A Change in Plans

Sunday, July 12, 2009--Dharamsala

This town is full of tourists. It is probably nicer (quieter) on weekdays, because many of the tourists are Indians who are here. It is difficult walking anywhere due to the number of people and cars in the streets.

The weather is damp with occasional rain or drizzle. Mostly, however, it is just damp feeling air. And the air is cool--sooooo cool in comparison to what it was like in Amritsar and Agra!

I am spending most of my time relaxing. I am reading a lot while sitting on my balcony looking toward the mountains. I also go inside and watch the news on BBC a couple of times a day. And almost every afternoon, I nap for a little while. It is nice to be lazy! Around noon each day, I go into town to walk a bit and to find a place to have lunch. Today, I had vegetable momos (dumplings)in soup and drank lassi for my lunch.

The Internet connection here in town is slow and frustrating. But I have found no one who can tell me of a better place. Therefore, I am just avoiding being online while here.

I returned to The Chocolate Log today for more dessert and a coffee. This time I tried the eggless chocolate cake. That was my father's favorite dessert, and my mother cooked it for his birthday each year. The version here was very good.

It turned into Momo Day for me. I had another style of them for my dinner. This time, I had spinach-cheese momos. They were so rich that I could barely finish them!

Monday, July 13, 2009--Dharamsala

I walked on trails through the mountains this morning. I stopped at two monasteries, including the big one that is the center for Tibetan Buddhism here in India. There are monks everywhere here in Dharamsala, and many of them are older and rounded so that they resemble the Dalai Lama.

I ate dumplings again. This time, I bought them on the street from a Tibetan lady. She had a hot sauce she had been spooning on them. When she served mine, however, she just put a drop of the hot sauce on each dumpling. She assumed I was the typical tourist who does not like spicy food. I asked for more, and I ate every bite of the momos and the sauce. Ummmm. But my lips and my tongue were tingling! Before returning to the room, I stopped at a bakery and bought a cinnamon roll to eat while strolling down the street.

I spent the rest of the day in my guest house doing the things I have been doing each day. In the evening, I went upstairs and ordered mixed vegetables in curry along with two chapatis and a lassi. I ate that while visiting with a nice Australian student of cultural anthropology. He has been traveling for 1 1/2 years. Now he is returning to the university to finish his studies and says he has a better idea of what he wants to do with the degree after having traveled so much.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009--Dharamsala to Chandigarh

I was up at 6:20, caught a local shared jeep to Lower Dharamsala, and took a bus from there to Chandigarh leaving at 8:30. A nice Tibetan student was taking the bus, too, and we visited while we waited. He is studying computer science at the university in Chandigarh.

I turned into a terrible day:

1. The bus ride was difficult. There were poor roads that were often one-lane and very rough. The roads twisted and winded as we were coming down the mountains. At one point, I could see a bus from Delhi that had run off the road and tumbled over at least twice before landing on its crushed roof. People had to have died in that crash, I think.

2. There was lots of rain. It just kept coming, and coming hard. The windshield wiper either didn't work or was not being used by the driver. (Indians often "save" their windshield wipers and their lights and drive without them.)

3. When I arrived in Chandigarh, I had problems finding a place to stay. There were no decent hotels at a reasonable price. First, the bus stand was far out of town. The cycle rickshaw driver quoted me a price to go to one hotel, then he was upset and wanted more when we got there and fussed when I only gave him 8% more. (He had wanted 33% more.) Then that hotel was twice what I had read it would be and twice what my upper limit usually is for hotels in India. They sent me four LONG blocks away to another place walking. It had no private rooms available. In the area, I checked with 3 other hotels that all wanted about 3 times what I normally pay elsewhere in India for similar rooms. I had intended to stay in this city for 4 nights! I finally found an inexpensive place, but I had to pay 400 rupees for it, and it was of a quality of a place that should have been 150 rupees. I am not sure that the sheets were clean. The mattresses were definitely worn. When I went into the bath at night, there were small cockroaches that ran when I turned on the light. And the room was stifling even though I had the ceiling fan on high. I slept on top of the sheets in my clothes and used my backpack as a pillow rather than use the pillows that looked dirty.

I went to the inner-city bus station and discovered they have buses leaving there for Delhi every few minutes day and night. So before going to bed, I decided I would sleep in the bad room and leave early. While out, I bought some street food--a spicy mixture of onions, tomatoes, and garbonza beans. It was delicious and satisfied me for the evening.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009--Chandigarh to Delhi

I awoke at 5:30 and checked out of the horrible hotel. I caught a bus at 6:00 for Delhi. It was a difficult ride, because the driver would not allow luggage to be stacked to the side at the front as other bus drivers do. I had to keep my bag in the aisle beside me. That meant I had to worry the whole trip about people having to step over and around it.

After that, however, everything seemed to go my way:

1. When we exited for the bus stand here in Delhi, some people got up to exit. I did, too. But when we stepped off, we had not stopped at the bus stand, and I was not sure where the bus stand would be. But there were auto-rickshaws and a fixed-price stand selling prepaid tickets. It was only 105 rupees to go all the way to my hotel from there. And it was about a 45-minute ride. I doubt if it would have been so easy from the bus stand!

2. My hotel where I stayed before (clean, cool, and convenient) had a room available, so I checked in. I took a shower and shaved.

3. I stopped by my usual restaurant and had a great lunch of beans and lentils with chapati and a lassi.

4. I went to the Turkish Airlines office to see if I could take the flight tonight rather than wait until Sunday. There were seats available, so my ticket was changed and I was assigned a very good seat on the flight.

5. Now I am at the Internet Cafe catching up on everything. It's a good connection, and the power is on!

When I leave here, I will go back to my room. I'll watch the news and sleep until midnight. Then I will leave for the airport around 00:30. My flight to Istanbul will leave at 04:20. Tomorrow morning, I will be in Europe instead of India. In fact, this is probably the last time I will ever be in India since the cost of the visa is high and my interest in the country has continued to wear down year after year. I like the people as individuals and I like the food. But I greatly dislike much of their society and culture.

This change in schedule will give me 4 extra days in eastern Europe to visit the countries I will see there. That will probably work to my advantage. Of course, they will be more expensive days than they would have been here in India, but they should be happier days, too. I will still arrive in Copenhagen as scheduled on Sept. 3.

Future Updates: I am not sure how easy it will be to get onto computers in the countries I will be visiting for the next 7 weeks. If I go 5-6 days with no entries, don't worry. It will just mean that cyber cafes are unavailable or are priced so high that I want to just wait.