McLeodganj

The home of the Dalai Lama - a mini Tibet in the foothills of the Indian Himalaya. It was was a shock compared to Muslim Kashmir, as I have managed to travel between two ethnic minority areas without experiencing 'India' in between. There are also MANY foreigners here, of the hippy/yoga/Buddhist variety, many seem to live here full time. Which means the streets are cleaner, there are lots of bakeries selling great cakes, and Tibetan food is heavily featured on menus (unlike the Indian tourist dominated Kashmir where the local meat based food was very hard to find), there are volunteer groups/street cleaning/yoga classes everywhere, and people have the most irritating conversations, aarrgggg!!!

The one volunteer organization i knew about before i arrived - mountain cleaners - which tries to educate the locals about littering, and organises clean ups of the mountains, leave on Mondays at 10am...which i found at at 10.30am when i turned up. Bloody typical! But I actually ran into them the next day while climbing in the hills, and was able to help out a bit, although as i ended up leaving my bottle of water behind somewhere, i am not sure how much help i was! The climb was great though, in some parts through wild rhododendron forests, and for some reason, the entire mountain was covered with lady-birds.. i have never seen so many!!!! It rained on the way home though, but know i know to but my day-bag under my waterproof jacket and so nothing was too soggy.

I did manage to find some volunteering to do though, and I am very glad i did it. There are a number of political prisoners who have managed to escape from Tibet, and they are looked after for a year by the Gu Chu Sum Movement (which also has a great Japanese restaurant attached, with all profits aiding the movement). They run daily English conversation classes, and I attended two of them. It was nice to be able to finally use some of the skills I have picked up - they are learning English both as a means to get employment, and to help tell their messages to the world. First guy i spoke with now had no use in his left arm after being shot at a protest, and forcing him to spend a year hiding in the mountains with no medical help. He finally made it to Nepal and then India, and his two daughters were smuggled over as well, although he had to leave his wife behind.

Tibetan food is rather simular to Chinese food (well, the stuff here anyway), the stable being Momos - a small dumpling type dish - as well as lovely but SPICY noodles.

Visited the museum, attached to the main temple complex - where you can see Tibetan monks debating theology every day, very interesting (it involves clapping and stamping feet) - and it was suitably sobering. Especially the video documentary that had footage of current Chinese abuses in the country. It also made me realise that i know very little about the situation, and i will certainly read up more about it, along with Kashmir, when i get home. At least one of them will probably come up on my course.

Had a disappointing Udon at the Japanese restaurant, but the custard doughnut made up for it! I cant stop shopping here, but its all stuff i need, its cheap, it conforms with my goal to only wear natural fabrics AND it helps Tibetan refugees.

The town looks down upon the Indian plains, and watched a storm happening down there...first time ive seen a storm from above before..the lightning looked like fireworks, very cool.

I really enjoyed my time here - everyone seems busy either learning or helping, and did i mention the food and shopping is great?! I could see myself coming back here for a longer time to do some more constructive volunteering.