Dharamkot Dawn

(Title and geographical note: Dharma Sala, where I'm staying, is a big town in the state of Himachal Pradesh that I never actually go into. Instead, a few kms up the valley lies an area called Mcleod Ganj, home of the Dalai Lama as previously mentioned and refuge to many Tibetans illegally crossing the border. I have yet to research the reasons why this place got chosen for Tibetan settlement, but I don't blame them - it is rich with beauty. Bhag Su is a smaller area up from Mcleod Ganj, although both are pretty touristic now, so Dharamkot, another are even higher in the valley, is where a lot of travellers seek refuge from the hubbub of... other travellers! Just to orientate you...)

6.30 a.m. On the road since 5 after waking, shaking, from possibly the most intense dream I've had in my LIFE! (death, earthquakes, knowing I needed to throw my body off a cliff for the survival of others. Holy crap, right? I spent breakfast discussing the finer nuances and symbols with similarly cosmic travellers, tee hee... new life, taking a leap of faith perhaps? As I'm doing, as best I can...)

Anyway, at 5 the dawn was teasing the inky blue sky outside and it called me to be out in it rather than in my warm bed surrounded by nightmarish residue. I pack my bag and flip-flop out. Bhag Su was still sleeping, but after covering my nose in the open toilet section of road right outside my guesthouse entrance (EW, India...) I begin the slow climb up the valley. Even in its slumber I could sense the different energies of the various sections: Lower BhagSu with its upmarket hotels and German bakeries, and more traveller oriented Upper Bhag Su. I walk past 'Haifa cafe', 'Zion Cafe' and 'Reggae cafe' one after the other and take the windy mountain path up, where civilised concrete transformed into roughly hew granite steps. I pass the Agama and Siddartha yoga centres and wonder to myself where the heck this cultish Osho place I've heard about might well be...

After paying my respects at a small white stone temple (all gods are one to me now - I worship all temples, mosques, cathedrals, synagogues. Mountains, waterfalls, big solid rocks like the one I am writing from), I see a girl I met yesterday, the tortoise shell of her pack keeping her head down as she hightails it to catch a bus to an organic cheese farm in Manali. It's 5.30, but I am wide awake, wish her well and walk on.

"Free Palestina" is sprayed aside a stone shed wall, and a psychedelic van adorned in Hebrew scripture sits waiting for the day to begin. The birds around me are waking me at least - today I've beaten the birds! Unheard of...

I'm kind of on a vague mission to find the Tushita meditation centre in Upper Dharamkot. The path winds up and occasionally forks into two - I choose instinctively and go up, up, up...

A BEAUTIFUL elderly Tibetan man in the maroon robes of a monk walks by, seemingly astonished to see another soul at this hour.

"Live here?" he asks, smiling a child-pure smile
"No. I live down. Today only walking" I speak back in the broken English that has become my every day speech.
"You journeying?" he enquires. I'm always journeying, I think!
"Yes, I go up," to which he shakes his head and laughs amusedly
"LIVING here?" I enquire back
He points to his right and replies "small house" and carries on with a twinkling eyed nod.

Up I go. A stone lingam, like a cairn about 2 metres high has been lovingly built on the roadside. I photograph it and try to capture myself in the image as well. Me and Shiva, huh? Beautiful.

It's 6 by this point and I can't find Tushita, beginning to feel tired and my Kapha laziness getting the better of me. so I justify to myself that I've still got to walk 4 hours uphill to Triund later today. The dogs are waking up and bark in choruses down below.

Down I go. More and more I lose the present moment and start to dream, losing the path and almost walking into someone's home at one point. I try a second, third time and again lose myself, rolling my eyes out loud at my directionless self. Giving up, I cross country it and at one stage lay my hand on a rock for support only to find small brown maggot like creatures dead in a cluster beneath me. Ew, India, I think, although the Hindu in me sees their sacredness. I wipe my hand off grassily and move on, more carefully this time.

These words are calling me to write them so I seek out a rock, climb aboard and get to the end of this sentence.

It's 7. The early morning magic has changed to a gentle peace in these Tibetan hills. Always, the peace of the Dalai Lama pervades everything, although his Mcleod Ganj home is another world away down the hill.

A crow cries, my eyes sag, and I'm hungry for banana porridge. I'm outta here...

...(took me ages!)
... and now, scribing this down at 3 pm, I still haven't got to the village of Triund... perhaps tomorrow...