The Kalsang is precariously placed about 50 feet above one of the narrow alleyways that serve for streets here, on the side of a mountain above town. There's a balcony outside my door that gives a panoramic vista of the town as well as the valley far below and the mountains to the north (we're a third of the way up a 14,000 foot mountain, and Triund looms above us – a plateau at 9,000 feet). In the dark the sky above is full of stars – most I haven’t seen in years due to the light pollution in San Francisco. The mountains are looming shadows to the north, the town a set of lights, stretches out below me and the Kangra river valley is lost in the mists below.
To the street below.
Wandering the streets in the darkness of the town, I came across a pack of dogs - they barked and snarled and looked viscous as they checked me out, but I hushed them and they came up tails wagging. One of them was a mother dog, still nursing, and she has 2 pups - latter in the afternoon I saw her and her pups more clearly, and their father lying in the street right next to them. Apparently the only dogs that people actually own are little fluffy white dogs – breed unknown – every other dog is a free agent on the streets.
His Holiness was to give a puja (a cleansing ritual) at 6 AM, so I decided to follow the monastics down the otherwise deserted alleyways to the temple and see where it was. The alleys, which last night had been bustling with street merchants, vendors, and beggars, were abandoned except for the monastics and a few Europeans that were also out.
I walked the 2 KM or so to the temple, but didn't go in because I didn't have my pass yet (more about that later). So I got some Tibetan bread from a street merchant (sort of like an oversized English muffin) and headed back. They’ve set up just inside the main Temple Gates – a tarp strung up across the cooking area – they have bread and the makings for soups that they assemble at the last moment when you order. The shops were starting to open - I saw one where a family of 10 or so had rolled out of their shop and they were all bathing and cooking breakfast in the street outside their shop.
I spent most of the day today standing in a little antechamber outside the Tibetan security office waiting to get my pass to His Holiness' talk starting tomorrow. We'd been told that they would open at 9 AM, and they finally turned up at a quarter to 1 in the afternoon. Lot's of fun talking with the assorted trekkers, college kids and WAY serious dharma bums that showed up to this teaching. Everyone was pretty good about the uncertainty and the tight quarters. And we could come and go (bathroom breaks, coffee / tea runs etc.) since 9 of us were on line together.
A bathroom break and lunch break reminded me that today is Holly – there are many young (teens and early twenties) Hindis running around throwing colors on people. Up here they’re civilized about it – they ask and respect it if you have a firm “no” in response, but a moment’s hesitation and you’re covered with Pinks and Yellows and Reds (lots of red). Irena (from Switzerland – she and 3 of her friends are right behind us in line and has accompanied me to the bathroom and in search of food) places her hands in Namaste and shakes her head no – “please, please – no thank you”. Annie, one of my party, is less fortunate – she apparently said OK to one young man, and was plastered by several – but her face looks cool in its multi-colored splendor. We return to the line with papayas, bananas, lime to squeeze over them, momos (little steamed pot stickers with blazing hot sauce to dip in) and chais from the Sunrise Café across the street.
Finally one person showed up and processed applications - since I was about 7th in line (the line was about 800 people in all stretching down the street) I was out pretty quickly. I was a little worried that my passport photo wasn’t standard sized (as I’d made them myself), but I needn’t have worried; the security officer simply cut out a silhouette and pasted it to my badge, stapling the other to my application. Rs 5 later I emerged, the proud owner of the right to enter the teachings tomorrow.
The rest of the day went quickly - a trip to the temple to stake out a place to sit (mostly taping pieces of scrounged cardboard with our names written on them to the thin reed mats that have been rolled out over the concrete floor), circumambulating the temple (or doing the kora as it’s called) and dinner.
Annie got creamed by the Holly partiers– the color took a couple of days to come off, but her outside matched her inside disposition for days following Holly.
Dinner seems to be a trial – I guess in every group there’s someone who HAS to lead – ours seems to have 2 or three, who vie for the right to select where we’ll go, and when. We’re still new to the locale, so we cluster together this evening (safety in numbers?) and go in search of a place to eat. Lonely Planet says the Snow Lion or the Shangri-La are good places (they’re also right next to each other on Middle Way (or Cow Poop Alley as we take to calling it after the obvious…) so we head out en masse for them. After checking them both out, and discovering neither of them can handle a party of our size, we split into two groups for dinner, and I eat in the Shangri-La. I can say now, after the trip, that this was about the best restaurant in the town for Tibetan fare. Run by monks from a monastery, it’s homey, pictures of His Holiness and the Karmapa and other incarnations of the Pachen Lama hang on the wall above diners, and monks bring out your servings as they’re prepared – which can lead to a rather prolonged dining experience, and eating cold food if you don’t dig in right when your plate (or bowl) is given to you.
After dinner I go in search of a zafu (meditation cushion) to bring down to the temple for sitting, but only find some thin square cushions (nice colors in reds and purples, lousy for a sit though). I buy two (RS 90 apiece) to carry down tomorrow. It isn’t until day 10 or so that I find an honest to goodness zafu with carry handle (RS 120) on the side of Temple road after forgetting to bring my cushions that day.
Tomorrow the teachings start around 1 PM - we're going to try and get there early to have a place to sit. Later this week I'll probably hike up into the Himalayas (I hear there's a glacier within a day trek from here)
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