A footnote to Mcleod
I ended up staying a little longer than I planned in mcleod – between one thing and another I think it was just my body telling me to take it easy for a while, recharge the batteries, eat lots of western food and have a few beers – some things which have been missing since I have come here. When you travel around the backwaters of india your diet changes somewhat as a consequence. Alot of the times you are left with no alternative but to eat the parantha and curry for breakfast. This does hav accumulative affect of stuffing your system up so ironically enough I end up suffering more from constipation than any kind of diahorrea or dehli belly as people like to call it. Stocking up on lots of fibre is a sure way of fixing that problem.
Speaking of irony get a load of this. There are two streets in mcleod, one of which leads down to the dali lamas temple and so was thronged twice a day with people going to and fro from his teachings. The crowd tended to be about 80% tibetan with westerners making up the rest of the crowd, so when you stay there for more than a few days you begin to see the same faces. One such face stood out as I sat down to drink some lovely assam tea in the artists gallery cafe close to the temple. She was a moderately pretty girl, she came to my attention while she tried to explain in her north american twang the virtues of a cafe latte with an elderly buddhist monk. Over the course of the week I saw her time and time again. Always tried to give her a smile or an acknowledging nod or whatever but she was pretty cold so I stopped, figured that her head was stuck someway up her posterior. On my second last night in mcleod I had a few beers with some canadian girls I had met through oonagh and chris, we were there listening to a bloody terrible live band when one of them cheaped up that she had seen alanis morrisette earlier that day (followed by the enevitable catty comment about how she has let herself go (now when I say inevitable I dont mean that that is a typically female thing to say (ah who am I trying to kid, of course its a typically female thing to say đŸ˜‰ )). Bang thats who the girl was all week, twas no wonder she never said hello back. She must have thought I was some stalker weirdo with a nervous twitch or something. Twould’ve been fierce embarrasing if I had’ve tried to strike up a conversation with the girl…..
The rest of the week was spent going to all the various tibetan government buildings, temples, hospitals etc etc to behonest I didn’t do too much. I finally left the place last monday to head for the chamba valley…. More on that soon
p.s. appologies for the lack of posts etc etc I am currently borrowing a persons laptop and mobile to post this so cannot stay long. Chamba though is jaw droppingly beautiful and I have had an eyeopening couple of days worthy of a report. Tis so hard to pick what to put in, but sure – tis a hard life this one….
all the best,
Phil
Tags: Himachael Pradesh, India, India, mcleod ganj
Phil Gill
I thought you had your own laptop and mobile from latte drinking, pesto and sundried tomato eating college days?
Hmmm bit much info in the first paragraph Phil!! :0)