Mcleodganj, hotel close to where Mahi is from, with beautiful views of the Dhauladher mountains.

At the end of our day here, Mahi took us for a walk down the hill as the sun set, a place where probably no tourist has set foot. We walked back up by the light of the full moon occasionally seeing goats and a few other more scary animals. In the distance we could hear the chants from an Ashram retreat. Finally we spotted the hotel, now with lights on...Emily said "it looks much grander at night with the lights on"

This is the crazy bus stop somewhere in Delhi which turned out to be in the Tibetan community, where we waited in the dusk for the bus, wondering if we would ever be found.