The Taj Mahal- Thanksgiving 2012

Happy Thanksgiving from the Taj Mahal in Agra, India. What an awesome wonder of the world. We drove with the McArthur/Coady family to Agra on Wednesday night then on to visit the Taj at dawn Thanksgiving morning. The colors were tremendous. Traveling with an eight year old and two eleven year olds made the sight even more fun!

Dharamashala - Home of the Dali Lama

We spent our five day Diwali (Festival of Lights) Weekend visiting Dharamashala, the home of the Dalai Lama in the foothills of the Himalayas.  We had tickets for an overnight train on Friday evening, but that was not to be.  We thought we had given ourselves plenty of time to make the train, but after over 2 hours in a taxi we were still only 3km from home and had missed our train.  Both girls had minor meltdowns; however, Hana was having an especially hard time since this was her birthday weekend.

Hana fighting through tears in the taxi

Luckily, we were able to find one-way plane tickets to Amristar (on the Pakistan border) and hired a driver to take us the 5 1/2 hours (190 Km) to Dharamashala. 

Hana at the Airport in Amristar

Indian Traffic Jam

This was the highway the whole way.  Notice the lack of staying in lanes

This pretty much the scene in any town you drive through.
Although, this town didn't have as many people on the road as most.

We got to the Heritage Grace Hotel around 7:30pm and had a delicious Indian dinner.  Afterwards, we all spent some time journaling about the previous 24 hours.

Quinn Journaling and Liv and Hana getting ready to

The next morning Hana woke us up by jumping in bed saying, "I'm not 7 anymore!!!"  We were all in great spirits and had a full day planned.  We had hired a driver for the day to take us to various spots.  Our first stop was by Naddi Village, and was to be our best Vista of the trip.  Celebrating Hana's birthday with our first view of the Himalayas was truly special.

The road was sketchy enough to begin with without having
to share it with these cows

The next stop was Dal Lake, which was very unimpressive.  The lake is a holy place, which is what draws people to it.  That being said, there was garbage all around it and at least one tire submerged in the water.  Within walking distance of the lake is the Tibetan Children Village campus, a school AES works closely with.  Unfortunately, we did not see the campus as we didn't realize this until after returning to Delhi.

Fun with silhouettes at Dal Lake

Students from Tibetan Children's Village Marching.
We didn't realize who they were at the time.

On our way into Mcleod Ganj we stopped at St. John's church, a gothic looking Catholic church in the woods.  

We drove through Mcleod Ganj and ended up at Bahgsunath Shiva Temple and the adjacent waterfall. The Hindu temples are always interesting to go into.  The rituals, deities, shrines, etc are always fascinating.

One of these days our shoes will get stolen

Shepherds everywhere

Ring

The temple is on the edge of town and there is a path running along a river and up to a waterfall.  Down below we could see Buddhist Monks washing their clothes.

The first of several instances of people wanting a picture with the blondes

Check out the dingleberries on that goat

Three Blonde Shepherds

Amen

The only way to get goods to these stores was to walk them up the mountain
and then across a narrow ridge that a wrong step could mean a serious fall.

First Prayer Flag sighting

Monks bathing and washing clothes

After our "hike" we went to Jimmy's Italian restaurant for lunch - it was Hana's birthday after all!  She had pizza and an ice cream - brownie concoction.

   

Prayer wheels in McCleod Ganj on our way back to the car

Lunch was followed by a trip to Tsuglagkhang Complex in Mcleod Ganj. This is the residence of the Dalai Lama and also contains a monastery, temples and stupas.  Unfortunately, the Dalai Lama was out of town (as he is most of the time) and we were unable to see him as our friends had a few months earlier.  Photography was not allowed inside the temple but it was beautiful!

Having fun outside the Dalai Lama's temple

Spinning Prayer Wheels outside the Dalai Lama's temple

The ongoing joke was "Buddhist Monk-ees"

The car was parked about 1/4 mile from the temple, down a steep hill.  Off the street was a path with Prayer Flags everywhere.  We decided to walk it for a little with the intention of turning around.  When we tried to turn around, a friendly Monk used hand signs to indicate this was a one-way path, much like the walls of Prayer Wheels need to be walked in a clockwise manner. We later learned that kora is the Tibetan Buddhist ritual involving walking clockwise around a sacred site.  The walk was great!  The trail went around the entire Tsuglagkhang Complex and there were many prayer flags and shrines, many of which memorialized people who had died for the the Tibetan Buddhist cause.

A monk had set himself on fire sometime over the weekend.
We did not hear about it until after we returned to Delhi.

Hana learning how to spin the Prayer wheel

We finished Hana's birthday with eating at the hotel (which was delicious again), journaling and getting to bed fairly early.  The next morning we decided to go for a hike.  The manager of the hotel told us of one that we had already read about online.  We had a taxi drop us off at the trailhead and immediately took off the wrong way.  About 15 minutes into the hike we asked a Shepherd if we were on the way to Galu - he pointed the directions we had just come from.  When we got to Galu, we found out the original trail we wanted to double back on was rather dangerous as part of it had fallen, this was after getting different reports from three other people.  We decided to err on the side of caution and found a different way down the mountain and back to Mcleaod Ganj in time for lunch.

About to take off (in the wrong direction)

Definitely some good views on the wrong trail

Our Shepherd Savior - Only cost us an apple

Rocky Trail

Shiva on the side of the trail

Made it to Galu... just needed to figure out which way would take us back

Another picture-with-the-blonde moment

These houses were only accessible by foot

Carrying Hana down the mountain

  Following the Hike, we spent the rest of the day in Mcleoud Ganj.  We had delicious Momos at Tibet Kitchen for lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the Tibetan Market.  We ended the day with meeting the Schmids for beers and dinner at McLlo Restaurant - the food was nothing special, but the beers were cold, the company was great, and the persistent power outages made it interesting.

Girls with new pants/skirt 

Parade outside McLlo

Girls with our waiter

Gregors and Schmids (and Pierce Brosnan on the wall).

We had until 3pm to explore on our last day, Diwali.  We hired a car to take us to a few places, down the mountain from Dharamashala.  The first stop was a Hindu Shiva in the woods.  The temple was fairly typical; however, stairs from the temple led down to a river with beautiful, clear water.  We then moved onto The Norbulingka Tibetan Handicraft Institute, which was peaceful, beautiful and fascinating.  We ended up really taking our time here and finishing our Dharamashala experience with a  relaxing lunch on the terrace.

This guy showed us the shrine under the rock on the river's edge.   He talked
non-stop in Hindi.  I'm sure what he was saying was quite interesting.  We did understand
that he wanted Rps 20 for showing us the shrine.

This was the shrine under the rock as viewed from lying on one's belly

Clean Water.  In India.

The Handicraft Institute ...

The detail was amazing 

Sign inside the Wood shop :)

Tibetan Doll Museum

Of all the Temples we saw, the one inside the Handicraft Institute was the most beautiful.

Meditating

On our way back to the hotel we stopped quickly at the Karmapa's Temple.  Coincidentally, the Karmapa had spent the day at AES just five days before and we had all experienced question and answer sessions with him.  While we were at this temple, the Monks were all inside so we did not go in.  It was quite amusing watching them laughing at us as we took our shoes off and debated whether it was appropriate to go inside or not.  We decided to walk around, and then they laughed at us again as we put our shoes back on.

We gave ourselves plenty of time to get to the train station in Panthankot.  In fact, we were there 5 hours before the train was scheduled to leave.  Being Diwali, there was a lot of fireworks and firecrackers going off in all directions, including the kids at the end of the train platform lighting them off.  The fireworks started about the time we arrived (5:30) and continued  non-stop, until we were pulling out of the station.  Now, when I say non-stop, I mean one after the other, coming from all directions, for five hours straight.   By the time we took off we were all exhausted and turned off the lights as soon as the conductor took our ticket.  We arrived at the Old Delhi train station at 8:00 am and, thankfully, took a traffic jam free taxi trip back home. 

At the Pathankot train station