My plan to come here was inspired by my college professor and mentor, Roscoe Hill, who will be bringing a group of students here at the end of November to teach English. On Monday I started teaching two small groups of Tibetans. Most of my students are monks. They very lighthearted and friendly.
Visitors can find classes here on just about any subject: Tibetan, Hindi, Budhism, yoga, meditation, massage, etc. The town is virtually buzzing with activity.
Food here is very diverse. There is excellent Tibetan food, of course. Dishes include several kinds of noodle soup, and my personal favorite: ‘momos’ (much like chinese pot-stickers). Due to the number of westerners, you can find Italian food, Israeli food, and good pastries.

I went down for breakfast and met an American, newly arrived in India. Speaking with him, I was reminded of how disoriented I was upon my arrival.
After breakfast I stopped into the class which I will be teaching next week. Then I went to my first private lesson at 11:00. My student, Sunam, is a young monk from a monestary in Southern India, who is here to study English. I met him in his small room, and we talked for an hour. When we were done with our lesson, he offered to cook me lunch. He prepared spinach withlots of garlic and onion, which we ate with a type of tibetan bread (like a giant english muffin).
Right after lunch I went for a tibetan massage, which uses lots of scented oils. My back had been hurting, and this helped. I had some time after the massage, and wandered around town. At 5:00 I taught another private lesson to another monk. Then I stopped and bought a large red shawl, like the monks wear. It is getting quite cold here, and I still don’t seem to have enough warm clothes.
At 7:00 I went to a meditation class, which I’ve been attending all week. The class is run by a young Tibetan man at one of the many language schools in town. I find it very relaxing.
I had dinner with my French friend Christine (whom I met in Mussoorie). We went to a tibetan restaurant and had noodles and momos. We shared a table with an Israeli man and a Tibetan woman. I like the diversity here…it reminds me of Berkeley.
Finally I returned to my hotel, grabbed a hot-water bottle, and headed to bed by 10:00.

I am also glad that I brought a digital camera. It allows me to show the picture to the people immediately. I am glad to be able to share that with them, since I won’t be able to send prints to everybody I photograph.
Pretty much any group of kids will go crazy to get to be in a picture. “One snap!” they say. They will continue to say this until your camera is full. They will also climb over each other to get to see the picture on the camera. I have had some moments in crowds where I thought I’d be crushed by kids.

On Friday, I went to the Tibetan Security office to find out if a date had been set fo the audience. I was told to come back on Monday, and then again on Tuesday. On my third visit, I found people queueing up to register, although not date had been fixed. On Wednesday we found out that the audience would be on Friday, on Thursday we found out that it would be at 8 AM.
On Friday morning I met some friends and we joined the flow of people walking to his residence near the temple. Hundreds of people gathered outside of the Dalai Lama’s compound. We were searched once by the Tibetan security, and then given a brief patting down by the Indian police. Once through the gate, we found ourselves in a beautiful garden next to His Holiness’ house. The crowd in the garden was very diverse: travellers from many countries, European Buddhist monks, Indians, newly arrived Tibetans, nuns from Taiwan.
As I stood chatting quietly, the crowd began to move. From where I stood I could see the Dalai Lama smiling as he greeted the first of the visitors. As people began to filter back down from their brief encounter, I noticed that they were much more quiet.
As I neared the front of the line, a monk placed a white scarf around my neck. I watched the people in front of me shake the Dalai Lama’s hand and move on. Then, there I stood. I took his hand in both of mine. I think I had an unconscious belief that he would recognize that I was different from the other visitors, and say something. Of course, nothing like that happened. I looked into his smiling eyes, and there was a brief moment before he gently moved his hand to guide me on. Next, another monk gave out red threads, which are then worn around the neck.
Later that day, I discovered that I had lost the red thread. I was sad, since I wanted to keep it as a reminder of the meeting. Then it struck me, that it’s rather silly to mourn the loss of a gift given to you by a Buddhist monk. Where was my detachment?

After the first three kilometers we left the road, and started up a trail. About another 3 kilometers into the hike, we came to a tea stand called the “Half-Way Cafe.” It was perched above the trail, and offered refreshment and a comfortable deck from which to enjoy the view.
We continued up the trail, and finally made it to the top of the ridge at around 2:00 P.M. Cresting our mountain, we were presented with a spectacular view of the high range of mountains beyond — the mountains here are much more steep and craggy than those in the States. We also found a broad meadow, with soft mossy grass. We stripped off our shoes, and lay down to bask in the sun and enjoy the view. Despite being miles in distance and thousands of feet in altitude from the nearest road, there were several tea stalls and a small guest lodge here.
Lee and Raj spent the next hour debating whether or not to stay the night. In the end, they started back down the mountain with us. About five minutes down the trail, we met a friend of theirs who was going up to spend the night. This brought on another round of debate, and finally I was asked to flip a coin. It seemed obvious to me that they wanted to stay, so when the coin said they should go down, I lied and told them it said to stay. I then spent the next day worrying about them getting back okay. The next night they actually had to be rescued from the cold by some friends.