McLeod Ganj

Woohoo! I have left crazy busy India and entered Tibet! Well, not really but it feels a million miles from the madness of India, and since India has made me so sick, I'm going to think of my new location as being in Tibet.

I've arrived in McLeod Ganj - home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Gov. in exile. It is full of Tibetans! I arrived at 6am, just as it was starting to get light, and took the first room i could find - i was absolutely exhausted after travelling all night. Shiva guest house is in Dharamkot, a small town 15min walk up a step hill through woods along small paths. The house has only 5 rooms and a small outhouse with a squat toilet and a semi-hot shower.

I slept til midday then walked down to the village, which has two main streets, temple road (which leads to the Dalai Lamas residence) and the street parallel to it. It's full of Tibetan restaurants and shops selling blankets, clothes and all sorts of stuff. I love it! There aren't many cars to make loads of noise and the people don't shout at you to buy stuff! It's like they've actually seen foreigners before!!

So tomorrow I've signed up for a Tibetan cooking course and I'm gonna learn how to make momo's. And on Monday I've volunteered to help out at the Tibetan refugee association by joining the conversational English class and talking to Tibetans to help to improve their English.

And i found the place that I'm doing my "Introduction to Buddhism" course and it is lovely. I've taken some books out the library and have started reading 7years in Tibet.

Things are looking up!