Ciao all,
So, we finally left Varanasi on that lovely train journey, which was, to tell the truth a tiny little bit too long for my taste. I did however finish most of The Lord of the Rings and being out of Varanasi really made everything worth while. As stated previously - but in need of emphasis - this holy city of Hinduism is a big pile of shit, and hence it obviously gave me Delhi belly. It has been five days since we left that asshole of the world and I still have not recovered. But that aside, our holiday has taken a turn for the better.
After that (including delay) 26-hour train journey, we arrived in Amritsar where the people are nice, the shops have sale and the Golden Temple is stupendously beautiful. The day we arrived, we just went shopping and I bought a lovely pair of dress pants which will be great and very stylish for work - I just need to have them tailored once we are back in Milan. We also tried to go to the museum of Sikh culture but unfortunately it was closed for renovation. From that night onwards, Varanasi's heinous backlash hit us hard and we spent the night and the morning commuting between bed and bathroom. At one point, I had to go out for water and more toilet paper and almost did not make it back. That afternoon, we were feeling a bit better and were able to go and visit the Golden Temple. It is beautiful. Whereas Varanasi felt really fake and like being in Disneyland, the rituals and ceremonies in Amritsar were (or at least came off) genuine. As there were hardly any tourists there, it was quite impressive to spend part of the afternoon there. We also went back at night to take some pictures of the sun setting and the turning on of the lights. The temple itself was a bit to golden for me, when I build my temple it will be similar but made of silver!!!
A couple of days ago, we discovered we had about a three-day gap in hour itinerary between Amritsar and Delhi and after consulting the Bible (aka the Lonely Planet) we decided it would be nice to go up into mountains, as Amritsar is quite far North already and not too far from the foothills of the Himalayas. So, here we are in McLeod Ganj. This village on the slopes of one of the lower mountains of the Himalayas (we are about 1800 meters above sea level) is famous for being the seat of the Tibetan government in exile and the location of Tsuglagkhang, the substitute for the holy Jokhang temple in Lhasa and hence the most important place of Tibetan Buddhist worship. I admit the presence of the Tibetan community here was why we chose McLeod Ganj over all the hundreds of other hill stations. It is quite touristy here but as it is off season it is not too bad. It is a lot colder (we actually need to put on sweaters at night - which we have not had to do yet since we came to India, not even in the desert) and it rains a lot too but that is a welcome change. All in all, we love it here. We have got a massive hotel room with a gorgeous view of the valley for a relatively cheap price. The views here are breathtaking and they are in fact one of the main attractions of this place. Despite the rain and frequent fog, it is very nice and quiet here and the ever-present smell of of wet and replenished pine forest is working wonders. We visited the temple today and took a long walk through the mountains on a little path that led us alongside a mountain stream and to a very cute little waterfall. After that, we were caught by the rain and ran into the first place we could find to have lunch (and restaurants are scarce on top of a mountain!!), which funnily enough turned out to be the exact place we had planned to stop for lunch. Oh, and another advantage of this place is that these Tibetans are Buddhists and therefore live by a live-and-let-live principle and do not try to force their own beliefs on others like the Hindus do. In other words, alcohol shops abound and we were baffled to find out that we could actually order a bottle of wine in a restaurant - which was obviously shit as it was the cheapest local wine, but that is beside the point. And Tibetans are not annoying either!!! I love this place...
I do not know if I will be able to update again before we go home on Sunday, so I will just leave with a traditionally Tibetan 'peace be with you and your family'.
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