McLeodganj

Mcloed Ganj,

Steep roads winding their way through tall buildings. Crowed shops selling many assortments of Tibetan sculptures and jewellery. Every morning at around seven, I wake to the clickerty clack of pack ponies, mules and donkeys, with their little bells tinkling as they jog up the steep lanes to building sites. The concrete and bricks they carry, will make the older pack ponies, mules and donkeys legs bend inwards.

This morning instead of the ponies we all were awoken to the sound of a conch shell, a Tibetan funeral procession. Antoinette's friend has passed away. The horn kept on blowing as the men carried Yangke's body away. Behind the men carrying Yangke's body bound in white cloth, all the monks and friends and relatives. At the end of the possession came a small monk (I think could have been a Nun!) His/her maroon robes stood out in my mind.

Our porch looks out over the mountainous landscapes. Just outside our gate and a few metres down is a small shop, where we buy toilet paper and water. The shop owner's son rides on a little toddler's bike with no seat. He rides just past our balcony and does a half circle burn out (or high speed hind quarter yield!), then he rides back past his Dad's shop and does another burn out and then rides back again... over and over! He is riding his bike now, I can hear its flat tyre.

At the end of our road is the main street. Cows, people, jeeps, taxis, donkeys and bikes crowd the small road. There must be four or five internet cafes on that one street alone. That's kind of cool because it means we get free internet if we buy a shake or a tea. Lunch is later than in Australia, at one or two. Dinner is at eight or nine depending on whether you're on a train!

Just down the hill from Mcloed is Dharaamsala. There are two main streets, one has the road full of honking taxis and the other is having road works. Sitting in all her glamour is a poor lady down a hole. She is covered in grey dust from the concrete. She yells something in Hindi to a boy working further up and looks at me. Expressionless. She does not smile back when I smile at her, she must be too tired. Turning a corner from the street with road work we come to a street full of shops selling cloth for Salwai Kemeez. As we walk along the road I can smell the sewerage. Not a very nice thing to smell when your trying to look at patterns and the colours of Salwai Kemeez to be...

Frances

Pickpockets in India!

We boarded the Rajdhani Express at Madgaon, Goa, bound for Delhi. Previous blogs captured some of this, but not the following:

We picked up our bags from the cloak room at Old Delhi station, and headed towards platform 1A, where we were due to catch the Jammus mail for Pathankot, and thence McLeodGanj. In the maelstrom of people, platforms, announcements, goods, officials, vendors, signs, and (so it seemed) general mayhem Camille and Frances forged ahead with their full load of backpacks and sundry; Abbey and I fell behind, with me trailing directly behind her, assisting with her backpack. A younger fellow pushed against Abbey, and as it was shoulder to shoulder in the throng, I let it go by, but was a little alerted to my previous warnings (and station signs) mentioning pickpockets and the like. But then he was unnecessarily pushing into her. I prodded Abbey ahead, and shouldered past the lad. Undeterred, he then walked in front of Abbey and slowed his pace, forcing Abbey, then myself, to slow down. My focus concentrated on this lad (in hindsight, the tactic) and once again, I shoved ahead. Then from the corner of my eye, observed the lad's partners in crime approaching my backpacks and guilded, unprotected pockets (apart from their depth...). So once again, with more urgency, I shoved Abbey and her procrastinator ahead, found some clear air and shook the would be thieves off, offering to them one and all one of my infamous nasty looks, and a cry and steely determination to catch up with Camille and Frances. We caught up, told our little tale, with Frances reporting that she had seen these fellows checking us out near the cloak room; no doubt targetting us due to the amount of guff we were carrying, and the formation of our little intrepid group, and the hurly burly of a busy time at the station. So we survived our first (beknownst to us) pickpocket attempt!

Gerard