We rolled into Mcleod Ganj, up in the mountains of Dharamsala, at around 7am, shattered from the draining journey and in need of a place to stay. The first guy that offered a hotel with hot water and a bed within walking distance of the main Tibetan Temple was taken up on his offer, and then drove us up the mountain, through the seemingly serene main shopping streets, past the Temple, then back down a few minutes walk away.
We both felt pretty rank and worn down after thirteen hours
of bumping around and little sleep, and I took a second to rest on the bed,
which turned into three and a half hours by the time my eyes rolled around making
me aware of my disappearance. We enjoyed our first hot shower of the trip, I
didn’t even scream once, or sing in my usually stuttering shower soprano style
that came with the cold bursts of cleanliness that I had become accustomed to. The
mountain town is not too far from the Himalayas, and you can tell by the
temperature, so a bit of warm water went a long way.There was a bath too, but
unfortunately it looked dirtier the than the prolapsed arse-hole of the street
cow that I witnessed shitting in Varanasi.
Too physically drained to mission up the mountain, and a few
rupees later, the short drive up the mountain side found us at the Tibetan
security branch office with a few hours spare before their sign up period
ended. I walked into a room full of Buddhist monks and fellow travellers, chucked
10 rupees and two passport sized photographs of my happy mug onto a table, and
it magically manifested itself into a pass to join the Dalai Lama, who was
doing a teaching in his Temple whilst we were there, which started the
following morning.
We bumped into Jess from the bus ride who mentioned a decent
place for lucheon ten minutes’ walk up the mountainside, so we went off in that
direction but didn’t find it. A place called The Jungle Hut which hung off of
the rock face, and looked like it was made completely out of bamboo, drew our
hungry attention, and saw our starved shells served a healthy lunch. By 3pm we
descended the now misty mountain, extremely light rain gracing our faces,
buzzing despite our ailments as we admired the peace that India had yet been
able to offer us. Everywhere and everyone seemed extremely chilled. A young
American guy with dreads and a warm looking shawl returned my smile and said
‘Hi’ as we walked in the opposite direction. I greeted him back in passing,
thinking to myself that this was definitely my kind of place. Just as we
reached our hotel the sky fell, catching us with very few of its’ sizeable
sploshes as we ran in and up the winding stairs to our room. Tummy’s now full,
and the days’ mission complete, our cracked shells twisted together to reclaim
some more sleep that the bus ride had robbed us of.
We awoke around 7pm, and smoked a joint on our balcony as we
stared across to another mountain peak; the distant, infrequent house lights
looked like lanterns layed along its face, going up to the highest light of
all, near the top. I said I wanted to be the man that lives there, as he’s
always really, really high, probably smoking a Jeffrey as we speak. We
discussed the idea I have for my next book, ‘The Freewheelin’ Troubadour’s Book
of Faith’, which chronicles a journey of love, loss, and love again in a collection
of already completed poems.
We ordered room service and were delivered a ‘chicken’
curry, which was more comparable to a bunch of fingers that had been cut off at
the knuckle, chopped into three and stewed for a few hours in some lemony
sauce. More bones than a greedy dog. I showed Sarah one of my favourite
comedies as a kid growing up, a spoof hood movie called ‘Don’t Be A Menace To
South Central, While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood’, which kept us in good
spirits for an hour and a half, before rubbing each other’s poorly tummies
until Sarah drifted off again. I wrote and wrote, and the night disappeared.
No comments:
Post a Comment