Unfeasibly Large Update 2 - Dalhousie and Chamba

I've remembered one more thing I had forgotten - I was nearly pickpocketed. The audacity of it! We were at a tea stand which was crowded with people (like the rest of this country) when I felt a hand making its way into my pocket. Without waiting to see quite what it was after, I crushed it up against the tea stand, then put my own hand into my pocket. The would-be thief quickly pulled out, empty-handed (I checked). I turned round to look at him, and he did his best job of not noticing.

Anyway, as promised here comes the story of Dalhousie and Chamba.

After returning from Amritsar, I had a couple of day teaching (Monday and Tuesday) before a surprise holiday on Wednesday. I took this opportunity to try and send a parcel. I first went into Paprola, where no one spoke enough English to tell me what to do to get my parcel wrapped, so just told me to go to Palampur. What fun that was, I had to go to four different shops to get it done: first the cloth shop to get the fabric to wrap it, then the tailor to actually wrap it, then the book seller to get some wax to seal it, and finally a shop that was pretty much bare and had no real purpose, as far as I could see, to get the sealing done. Finally, once all that was done, I managed to get it sent.

The puja began in earnest on Thursday. The mandala was all finished (and it was amazing) and the puja hall was being decorated. I left for Kangra in the morning to see the temple and fort there. I navigated my way through a maze of alleyways of shops selling offerings (such as garlands of money) which was very interesting. Also, with it all being religious products, I wasn't hassled at all. The temple itself was fairly unspectacular and, despite what I'd been promised, there were very few hornets on the floor (the one you walk barefoot on). I purchased a clay black, red and silver scary religious mask thing on the way out before going up to Kangra Fort. It was fairly good, though largely ruined (thanks to the 1905 earthquake). After that I went to a Jain temple opposite the Fort. The temple was fairly similar to many Hindu temples, but with different idols and all in marble. I communicated with a couple of Jain women living in the temple via sign language, and was shown their rooms and the view from the roof. They then gave me a red wristband (which they had to get a man to put on for me). Very strange, but very interesting nonetheless.

I stayed in McLeod that night and left earlyish for Dalhousie. I walked the long way round to my hotel (that's what happens when you let an Israeli direct you from an LP map) which was pretty nice. It had a good view of the valley from the terrace, and my room was a double with a TV at the price of a single (off-season prices). I then explored Dalhousie a bit. And found virtually nothing. Dalhousie, or Dullhousie as it should be called, has a massive zero sights and activities in the LP (though it says that the place is "nicer (some would say) than Shimla". Buttered rollocks. The only thing half worth seeing were a handful of Tibetan rock paintings (which took up about five minutes), a pair of churches (one closed, the other nothing special) and the views (nothing I hadn't seen before). The most entertaining part of my stay in Dullhousie was going to a dhaba and trying to ascertain just what was "special" about their "special dhal". I was told that it was "very special, sir, what I mean to say, sir, is that it is extraordinary"; I feigned ignorance and got something else.

The next morning I fled Dullhousie and took the bus to Chamba. The bus ride was quite fun as the views going down into the valley (Dullhousie 2200m, Chamba 990m) were pretty good (I was on the wrong side of the bus, though, to really appreciate them). I got another cheap double with TV in Chamba before exploring the town a bit. It was very Indian (Dullhousie has a worn-out, dilapidated ex-Raj-era town feel to it), in a good way. After lunch at a dhaba (the real name for the "road side thali" places I talked about in an earlier blog) I went to a museum. The free admission has been augmented to the tune of Rs50 since (perhaps because of) the LP visited. It was a pretty interesting museum nonetheless, with lots of H.P. cultural relics.

I then went to the town's main attraction (or I believe it is meant to be): the Laxmi-Narayan temple complex. It is a complex of six Hindu temples in the sikhara style, which, for those of you who aren't Himachali Hindu temple architecture buffs, means there is a tall stone monument, ornately carved with various deitific (probably not a word, I know, so I'm coining it now) images, fronted with a porch of sorts. Inside each temple was another (kind of tacky really) image of a deity. It was very good to see, but not amazingly special since Chamba is absolutely chock-a-block with temples in this style (I found loads just wandering around) and Baijnath, just a few km down the road from Tashi Jong, has a really old temple (c. AD800) in a similar style.

Wandering the markets that evening I came across a must-have maharaja hat. I was sorely tempted, and resolved to buy it the next day. I had totally forgotten that the next day would be Sunday, and so I unfortunately left Chamba empty-handed.

On Sunday I did a lot of, so to speak, street-walking. Chamba's posse of backstreets and alleyways, dotted with traditional style houses and a good smattering of temples, was very entertaining to walk through. I hiked up a mammoth staircase to reach another two temples at the top of the hill that afternoon. The next morning I got a bus back to McLeod Ganj at 8am. Typically, for India, the day before I'd been trying to work out what time the bus was. The LP says 6am, the hotelier at the place I had dinner said 7am, my own hotelier and the HPTC (HP Transport Corporation) chap said 8am and a group of foreigners talking in English with their Indian guide whom I couldn't help but over hear said 9am. I plumped, correctly, for 8am, arriving in McLeod Ganj at a decent time in the afternoon.

And then...

Well you'll have to wait for the next episode. I've already racked up a fairly substantial internet fee writing all this, so you will have to wait a little longer for the rest of the tale. Plus, I haven't written it into my journal yet, so it would take even longer to write about. I have a lot to tell you, still, including McLeod Ganj, my cookery course, the end of Mahakala puja, Divali (anything goes), an Indian wedding and a visit to the Tibetan National Oracle. Not to mention yesterday's fun: DGL nunnery, Baijnath and Bir. Yikes!