McLeod Ganj, Dharamshala, And His Holiness Karmapa

So we left Sherabling by taxi for the 2 1/2 hour drive to and two night stay at McLeod Ganj, also known as Upper Dharamshala, home of the Dalai Lama and pilgrimage and hippy destination for decades now. We had booked two nights at the Hotel Mount View, and just getting there was an adventure in itself. I was again astounded by both the steep grades and the switch backs, and the narrowness of the now concrete slab or asphalt or dirt roads. Unimaginable that our hotel could be located here on this mountainside, but of course it was. There were moments in the car when I was certain that the manual transmission was going to be incapable of allowing the vehicle to be projected forward up the mountain, but my fears were ill founded. Again I got to be duly impressed with the seemingly magical and in this case gravity defying skills of Indian drivers. 

                                                                                                                                 

The best that can be said about the Hotel Mount View is that the mount and other views from our balcony were indeed impressive Vimeo video link and the food prepared on site by a young and very accomplished cook was delicious. The room and the hotel itself leave a bit too much to be desired by even our somewhat minimalist standards: we both agreed it was just too funky as in too run down and not quite clean enough to be a place we'd want to stay again. But we did have Nancy's old friend Arun in for dinner,

                                                                                                           

and I enjoyed walking through the amazingly narrow, two way streets, watching a major traffic jam in progress and witnessing the ways in which such things get resolved.
                                                            

                                                             

We visited the Dalai Lama Temple and spun some prayer wheels (Vimeo video link)
 and walked around town, and had tea and snacks on the rooftop of Nick's Italian Kitchen with Arun, where we had nothing at all Italian. (Nancy and I did return the next day to feast on apple pie and chocolate chip cookies!). My vague memories of McLeod Ganj from 35 years ago have it as a one dirt road little village with a few Tibetan stalls along that road, and some monks practicing the uniquely Tibetan hand-slapping debate style in a leafy garden somewhere, and an afternoon watching some Lama Dances in a monastery courtyard, with the Dalai Lama himself in attendance. Now, it's nothing like that, which makes me question the accuracy of my memories.
                                                                                                                 

Now, it's a crowded, steeply mountainous, bustling, hustling, polluted, worldwide tourist and pilgrim destination, with scores of hotels in various stages of disrepair or delapidation or newness, restaurants galore, the usual stalls and shops and street life of any crowded Indian city, and still the official home of the the Dalai Lama and the seat of the Tibetan Government in Exile.

A somewhat typical Third World travel adventure: being scammed by street beggars. Nancy did indeed fall for the hungry-indicating-beseeching-young-beggar-with -smiling-beautiful-baby-on-hip-no-money-just-milk scam, professionally executed in slick collusion with the milk store seller. Only 400 rupees for the large milk package, or only 175 for the small. We later learned from Arun that the actual prices are between 20 and 40 rupees. Of course still amounting to next to nothing in dollars (175rupees equals $2.73), yet something one feels one ought to be smart enough to avoid. Or not.

I'm happy to say that one difference for me from when I traveled in India 35 years ago is that I'm not at all inclined now to concern myself over much (I'm still concerned minimally!) with the absolute best possible price of things. Then, it seems, it was a matter of hard core principle to not, at almost any cost, be ripped off by sellers of anything, to the point where we Westerners - I wasn't alone in this by any means - would be arguing gravely and assiduously over what in the end amounted to pennies. It even had the quality of being a source of pride and status, proving yourself as an experienced old India hand in these matters, and no longer a lowly green horn.

On our second day here we taxi-ed down to Dharamshala itself to go see the Karmapa at his monastery, given to him for his residence by the Dalai Lama after Karmapa's escape from Tibet. We waited along with crowds of others for three hours, and at last Nancy and I had our audience with His Holiness, the 29 year old 17th Gyalwa Karmapa. This audience lasted less than one  minute. We hadn't understood that we could have, if we'd wanted, had our picture snapped with His Holiness, or that we could have had some more time to ask him questions. Since neither of us had any questions, and didn't know about the picture possibility, Nancy simply thanked him for his Dharma activity and expressed her wish that he might be able to return soon the USA, and when he grunted something at me which indicated that he wanted to know if I had any questions I shook my head "no" and uttered something about just having wanted to see him , at which point he summarily dismissed us, I think with a bit of confusion or at least incredulity about what it was exactly that we had come for.

My experience of His Holiness, momentary as it was, is of a much more wrathful Dharma protector type than, say Situ Rinpoche, who, though Nancy says he can be wrathful, seems to me much more accessible and sweet by nature. Given Karmapa's role as supreme head of the Kagyu Lineage, and whatever this may entail, this may not be surprising, but the personality difference is palpable, and therefore notable. I'm glad I had the chance to be in the presence of them both, if only for a few minutes, or less than one.