Petty Fighting

From Manali we took a private, very serious quiet van to McLeod Ganj, near Dharamshala. (quiet and serious because nobody talked the whole 7 hours... weird, no?)

As Dave mentioned, Mcleod Ganj is the home of the Dalai Lama and the exiled Tibetan government. It is also the smelliest place we have been in India. Seriously, there was garbage everywhere! However, it was a very cool place, maybe just like Tibet? There was Tibetan food, people, dancers (look forward to more about the dancing), and lots of things to buy with 'Free Tibet!' written on them.

From McLeod we hiked to Triund, a day hike to almost 3000 meters which took a few hours, most of which Dave and I weren't speaking. He was in a BAAAAD mood, and I was tuning him out with my ipod. At the top however, we had a nice chat that started with "I"m sick of you!" "Ya well, I'm sicker of you!" and became friends again. The view from the top was amazing, though it was a bit hazy in the distance. (Dave - On the way back down the mountain I heard nature's call in the worst way but was 12 kms from a functional toilet. Luckily Muirhead was packing a handful of TP. I did the responsible thing and marched off into the forest, up the hillside and found myself a little slice of heaven. I tried to tell Alice all about it but she just turned up the volume on her Ipod and disappeared down the mountain... Correction - Alice would have you believe that she was tuning out my bad mood, but it was in act HER who had been complaining and shitting on EVERYTHING for the past two weeks and if I was in a mood it has to be understood in context!!!!)

The next day, Dave and I went for another walk, this time as friends, to the 'sacred Dal Lake.' It wasn't very far, fortunately, because when we got there, there was no water in the lake. Just a big hollow full of stinky mud. It wasn't a complete waste however, since we were friends that day, and used the time to discuss and solidify our ambitious life plans. I am going to save the world, Dave is rule it.

Now Dave will tell you about the 'traditional Tibetan dancing' we saw- I can't write about it because it's to disturbing to think about.

Well, it went a little something like this... Alice and I were walking along the street one afternoon when a young guy with long hair and a beard wearing cool shades, and a Tibetan flag as a shirt, came up to us and said, "Tonight come see traditional Tibetan dancing at school." We though, "Oh boy! Traditional Tibetan dancing! When are we going to have another chance to see something like this?" So we decided we'd check it out. We were assuming that since it was going to be held at a school for children that perhaps children were going to perform. Wrong! We broke the number one rule of India - lower your expectations... What we found when we arrived was that a small stereo system was plugged into the wall, and there was a sole male dancer - no children. The dancer was the same individual who was promoting the 'traditional dance' on the street. He charged everyone 100 rupees ($2.50 Canadian), and then began the 'show'. It started off alright. He told the story of how he was a Tibetan refugee, and sang a few songs that "weren't so bad", to quote my dear friend Bad Alice. After the songs however, things started to go wrong. Little did we know at the time, it wouldn't be long before we longed for wrong as the show quickly deteriorated into a violent and traumatizing act from which we still have not recovered...

I'm not an expert on very many things, and I can't count traditional Tibetan dancing among them, but I can say with utmost certainty that what Alice and I witnessed was anything but traditional. With the fly of his jeans completely down, and his butt crack showing he at times mimicked an epileptic, writhing on the floor at times in a sexual way. The point where things turned to the lowest depths of depravity was when he spat in his hands, rubbed the spit all over his face, and then put his hands in his pants and started to touch himself. Immediately after rubbing spit all over himself he began grabbing reluctant audience members to pull them into his trance. You might wonder at this point why it was that we didn't leave, and to tell the truth we thought about it, but were paralyzed like cobras charmed by the Indian flute. The room was full of about 15 people at the outset, but when it ended Alice and I were among only a handful who couldn't help themselves to leave. After the show he had the audacity to ask for further donations! I've seen the same moves he 'performed' done by raver kids - moves which included humping and licking the speakers. Awful, but memorable.

Muirhead was literally shaking afterwards, and was on the verge of tears (as usual). She has however recovered and found new and different reasons to cry.

McLeod Ganj wasn't all terrible as Muirhead would have you believe (I think it smelled just as bad as every other place we've been to and I would suggest that it had even less garbage than a number of places!). We stayed an extra day because we found a Japanese restaurant we liked, and Alice found a great Tibetan co-op shop where she found 5 toques she liked (to add to the 3 she bought in Minali).

Leaving MG, we took a public bus to Amritsar - home of the Sikh Golden Temple. The public bus was much more entertaining than the private bus. Of note were a group of Asian girls who were troubled by the fact that they had to put their own bags on the roof of the bus, and even more troubled when the bus started to drive away with them on top. "Shtop da bahs, shtop da bahs!", they cried - to no avail. With each jolt forward a distinct scream was heard from above! We had a good laugh. Don't worry they all made into the bus and safely to our destination. We even saw them in a restaurant the next day. Feewph.

Alice again... to clarify, I am very tolerant of dirt, garbage and general stink, but in MG we stayed in a particularily digusting hotel which felt damp all the time and was infested with mice (not only could you see them, you could hear them in the walls), so my patience for dirt and stink was streched to say the least.