Dharamsala Diary Day 2
After catching up so well on my sleep I was in the mood to make a bit of more today. After figuring out how to turn the hot water on I had a coffee on the terrace.
The place is terrific, the views are incredible and it is big enough for a large family. It feels a little wasted on me, but it is welcome after being in a pretty small apartment in Delhi. It has all mod cons including a 2 en suite bathrooms, a balcony up top pointing into the mountains, a spacious terrace and generously proportioned indoor shrine/dining area. The Shrining room.
I wanted to post something back to England so after several failed attempts in Delhi I steeled myself and headed up hill to the post office here. It’s a quiet walk into town compared to going anywhere in Delhi. There are nearly no tuktuks here. The last time I attempted to send a package they said a needed a copy of my passport photo page, and this time I was ready for them. This time they said they needed 3 copies, and they did not have photocopying facilities and furthermore they had no idea where such a thing could be achieved. I walked up the road and soon found a shop with PHOTOSTAT emblazoned across its frontage. Eventually with the help of a whole village I managed to post something. I returned to be told I needed to provide my own sellotape to attach the copies of my passport to the packages, had I brought a pen etc etc. 5 or 6 visits to 3 post offices in 2 states later there’s half a chance I might have succeeded. They did at least finally take both a surprising amount of money and the parcels.
I walked another half an hour up hill to the DHARAMSHALA SKYWAY — a Cable car that runs between Dharamsala and Mcleod Ganj.
This is an extremely good way to travel up hill. You get ejected right in the centre of Mcleod Ganj on the main shopping thoroughfare. The place is bustling; there is a happy mix of Indian tourists, Buddhist monks, very white mountain yoga hippies, and bald men in England cricket tops.
A Kangra valley tea shop caught my eye. I was a bit surprised yesterday, having come to one of the worlds premier tea growing areas, to be met with a bag of Tetley’s so I was happy to embark on a tasting of green and black teas and a white peony tea all from the valley. Really fresh tasting and the man on the shop was really knowledgeable. So much commodity tea is consumed as chai here, it can be harder than I expected to get the good stuff. I had an Aloo Paratha chaser and elected to walk it off (up hill) by heading for Bhagsunag Waterfall.
The walk is mostly on a laid stone path which is breaking up badly in places. It was not particularly steep but it was a steady gradient and sometimes a bit challenging underfoot. It’s quite distressing the amount of litter and plastic waste that is strewn about the place. There’s a lot of litter in Delhi but it feels like more of a crime up a mountain. There are a lot of bins as well.
It is about 2km from the Gurkha temple at Bhagsunag to the the falls, and there must be a dozen assorted chai wale, snack vendors, and buskers plus a man selling photos with his rabbit for 30 rupees a go. It’s an interesting walk and a relief to find there is some water in the falls, it is apparently not always so at this time of year, and it would have been a bit of a let down to go there and look at a rock and a puddle. As it is there are people frolicking and there is of course yet another cafe with a promise of one even further up hill (no thanks).
It’s good views back down the valley as well. The area is popular with outdoor adventure type pursuits and as well as paragliding and so on there is a chap riding a bicycle across a zip line which did rather catch the eye.
Not for me. I walked DOWN HILL to Mcleod Ganj, had another Paratha for the road, hopped on the cable car (views of the cricket stadium on the way back), then walked DOWN HILL all the way back to the apartment. I briefly stuck my head in the post office on the way to buy some stamps for postcards but there was such a scrum I couldn’t hack it. A restful late afternoon getting ready for for going to the cricket tomorrow, taking care of laundry, getting breakfast in (I have yet to make my own breakfast in India) and so on. I have no plans to turn this into a cricket blog so I expect updates to be mercifully brief and to the point for the next few days!
