The Whistle Blower

Hey Folks!
The last few days have been wild. India continues to stretch my
ideas of reality...
Been invited to teas with senior Buddhist monks curious about
this Western visitor... Had amazing conversations about the
world, spirituality, the affairs of nations...
Visited amazing monastery in the nearby mountains, home to the
17th Karmapa. Shared rice with the monks there and attended
their afternoon puja ceremony.
Hiked to the base of a huge waterfall outside a small mountain
village called Bhagsu-Nag. Baptized myself in the waters...
On the way back from the falls, I came upon a really old, trippy
Hindu temple frequented by a very small community of local,
rural Hindus. Three sadhus run the place and live in an
adjacent brick cave. I sat and meditated with these guys in
their brick, dirt floor, house cave for a while. The vibe was
intense! Suddenly, somebody began ringing this bell and the
sadhus joined in with gongs and drums. I grabbed a pair of
large hand cymbals and we were off on a 20 minute jam session
followed by chanting. This was no nice neat cozy temple with
shiny instruments. This was an ancient cave with incense
burning, old pots of rice cooking, piles of blankets lying
around, and ocassional scurrying mice.... Time and year
dissolve amidst this stuff...
The birthday celebration of the Dalai Lama was filled with
Tibetan and Indian music, dance, and festivities, and was
something special to witness. It began with dawn chanting and
went until about 1:00 p.m. I realized that the day I arrived
was the birthday of Guru Padma Sumbawa, one of the ancient
teachers who brought Buddhism to Tibet, thus the festival I
experienced upon arriving was in his memory. And now I depart,
later this afternoon, on the birthday of His Holiness. Trying
to dissect the meaning, but I think it's un-dissectable.
Dig this...
The hip hang-out in Dharamsala seems to be a place called Om
Restaurant and Hotel. It sports a roof-top terrace with outdoor
tables looking down thousands of feet into the Kangra Valley.
It's also one of the more reliable restaurants in the village
when it comes to clean and healthy food. It's owned by a
Tibetan Buddhist family, the restaurant is all vegetarian, and
they don't serve any alcohol. It's a cool place where Western
travelers gather and swap stories about their journeys through
India. It seems that most everyone has a Delhi story or two.
Since getting to Dharamsala is quite a feat in itself, some of
the stories are about nightmare bus rides like the one I shared
a while back. One of the most intense India travel stories I've
heard so far is about a route into Dharamsala from another
village in the north. This route involves travel through one of
the highest motorable roads in the world. Apparently, the road
is so poor and narrow that many busses have driven off the edge,
tumbling thousands of feet into the mountainous gorge below.
Some travelers reported that on this particular nightmare bus
ride, the bus company (and these are usually pretty run-down
busses) perched an Indian man on the roof of the bus with a
whistle. Every time the wheels of the bus got so close to the
edge of the road that the bus was in danger of falling into the
ravine, the man blew the whislte, notifying the driver that they
were all about to die if he didn't turn inward. (No guardrails
around here, folks.) People on the bus were all freaked out and
nearly had heart attacks every time the man blew the whistle,
which was a lot! It's no surprise that travelers usually only
do this route one way. If they make it, they choose alternate
routes, or jeep travel rather than bus, for their return.
How's this for a bit of info: The Tibetan waitresses who work in
the restaurant earn about 6 cents per hour!
So what's my plan? I'm leaving shortly by local bus for a four
hour + journey through the mountains to a town called
Pathankott. From there I'll get an overnight train to
Rishikesh. I'll keep you posted as I am able to, but I'll
definitely be off-line for a while. Wish me luck, I don't know
if my bus will have a whislte blower or not. Hopefully, I've
soaked up enough of this sweet Buddhist peace to carry me
through the next phase of my travels. It's hard to leave
here... the peace of the mountains... the serenity of the
monks... but other parts of India call.
Namaste!
Blessings!
Ari