last days in Mcleodganj

Ancient eroded designs in the Rock Temple and the dark passageway into the temple. This was the day we also visited the Norblingka  Center for Tibetan Art and the quiet Buddhist temple there.

Inside Norblingka, where people were gathered, sitting on the floor, singing.

the afternoon soccer game. Anyone can play, sometimes the dogs play goallie, they are pretty good, sometimes they help chase the ball, which regularly heads off the court down the hill into the stinging nettle. Sometimes the monks play, once two very small French boys played, they were the best on the team.

The scorpion, one of many arachnids found in the rooms.









Edge of the mandala of emptiness in the museum at the Tibet library

Tibetan Medical and Astrological College of his Holiness the Dalai Llama

This is What we Came Here For

Nicks Kunga Lodge and Italian Restaurant, where all the food tastes exactly the same.  Girls from the Totarani School.

The climbing wall at the Mountain Center, where they are perfecting bureaucratic officiousness; one guy gives you the rules, and explains that the rope is ten years old and will probably break, looks up the prices, makes you write a waiver.  Another guy brings the rope. When you are done, a third guy, in  room stacked with papers in books, looks up the prices again and writes the receipt.  We were the only ones there, and I expect were the only ones there the entire week.  The monkeys watched us climb.

  This is what we came here for, to sing primary songs in Llomos croissant bakery, upstairs,  under the lonely landscapes of  Tibet and the faces of people left behind.

 Goodbye Hotel Manu Vinot. It looks rather grand, but we stay there because it is close to Mahi, and we are the only guests ever.

This is what we came here for, to walk all afternoon in the humid heat, past lots of Indian tourists, past Triund, over the hill, and around the mountain and see the moon rise above the place called 'snowline'.

This is what we came here for,  to see the children lined up for lunch at the Totorani School, and teach them songs.  The teachers think we are a fine diversion. 

pictures of living

Stobery Hill, the
Hotel Manuvinot, oil pastel

The inauguration of the Prime Minister of Tibet, the Prime Minister in exile, by the 14th Dalai Llama in Mcleodganj, India. The Tibetan women were dressed up in their colorful skirts, as part of the ceremony people brought large buckets of rice with raisins around and gave some to everyone, along with salt tea. The Dalai Llama spoke beneath the flag of Tibet.




The ancient ruined and eroded figures from the Rock Temple in Kangra, so mysterious and evocative

The pine trees in the forests of the mountains in Stobery, a road going down the hill into Giri and the river, layers of pine needles on the ground















Buiddha Hands and the Great Boudha Temple in Kathmandu, under reconstruction after the earthquake.

Bhaktapur  from the Pottery Cafe upstairs, where the only thing for lunch was Dal Bhat

Himachal Pradesh

 Waiting for the bus, looking at the wall, on the way to the great temple of the Dalai Llama in Mcleodganj, one of the Tibetan gathering places, places of refuge, the seat of the Tibetan Government in exile. A thousand candles, a Buddha with a thousand arms surrounded by a thousand Hindu shrines.

small Hindu village shrine

camping in the parking lot, not the first idea that came to mind at 1:00 AM, but really the only option 

The Totarani local school  and inside  the Tibetan Children's Village school

 small Hindu roadside shrine and the side of the hill playground outside Totarani school

 The distant mountains, not so distant, we were almost there, a drawing from a Tibetan notebook, drawing on a rock and the fires set off by the hailstorm.