Dharamsala & McLeod Ganj

Well, it was finally time for me to do some highly awaited trekking (and highly needed - thanks to Indian food) in these beckoning mountains, and to finally see the one place in India I had been waiting so long to get to. The place that started it all, that motivated me to come to this country in the first place! None other than...Dharamsala, the humble abode in exile of the Dalai Lama.

Well, it wasn't so much humble, and it was definitely overhyped - like huge tourist attractions are wont to be sometimes - and technically the Tibetan colony is actually in McLeod Ganj, and I had discovered other places in India that appealed to me more, and and and... BUUUUT still; without my seeing Seven Years in Tibet, I probably would not have discovered India. That movie drove me to see the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala. And in the meantime, I fell in love with a whole country, so much so that the anticipation for this particular place faded somewhat.

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So after my 3-day crash course on Buddhism, Vishal had promised to take me on a hike on his day off. I had to choose between a more difficult, less frequented trek, or a somewhat easier, more touristy one close to McLeod. I ended up picking the easier one because my shape was...somewhere between a samosa and a puri...

So we went on his motorbike to McLeod Ganj. Along the way, the wind in my hair, the view of the snow-capped mountains, the distant lightning flashes...were all leaving me with a huge grin on my face. Nothing like being on a bike in a Himalayan thunderstorm.

We arrived and stocked up on goodies. I had apparently forgotten how it is to hike, because I brought a bag-full of random food that I only took for the ride and didn't end up eating. We made our way slowly up the trek to Triund, the most popular in the area, meeting people along the way. First, an older foreign man so in shape that he would pass us several times on the way up while waiting for his friends to catch up. "Wait till you see my daily regimen!", he told me as I laughed.

We then stopped for chai in a tent closer to the top. The view was breathtaking, the whole place had an incredible vibe to it, away from the incessant honking and noise below (as India will be India even in small mountain towns). There, we met a French girl and a dog on their way down. She recommended a good hostel in McLeod (I was looking to stay for a few days in McLeod after my stay in Palampur). The beautiful huge dog belonged to the hostel apparently, and was used to hiking with travellers. They had camped at the top the previous night with some other travellers she met at the hostel.

Back on our way to the top, scattered rain and drizzle tried to discourage us from the ascent. And then...SNOW! :D Patches here and there in valleys hidden from the sunlight.

And I was soooo incredibly out of shape! Vishal patiently put up with my slow pace, although I'm sure I caught him yawning several times. Every now and then he would feed me a clementine along the way, ask interesting questions, and encourage me to keep going.

Sure enough, eventually - after more hours than estimated by Vishal :P - SUMMIT! Well, not quite, but the end of our trek, the first base for more serious potential treks. The view was stupendous! There were some tents and chai shops up there, along with a few groups of people we had met on the way up. We all amassed under one tiny chai shop roof, and just in time as it started to pour. 

Vishal knew the owner, Sunil, and started a conversation with him and some other local guys, while Sunil cooked up some Maggi for us. The foreigners were sitting together outside, also having their own conversations. I was stuck in between, not understanding enough Hindi to chat with the locals, and not feeling very comfortable with certain kinds of foreign travellers either (the obnoxious kind mostly). So I sat quietly and sipped my chai, waiting for my clothes to dry off.

As the rain came to a halt, I went outside to take some photos. I couldn't take my eyes off this landscape! Snowy Indrahar (which apparently you can climb and pass over), the distant valleys lit up by lightning... As most of the travellers soon went back down, I started talking a bit more with Sunil, some of his friends, and a hippie Romanian chick I discovered living behind some curtains, haha! I also found out from one of them that the Dalai Lama had just given a talk and I missed it! The next one would be in a month and I would likely not be there anymore :(

The Romanian girl was the most inspiring person I met there. She had arrived at Triund in the winter and stayed some time, then came back later and "lived" there for a bit, helping out with the daily needs - fetching water from the river and hiking back up with it, cooking... A sort of unoffical CouchSurfing-meets-WWOOFing perhaps. It gave me tremendous urges for doing something like that. Deeper into the wild, being with shepherds, living on mountains, roughing it out! The desire for adventure and spontaneity was overwhelming. I didn't know where and how to start. I mean, sure, I've done some crazy things, but still there is always fear at the back of my mind which prevents me from really getting out of my comfort zone sometimes...

At some point, we had to say our goodbyes and start our descent - Vishal and I still had a ride to Palampur awaiting us after the descent. "Don't worry, you will fly back down now", said Sunil as he handed me the joint one last time. And so we were on our way, with another French guy that tagged along asking too many questions. I don't remember much of the speedy descent, except that the sunset was breathtaking, and that Vishal and I both had the same Mumford & Sons song stuck in our minds.

Unfortunately, we reached the bottom as it got dark, so we decided to spend the night in McLeod and ride back to Palampur in the morning. We celebrated our trek with dinner at a famous rooftop restaurant. I was feeling nostalgic for South India, so I had masala dosa :P

Photos: McLeod Ganj