Tso Pema: Lotus Lake

September 30^th, 2013: Day 1 of HH's teachings for a group from Taiwan, and also Day 1 of our trip to Manali. Since there are no classes at Tibet Charity this week, a few of the other teachers and I decided it would be a good time to see another part of India. After some discussion we settled on Manali, an area east of Dharamsala and still in the mountains.

As I understand it, most people who travel to Manali do so for the purpose of hiking. We are not going to be hiking in Manali. We're just going to check it out because it's relatively close.

Seems legit.

More tea fields!

The view from the window of the tiny bathroom at the rest stop.

ALL of the trucks and other large vehicles say this on the back.

In order to get to Rewalsar, the town where we're spending the first night, we had to drive for about 4-5 hours. On winding mountain roads. I am happy to report, however, that no one got sick. Verity thought she was going to at one point but she kept it together. Our driver, Naresh, is very friendly and a darn good driver; he's considerate of the fact that not everyone can take hairpin turns at 30 miles an hour for hours on end.

I spent much of the trip trying to decipher the signs we saw on the road. I'll have you know that I can recognize about half the letters in the Hindi alphabet without much trouble, which I think isn't too bad. I'm working on getting the other half down.

We had to travel through a little city called Mandi.

Hey look! A stop light!

I got some decent scenery shots. It still amazes me how you can see layers and layers of mountains if your vantage point is right.

Eventually we arrived in Rewalsar! It's tiiiiiiiiiiny. Another name for this place is Tso Pema; tso means lake and pema is flower or lotus, therefore “lotus lake.” There's a story about the Buddha or someone appearing in the center of the lake, in the center of a lotus. Currently there is a giant Buddha statue here that you can even see from the mountain road across the valley as you come into town.

You know you're in a Tibetan area when you see a wall of prayer flags.