quarter break (subtitled: high on the mountain top)

a few weeks ago, in celebration of quarter break, cole, our friend brian and i made the 15+ hour sojourn to dharamshala. dharamsala, situated in the himalayan mountains, is nothing short of magical. home to the exiled dalai lama, dharamsala boasts a large, friendly tibetan community, breath-taking mountain views, wonderful cafes with mountain air flowing through the windows and bob marley playing on the stereo and delicious italian food (if you think i am a sell-out for eating italian in india, you do not understand the culinary cravings that result from being abroad for an extended period of time).

the shop owners, completely opposite from the pushy vendors in much of india, often offered tea; one man (pictured with some of his textiles) asked me to eat lunch with his wife and son, who bring lunch to his shop daily. the beggars in dharamsala are much different than those in larger indian cities. rather than asking for money, they desire something much more basic—food. while i purchased milk for the mother with beautiful eyes and her baby, the little girl held my hand in the store they would not have been allowed to enter unaccompanied by a foreigner.

while at the buddhist monastery where the dalai lama lives i met a woman (pictured below) selling lucky bracelets. a group of indian men offered to buy me a bracelet out of kindness (also pictured below) and then asked if i would pose for a souvenir photograph. i loved returning to a buddhist community after being surrounded by buddhism and monks in saffron robes for 2 ½ months in thailand. let’s face it—buddhism rocks.

cole, brian and i also spent a day hiking to the snow line in the himalayas. during our approximately 10 mile hike we encountered multiple “pit stop” stands run by tibetan men who lived in the small huts constructed of stones and served hikers tea, juice and other goodies, prayer flags strung between trees, hearders coaxing (and sometimes kicking) their sheep and goats down the mountain, a group of tibetan men and women dancing at the top of a mountain clearing, a small village near the snow line and my first view of a glacier.

sometimes in india it seems like all one billion people that populate the country are surrounding you. one of those times was our train ride home. apparently, we chose the sunday prior to navratra, a hugely popular hindu festival, to return to mussoorie. it became evident why we were unable to reserve assigned sleeper seats on the train. the train, packed with pilgrims journeying to haridwar (see “a weekend pilgrimage”) overflowed with people. kids, rolled into the fetal position, slept in luggage compartments, families distributed food as they knelt on the ground near the bathrooms, feet and arms poked out into the aisles, making maneuvering with a backpack nearly impossible, sadhus slept in the area between train cars, men shared seats with large lanterns, and two to three people shared many bunks. the ticket collector found one seat for the three of us to share. after making our way through the train we arrived upon our seat, currently inhabited by a young woman. the four of us ended up sharing two bunks, cole and i scrunched on the top and brian and meenu (our new friend) sharing the bottom. each time the train made a stop, the smells from the station and the nearby bathroom on the train wafted up to our bunks, occasionally rousing us from sleep. but, maybe oddly, we all loved our indian train ride.