The Journey

I have arrived at my destination, and it is everything I had hoped for and more.  But before I get into that, I first want to tell you about the journey, which I could never have dreamed up in my own head.  It started on Friday night in London.  I arrived at Heathrow airport with a big fat grin on my face.  Months of planning and thinking and dreaming about this and it had finally come to fruition.  

I checked my bag at the Jet Airways counter and I got my first taste of Indian hospitality:

"Are you going to Kathmandu?"

"No, Dharamsala.  Well, first Delhi." 

"Is this your first time in India?"

"Yes."

"I am from Delhi!  Next time you come, you will stay at my house!"

This was only the beginning of the awesomeness that is Jet Airways.  Best. Airline. Ever.  Case in point:  

United Airlines, I take your penne with tomato sauce and melted cheese, and I raise you THIS!  It was almost nicer than Qantas.  I loved everything about it.  I was seated between two very friendly people.  To my left was a London-bred Indian woman who goes to see her aunt and uncle every year in Amritsar.  This year though, she was going on holiday in Goa.  As a mother of two, she had plenty of words of caution for me.  "Wear your bag with the outside flap facing in.  No eye contact.  No smiling."   Wait, sorry, NO SMILING?!!?  But I'm American!  And it's my first time in India!  "It's a come-on" she told me.  Well, there's something that the Indians and the French have in common!!  

On my right was an Indian from Delhi who had gone to London to sell one of his ice cream recipes.  He creates ice cream flavors and has 4 stores and a factory in Delhi.  They supply hotels in Delhi as well.  He has 20 employees to run the business but he told me he works "day and night" on all the creative aspects of the job and he's "very passionate" about his work.  I told him to consider making an ice cream flavored Honey Lavender Vanilla-- he liked the idea!!  

(Imagine the Indian accent for his part):

"Where are you going in India?"

"To Dharamsala, in the north."

"Are you going to meditate?"

"Um, I'd like to!  I'm mostly going to volunteer."

"You are going to India by yourself?"

"Yeah, I prefer traveling alone."

"You are very brave girl!"

"Why, should I be scared?"

"No, but you are very brave girl, indeed. Very brave.  I'm sitting with a very brave girl."

Then he gave me his card and said that I should call him when I'm back in Delhi and he could give me a tour of his ice cream factory.  Sure, sure!!!  I told him I'm also going to India for the chai and he said there's a place in Delhi with 20-30 varieties of chai!

"What's it called?!"

"Chai Walla."  And then he winked.  Too funny.

It was an 8 hour flight and I slept a paltry 3 hours.  It didn't bother me though, because when I woke up we were flying over the Afghan mountains at sunrise.  Unbelievably beautiful, but of course it made me sad too to think of the war.  How on earth could they navigate that place?  It really made sense that someone could hide out in a cave there and never be found.

We landed at Delhi and there were some strange brown crows hanging out on the tarmac.  It looked like a bad omen but I tried not to worry.  Customs was a breeze and a few moments later I was in a car with the guy from the transfer service that I had arranged.  He was pretty quiet but we talked a bit about the head nod and the hand flip (the one that Russell Peters jokes about in his stand-up act).  I'd seen two varieties of the head nod so far, within an hour of landing.  It's one of those things in life where you've got such a personal backstory.  It brought up so many memories- the first time Mike ever told me about it, that silly short documentary on it at the Mill Valley Film Festival a few years ago, all the times I noticed it in "Slumdog Millionaire", and now I'm in India and people are nodding their heads AT ME.  And I have to tell you, it's easier to figure out by context than I was led to believe.

The ride to the Tibetan colony was tame.  I expected utter madness, but I think that Saturday mornings are a quiet time to be in Delhi traffic.  And I also think that after seeing Saigon at rush hour, nothing can shock me.  Yes, people honk and ride in between lanes for minutess at a time, but not to such a harrowing degree.  As I looked around at the buses, rickshaws and motorbikes, and the old women wading through oncoming traffic without worry, I got a bit emotional.  Maybe it was the lack of sleep, I don't know. I was thinking about my life, and all of yours too, and I thought, "We just get so bogged down by it all."  And I shed a silent tear.  

  

Then we arrived in the Tibetan Colony where I was to stay for the night.  I met Kunchok, who organized my transfer to Dharamsala.  Kunchok is a Tibetan immigrant to India. He came over when he was only four years old.  He left his parents in Tibet and walked to India with the help of a group of monks.  He told me that when he got tired, they would carry him on their backs.  The walk took 15 days.  It reminded me of the Underground Railroad and I explained to him what that was.  

He said I could take the bus to Dharamsala that night if I wanted, instead of having to wait until the next night (sorry mom, no day buses!).  I slept for a few hours in the Tara Guesthouse and then hopped on the bus at 6pm.  It was nicer than some other ones I'd seen, but not by any definition was it a "sleeper" bus.  I headed straight to the back, where I ended up having five seats all to myself!  I  could fully recline, which was so nice.  Only problem was, every time we hit a pot hole I would levitate 3 inches off the seats.  I didn't really sleep.

<-- the squat toilet I peed in 

                                                                     (making mom proud)

Thirteen hours and one squat toilet later, we approached the Kangi Valley at sunrise.  The sun came up from behind a big mountain range and I started to see streams and brooks all around.  Monkeys and cows started to appear alongside the road.  We winded up and up through the valley and the excitement surged in me!!  When we finally arrived at 7:30am I tracked down a guesthouse that I'd read about and had some brekky.  The chai was AMAZING.  It was filled with huge chucks of ginger that looked like pieces of chicken.  I had a walk around town in a daze.  When I saw this view I cried tears of joy:

More on Dharamsala in the next post... until then, check out this cool website to learn more about some of the locals here:  http://unseendharamsala.blogspot.com

And I'll leave you with a recent Facebook status update of the Dalai Lama.  It's what I'm trying to work out at the moment:  "To be kind, honest and have positive thoughts; to forgive those who harm us and treat everyone as a friend; to help those who are suffering and never to consider ourselves superior to anyone else: even if this advice seems rather simplistic, make the effort of seeing whether by following it you can find greater happiness."