okay so the bus ride wasnt thaaat comfortable, it was a local bus thou so one of those ricckety bumpy one where the luggage is on the roof and all.the windows were always opening or closing depending on the bumps we went over and the amount of people changed at every single stop.this being an intertate bus was also doubling as a normal side street bus.so at one stop we had only 10 people,then by the next stop we were over capacity with about 50-60 people on board.occasionally there was someone selling something on the bus much like those people on the television, trying to sell things like juicers and tablecloths that would not tear.so very interesting.
dharamshala had a nice cool breeze to it as we entered the mountains.and watching the sun set over the hills was pretty amazing as well.from dharamshala we had to catch a small cab to head up the mountain, which was about 2kms away.up the mountain is a small town called mcleod ganj,the actual home of the dalai lama and the tibetian government n exhile.we found the hotel alright and spent the night with a couple of tourists,who also happened to be from nz.we found a bar and they had some shisha, so it was pretty interesting.we didnt drink anything but the other guy got himself a kingfisher and it came up to 150 rupees for a 1liter bottal.
that night we didnt sleep much as we wanted to wake up just to see the sunrise over the mountains,from our balcony we watched the sun rise over the himalayas and the buildings that littered the hillside,the light from the sun shines differently over the mountains,the glow from the clouds below casts an impressive golden-purplish light all around.but the best best part about it was the fact that there was absolute silence all around.
that day we went for a walk around the 2 streets that made up the entire mcleod ganj,a tourist hippie like place where every other person was trying to find their spirituality by some means or another,amusing for the locals as well as being very lucrative for them.so you have these people walking around buying things like tibetian bells or little figurines,hashish and crystals,clothes that look horrible on westerners and things like that.the worst was one guy who bought a stick...he bought a long stick that had no purpose whatsoever except for maybe leaning on,or poking something...so we have this weird hippie looking guy holding a stick standing in the middle of the main square looking all weird...and then...you get another weird hippie guy coming along and very happily asking,where'd you get your stick from? and then he troddles of to buy one himself...so you can see, thats why the tibetian people,monks as well as locals (who have been displaced from their country btw,something like refugees) are holding things like iphones and mini dvd player and wearing nike and things like that.really mind blowing.
mcleod ganj was a perfect getaway a well as a place to redefine yourself spiritualy, the onlly thing was we missed seeing the dalai lama by one day.but all good, it was just amazing being in the same vicinity as him.
we were there for about 3 days in total, enjoying the views and the funny people.then we left to get ourselves to shimla. the bus to shimla was an overnighter and it wasnt thaaat interesting except for the fact that we sat in front so it was pretty exhilarating.think about it, its 3 in the morning, the driver looked high, the road was less than one laned,we had a ravine on one side and a huge dirt wall on the other,and at a speed that you could never imagine a bus to be able to go at,but the cold breeze from the mountains kept us awake and fresh thru it all.
shimla is a mini england,well according to rachel at least,she's been there,to england i mean.but it was a really beautiful place,like a little european resort up in the mountains and it was very organised,having one main street where cars couldnt drive on.shimla was really clean as well,the law is such where you cant spit or throw rubbish or carry plastic bags in the city.so it was a nice change from the norm.we spent the day trying to figure out our next steps and trying to book our tickets for the next bits of our trip. that was pretty hard for us as well as the travel agent took us to a cybercafe to do his booking and then in order to pay for it all we had to find the only money changer in the entire city to change our money,then wait 30 minutes for his guy to bring a wad of cash for us.haish...india...
anyways we left with high spirits as we were going on the train to kullu which headed thru about 130 tunnels high in the mountains,althou we didnt see much as it got dark very fast. the amazing thing was that as we passed around the mountain and were going into the valley, when you look up on the other side,where the next or previous mountain was, you could see all the lights where people were living scattered on the side of the mountains,it looked like the milky way,except here on earth.that was beautifull.
from kullu we caught the night train to delhi.
next stop, the capital of India,and where all the money is being pumped into as well.
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