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.

Travel Plans

Tibet Charity has been abuzz with activity lately. We have had a few new teachers arrive in the last few weeks, and supposedly there are more scheduled to get here soon. This Saturday some of the teachers are going on a day trip with the Director of Tibet Charity to a (semi-) local Tibetan settlement called Bir, as well as a school and at least one temple and/or monastery. Next week His Holiness is holding another teaching at the temple in town, so we don't have classes.

We foreign English teachers decided that sounded like a good time for a road trip. When I first decided to come to India to teach, I planned on that being all I did here. I figured I haven't really traveled before, and GOING TO INDIA was a pretty big trip in itself, so I could just chill and focus on teaching. Once I got settled in, though (and talked to some people), I started thinking it might be nice to travel a bit myself. India's a pretty big place, and the mountains here in Himachal (the state where Dharamsala is located) are not representative of the entire country.

So anyway, there are “holidays” planned. I'm nearly halfway through my stay here already! Can you believe it? It's looking more and more like the second half is going to be busy, too. September has just flown by, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if October and November do the same.

Earlier Gustie (Augustine), a teacher who arrived a couple of weeks ago from Austria, came in to lunch telling us that the police had made all the Tibetans on Temple Road dismantle their street stalls, because apparently they lacked the required permits to be there. It seemed strange; the street vendors are a huge part of the scenery around here. Besides, I don't imagine most of these people make a ton of money anyway; they are just trying to take advantage of the fact that they live in a popular tourist destination and support their families.

After class, I figured I'd go into town to check it out. I wanted to use the internet anyway.

It's so weird. Normally the street is lined with stall after stall after stall of people selling jewelry, or miniature prayer wheels, or little statues of the Buddha, or clothing, or artwork..... and now....... they're all gone. It's almost like a ghost town. I noticed things that had been hidden behind them this whole time, like a gazebo I didn't know even existed. Peering down the side of the mountain I could see the frames of stalls, tables, tarps... it's like in their haste to dismantle their property before it was seized by the cops they just tossed everything down the mountain. I'm curious to see how long it takes everyone to rebuild.

I only threw up twice

After yesterday's all-day excursion to Triund, we were feeling a little skeptical as to whether we'd want to spend another entire day running around. We had planned to visit the church in town just because it's there, and then we'd hire a taxi driver for the day and visit the Kangra Fort, the Masroor rock temple, and some hot springs that are on the way.

We wound up doing all of it. This morning Marie and I went to meet Suzanne for coffee.

Then we got picked up and went to church. We weren't supposed to take photos inside but I managed to snap this one anyway.

There were about 50 people in attendance, a mix of westerners and Indians, and a few who looked to be Tibetan. The church itself was a rather nice old building: stone walls, a wooden roof with a tarp covering part of it outside, and really, really bright CFLs in all the light fixtures. There were Christmas lights around the stained glass window; in true xmas light fashion, half of them stayed lit the whole time while the other half cycled through blinking patterns. Why do they always do that? Can't anyone figure out how to get them all doing the same thing?

The sermon was about Abraham and the whole sacrificing his son thing. The preacher talked about how Abraham was able to have a son at 99 years of age and then be willing to kill him "because he had great faith"; the most disturbing part of this for me was how it was said with a smile. That and some of the other things that were pointed out to us today were perfect examples of what the book I'mreading has to say about, and I'll be gentle here, the dark side of monotheism. Nevermind thinking for yourself, just repeat what we say and don't question it. Faith is better than reason.

I could have stuck around and took notes on the brainwashing a little longer, but Marie had had enough so we left after about 45 minutes. The taxi driver picked us up and we headed out.

We'd made it about 20 minutes before I started really feeling the effects of the winding roads out of the mountain. I don't get motion sickness easily (I'm one of those people who usually has no problem reading in the car), but I had some on the initial bus ride up from Delhi, and I definitely felt it as we made our way toward the Kangra valley.

Eventually I made my way up to the front seat because the general consensus was that it would affect me less there. You know, though, how once you feel nauseous you can't always shake it until you actually throw up? I had that going on. Or at least I thought I did. We got to the hot springs and so I got a bit of a respite.

They really were warm, like bath water!

Then it was back in the car for another hour-plus. My personal nausea situation went from bad to worse, and once we stopped the car at the rock temple I got out and spent a few minutes vomiting off the side of the road. As tends to be the case, I felt much better once I'd gotten it out of my system and had a little water.

Ruler of all I survey.

This shrine looked like the dolls/statues/whatever in it had real shrunken heads... like they were someone's actual mummified remains. O.o

I spotted a few of these little guys chilling on the rocks.

The view from atop the temple.

There are always dogs around! These ones were quite friendly.

After an hour or so at the very cool, very big, very old rock temple, we had a snack of fruit and headed out to the fort. I did have to stop the driver one more time somewhere in between so I could get out and hurl again. I kept thinking of Garth's famous line; eventually I just couldn't hold it anymore and gave in. So it goes. The combination of the heat (it was probably around 90 in the valley), the constant sharp hairpin turns, and the fact that all the taxi drivers in India seem to drive in such a way that they accelerate, then brake hard at the last second, and take turns very, very tightly – over and over and over again for the entire trip, no matter how far you're going – made for a veritable trifecta of misery for our otherwise spunky heroine.

Whatever. By the time I really felt sick it was too late to go back, so I just stuck it out like a big girl. I didn't even cry. (Though at one point I did seriously consider it.) Brij even commended me later for “manning up” when it would no doubt have been much easier to wuss out, which I took as quite a compliment.

Behold: the Kangra Fort!

Whee, fountain!

Verity listening to some Kangra Fort history.

A little altar to Shiva.

Arrow slits.

Apparently we hadn't even made it inside the actual fort yet!

Oooh, ahhh...

A carving of (for?) Lakshmi that took 10 years to sculpt. It's also part of the restorations that are happening at the fort.

The courtyard on the roof of the fort.

There was a little ledge outside one of these windows where you could perch like Altair or Ezio... the only thing missing was a haystack on the ground below. Yes, that was the first thing I thought when I saw it.

I reeeeeeeally wanted to go for a swim.

Go ahead and try to tell me this isn't one of the most beautiful scenes you've ever seen. I dare you.

We all survived the fort and the trip back to Dharamsala was quick and easy, and I didn't have any further issues. I even managed to finally get some food to stay in my stomach more than a couple of hours. Victory!

Lesson learned: if you are either prone to motion sickness or have never traveled much in the mountains, do yourself a favor and take prophylactic measures if you are planning such a trip. I'm going to stock up on peppermint, ginger, a bottle or two of pop, and probably even some OTC anti-nausea stuff just in case. I've got some trips planned and I don't want to be “that person” who makes the driver pull over every hour because she can't handle it.

Other recommendations are gladly accepted! What works for you?

In any case... Bring it on, Dhauladhar mountains. I see what I'm up against and you won't catch me unprepared next time.