Golden sunshine again. Groundhog day.
Hit the streets for a bit of shopping post our morning wifi expedition. We are stocked up on France's shopping recommendations. Apparently the Kashmiris are the especially smooth operators and hold a few of the stores up in the upper shopping area of McLeodganj. Best friends, best deals. To be avoided.
Post lite shopping, which neither of us really get into the spirit of, we drift toward the next objective being a camera store to be able to cut a few discs to return home, unfortunately soon to be followed likely by the camera. Soph sets up shop for what turns into the next hour and a half, computers need upgrading. (Kate only knows)
Flag a taxi for the roll down into Dharamasala to continue our shopping and avoid the tourist fleecing. Cars usually leave the engines on, but it is not unusual for motorbikes / mopeds to roll and save on fuel around these parts.
Decide to walk back up, partially for the exercise / beautiful afternoon and partially to recoup some of our coffee expenditure since being in McLeodganj. One coffee, decent, will set you back about 50-70rup in comparison to a chai 5rup in a non touristy place. Still on conversion very reasonable, haven't inquired whether Fair Trade, I believe it is Local and it is much much better then Shimla. Nothing worse than insipid coffee. It can be like Early Grey with milk.. Versus this is on par with Tobys Estate. Not quite Campos. Coffee snob.
Meet a Punjabi Sikh who starts by saying that I have a very lucky face and that I will have three very lucky things occur in 2011, must be the uphill walk as I am slow to pick the uptake, then identifies himself as a card carrying holy man who can read my/our fortune and help us avoid unhealthy offspring all for a measly donation, which increases by 100s. Still he is very smiley and a positive vibe so post a small donation that will not result unfortunately in my immediate wealth we continue upwards.
I talk Soph in deviating from the road to circumnambulate the Temple complex in a clockwise direction, which leads off into the woods, which are heavily decorated with prayer flags. The walk is really quite pretty with views over D'sala and wanders past stupas, rock piles painted white and rock engraved with I guess Buddhist scripture. Then up past a variety of prayer wheels, mostly brass with wooden spin assisters on the bottom. I believe the prayer wheels have a prayer reflected on the outside (in bronze) and the same prayer on a roll of paper on the inside many times. By spinning the wheel effectively you are multiplying the prayers effect.
Two things re prayer wheels; 1.) if only able to rotate around in one direction, are you at risk of muscle imbalance(these prayer wheels are heavy) and 2.) if they are already spinning from the person in front should you move on.. Various times I went to spin (Soph was in front) an already spinning prayer wheel and misjudged the timing, total klutz and achieved only the slowing of the prayer wheel.
There were even large automated prayer wheels with a stick on the top so as they spun, slowly, they would ring a bell once per revolution. We read further on that they were blessings for the current Dalai Lama (14th) so were more then happy to spin for a long and successful life.
We have the accompaniment of monks and devotees who are also on route. Yesterday we saw a guy on the top side of the temple who was taking a step then kowtowing whilst praying then another step etc. He had knee pads on as well as thongs on his hands but this still would have been quite some feat.
On reaching the plaza the sun was setting over the valley and it gave the mountains some fantastic shading. The Dhauladhar range is dusted lightly in white and is shadowed whilst the spur leading up to in the foreground is a ruby - maeve, very pretty and unfortunately uncapturable due to camera error.
Past a hindu sadhu with wizened beard and orange robe, but unfortunately our donation funds went to earlier partial blessings. So namaste and move on looking forward.
Back in McLeodganj we see a beautiful wall hanging and are invited into the store for closer inspection. We are welcomed to sit and peruse the quite justifiably attractive work, by a lightly skinned Indian, sh#t he's a Kashmiri, we have fallen into the trap that we warned about.. Still he is very nice as is the work he is showing us and the prices are very reasonable following conversion, however we are not in the market and so can quite reasonably move on after an interesting review of his wares. Not before being offered a discount if we buy something tonight, plus though Monday is shut down day in McLeodganj if we wanted to return tomorrow he would be available. Good business.
Decide to dine at the Hotel as we have actually succumbed and paid for wifi today, but it is not effective down in our room.
Notice this old guy in local threads who is also on the wizened side. A few people interact with him whilst we are having drinks, including one guy who assists him to stand. He appears to have light parkinsons as his hands shake, so on filling my water bottle from the filtered bottle I say hi etc. Come away with the detail that he is from New York and has been traveling for the past 42 yrs and is aware amongst orher things of where Nimbin is in Aus.
On returning to our bench I update Soph who then invites the guy to share our table and some of his stories. This then requires a hands on approach to assist him to sit in the pro offered chair. He is not on the animated side, with hearing only possible when your ear is placed right next to him. Soph try's to juice his traveling stories but he is more interested in directing us to sun healing and commune sites on our iPad.
Every now and again he requests assistance stretching his shoulders back, or in placing the cake (which we purchased for him) on his fork. Then a little latter he identified he need to take a whiz and would I help him.. Now this was heading into unchartered waters but what can you do.. So we head out, him on his crutch in right hand and with his left hand through my arm. He identified that he just needed a hand across the street where he would whiz into the gutter, I breathe a sigh of relief that is quickly sucked back in when he asks for assistance pulling his zip down.
There is a beer advert running back home for Tooheys regarding how many beers would be owed for certain duties and I believe it was a case for assisting a friend in such a circumstance. Given that I had only just met the guy, I was thinking this had to be well over a truckload, still we have gone this far and I was definitely not crossing the next line. Thankfully this was not requested and he readjusted post relief adequately by himself. We shuffled back across to the Hotel, up the stairs and in the door and to his chair.
Soph had done the runner in my absence...I excused myself to go and pay the bill (and find Soph) and the staff at the hotel said not to worry they had organized a taxi for him, obviously a regular.
The taxi turned up and the front desk area was shutting up, so Soph scored relocation duties of our mysterious friend to the taxi, as Mr Taxi was not getting out to help. We breathed a collective sigh of relief when the loaded taxi moved away thanks to a honking bus behind. Thank you honking vehicles.
Head to sleep while listen to the chorus of echoing dog barks and goat braying in the valley, and I am guessing a monkey exploring the roof outside. The beanied one is already out cold, so will contemplate the sounds of silence alone.