Friday, early in the morning (May 18), we said goodbye to Dr. Jones who was to stay behind as a member of our group was too sick to pursue the journey. She would make sure everything would be okay for our friend and join us in Dharamsala later. Bryan and Nicole went from chaperons to being in charge of our group. We headed to the airport and flew 2 hours away to reach Amritsar's airport. There I noticed a sign encouraging customers to seek help and asking them not to pay bribes to anyone!
A minibus and a car awaited for us outside. We began our 7 hour ride to Dharamsala, which turned closer to a 6 hour ride as our drivers drove so fast.
I spoke with our Nepalese driver while taking picture from the minibus. He explained to me that there was always an implied competition between drivers and that he did not like the other driver who was hired the week before. I quickly noticed their road game type of driving and reminded our driver that we were in no rush at all. The ride was amazing, it was fascinating to observe the Indians in their daily life around this main road.
Motorcycles often held more than 2 people and also animals at times. The women sarees were always so colorful and the men white shirts appeared so immaculate under the Indian sun.
We passed many students in their uniforms and numerous colorful fruit stand and sugarcane juice kiosk.
On the side of the road, hemp was growing everywhere and cows, donkeys, goats and ponies could slow down the traffic at any time.
We stopped in Pathankot for lunch in a nice restaurant we all enjoyed.
Back on the road, I swapped and exchanged my spot with Jade, sitting in the car. Noora, sick with "Delhi Belly" was sleeping on the passenger seat while Phil and I sat in the back. This driver was playing race more than he was driving us. I quickly asked him to please slow down which he did… For about five minutes before he started passing cars at high speed. I asked him again to slow down and his look in the rearview mirror became more insistent and mean, he was upset and I knew why: I was a woman giving him orders! When he continued to drive with no consideration, I asked him to call the other driver which he did reluctantly: I spoke to Bryan and asked him to make sure the bus driver would keep up with us and make sure we were behind. This is when our driver decided to drive extremely slow and to let every other cars between the bus and us, giving me mad looks in the mirror. I asked him to reach the bus, keep up with its pace and stay behind him. He was upset and not in any way hiding it, he pushed the accelerator, reached the bus and passed it, continuing to pass cars in extremis as other vehicles were coming the opposite way. When he pushed the break hard to avoid a collision with another car coming up front as he attempted to pass a truck in curve, I lost it and yelled telling him to pull over immediately! He hesitated and finally did as I yelled at him over again. Once the bus reached us, I signed them to stop and asked Bryan to take my place, telling him that this guy would kill us if a woman told him what to do. Bryan immediately swapped with me and the rest of the trip went as smoothly as it was possible! Bryan would tell me later that he never needed to address the guy beyond asking him once to stay behind and follow the bus! I was stunned and felt compelled to ask Phil to witness that the driver had consciously ignored all my requests, making a point to do the opposite…
Approaching the Himalayan mountains had me forget this frustrating ordeal for a moment: the mountains were stunning, the road bordered by colorful houses and people were so exotic…
I became nostalgic, so much of the landscape and people reminded me of my place of birth, Reunion island. I felt that I clearly had roots here in India. Lauren's reaction was priceless, a huge smile draw on her face, she was ecstatic! We turned the AC off and opened the windows, we were going up, the air was becoming purer and fresher… The road themselves were much cleaner, it was a first since we got in India! We passed a few bridges over clean-looking rivers. We could see snow on top of the higher mountains, pine trees became abundant, and we finally passed the first Tibetan building: the Central Tibetan Secretariat Gangchen Kyishong!
We saw more and more Buddhist monks walking on the side of the roads, crossing the streets, they would become a very familiar sight for the next two weeks!
We entered Dharamsala and finally McLeod Ganj: we were in another world! Perched on the side of a mountain with the most colorful houses was the village which would shelter us...
A
s the traffic stopped us at an intersection, I jumped: standing in the street, a couple meters away from me, was Tenzin Tsundue, the poet, writer and Tibetan activist which lead the march from Dharamsala to the Indian-Tibetan border. Tenzin recounted the story iof the march in the movie The Sun behind the Clouds, also featuring the Dalai-Lama. I asked him if I could take a picture of him, to which he wondered why. I told him that we were in Dharamsala to work with ANEC and that we knew about his fight and knew him from the "Sun behind the Clouds". He agreed but didn't seem very fond of the idea. I figured he wondered if I was taking a picture of him as just someone "famous" or maybe if I even got the message behind his activism. Either way he seemed uncomfortable with the moment…
The Green Hotel was right around the corner… We took possession of our keys and split in our rooms. I partnered with Ashley and discovered a beautiful corner room with 2 large windows: one with an incredible view on the valley, a second at the bedhead with a view on a snowy mountain. A door opened to a long corner-balcony, the floor was of white marble everywhere. On the right, our balcony was contiguous to Lauren and Mallory's and continued to that of Phil and Bryan; we quickly got into the habit of jumping from one balcony to the other. On the left, we could see the contiguous building and Jade and Noora's balcony which continued to Nicole's and ended with Haley and Alea's balcony which, we would find out later, was one of the monkeys' favorite hanging out spot…
We sat on our balconies admiring the view and taking in. Everything was so perfect and beautiful, we made it to Dharamsala and I was still dizzy from seeing so much in such a short period of time… India had played with our emotions. Once more, I realized how much this country was made of contrasts: no nuance, hate or love, day or night, and all at once.
We quickly saw our first monkeys in the back of the hotel. I called Kunchok Dorjee, for whom I had a suitcase from his brother, Lama Deshek. I had met Lama Tenzin Deshek a month before, a friend of mine had advised me to talk to him for advice as he had spent much of his life in Dharamsala and had a brother there. Lama Deshek happened to live a couple blocks away from me. Upon meeting him, I offered him to bring items to his brother, up to a full suitcase as I wasn't planning to check in any luggage.
(With Lama Deshek before I left Birmingham)
And so we would meet Kunchok the next day…
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