back on track

i'm ashamed to admit it, but while i was sick, i actually contemplated just buying a plane ticket to paris or some such place, and spending my pre-korea time there instead of here. i was so sick, and had hardly even set out on my indian adventure. but india was beginning to repulse me. i would go out on to the street, suddenly more aware of the garbage, the incessant noise, the pollution, the smell of sewage, all so naseuating, so unwelcome. and i was beginning to get annoyed by the crowd mcleod ganj was attracting. these trendy, super-smug, holier-than-thou quarter-life-crisis-ers who haunted the myriad cafes in the mcleod ganj area, loudly proclaiming the infinite wisdom gained from their first meditation or yoga session. there's something grossly self-indulgent to me about a western suburbanite walking around in a maroon tibetan monk's robe amidst real displaced tibetans. i suppose it is the feeling that being here, for many people, seems to be just another commodity, another fashion. i'm at a loss to describe the frustration and irony in people believing that this is spiritual progress. anyway...it wasn't so much the thought that this place was like that, here is mcleod ganj, but that every place i had dreamed about and romanticized in my mind for so long was nothing more than slums, congestion, garbage, and sewage. there was never going to be a destination that lived up to my ideal. india was all the same.

but luckily i talked to a friend from philadelphia, mridul, when i was online, and he persuaded me not to leave mcleod ganj until i had undertaken the short triund trek, into the himalayan mountains. i was actually quite intriqued by this and blindly set out down the road, unsure of even how far it was (though he assured me it was no more than a day's hike). i soon reached the village of dharamkot, which, even as i write this, i have hardly seen anything of. i simply passed a teashop that i know is at least on the outskirts of dharamkot. here i met a group of 4 people, half from canada and half from the states, and we hit it off really well and headed off to triund. the walk there, which took place as the sun was setting and provided me with my first intimate encounter with the himalayas - walking along rocky, winding paths, tucked into the side of steep valleys, beyond which rose the monoliths of rock and ice that have captivated, in photos, even those who hold no interest in the natural world. the horizon was a blazing strip of gold as the sun was setting, picturesquely siloutetting the foothills against a sheet of rolling fog. it was like stepping into a page in national geographic. i loved it.

we reached triund, a small outpost of guesthouses and shacks selling dal and rice (the trekking staple). we stayed up for a bit near a campfire that some other trekkers had started and met some new friends. we got both rooms in a small, rustic little structure with a very handmade feel. it was one of those little painted concrete houses that make you actually wonder about how the builder shaped the different parts with his hands, how he erected this, that this must have been put there before this, or the whole thing would have collapsed - wouldn't it have?

in the morning, we got up and ate breakfast, and i set out with a friend i had met the night before named dan. we trekked up to a place called the snowline cafe, i guess because it's the last place to get supplies or tea or food before the snowline, before you're high enough to just be on pure steep rock. the rocky ridgeline that had looked so distant yesterday was now right in front of us. apparently it is possible to go further, and part of me wanted to, but dan wasn't motivated and we just hung out in the meadow, admiring the scenery. eventually we decided to go all the way back down to mcleod ganj, and started a very scenic, but not very interesting, descent back to town. we did get into a really meaningful discussion on the way down - i had been avoiding talking to people about anything philosophical, which seemed to be what people did here, because the conversations always seemed so stonerish and comically shallow, with every pretense of depth. but luckily dan and i had a good, thoughtful conversation, one of those talks where you can put everything out there honestly, even what you think of the people in mcleod ganj sometimes, and then we worked through it and came to positive, constructive conclusions. i often experience a feeling of helplessness when i'm lured into a "spiritual" conversation, because i feel many assumptions are made about beliefs i share with the other person. i am at pains to explain that i cannot have a casual conversation about these things, because i simply don't have enough faith or confidence in the concepts. how can you know? how can you know for absolutely sure, 100% of the time? hmm....here i sit back in my chair and realize that i cannot even explain this properly, not without straying far and long from where i should be in mcleod ganj, and to there we will now return:

i parted ways with dan in dharamkot, and i walked down the pitch black road back to mcleod ganj alone. it wasn't very creepy or scary or anything, although a huge, lumbering monkey who was making his way across the street to a tree gave me a bit of a start. i went to a vegatarian japanese restaurant dan had told me about in town and we met up there and talked a bit more about india, which he's traveled in for almost a year now, and just life in general. it was interesting to observe that we were paying about $1 for a full japanese meal. how much does that cost in the states?

i think i'll move on from mcleod ganj today, maybe to amritsar, site of the golden temple, then maybe to rishikesh and gangotri, source of the ganges river.

oh yeah, and correction to an earlier entry - you can't see the world's third tallest mountain from here - i was recalling (incorrectly) the description of darjeeling from my guidebook, way on the other side of the country. also, you can speak the tibetan language in tibet, but it's not taught, and you cannot display the tibetan flag or the likeness of the dalai lama. i'll try to be more accurate in the future and not pander to your interests with false and outlandish statements about my surroundings. until next time...for now i'll just sit back and enjoy the view i have here of majestic kilimanjaro.