City in the Clouds

Dharamsala, India

I’ve been in Dharamsala three weeks now, but am super behind in blogo-logging. Apologies for my laziness, I’ll try to catch up on my adventures thus far.

After a grueling 14 hour bus ride from Delhi my uncle and I arrived in lower Dharamsala around 6 in the morning. The first sights I noticed were the extremely narrow streets. Traffic laws in India are more like suggestions and navigating the streets is like playing frogger everyday. We hopped in a taxi along the road and headed towards my uncle’s apartment that was deeper in the valley. Along the way my uncle jumped out to grab some groceries for breakfast at a small market. As I waited in the taxi for him, the driver inquired where I was from. After hearing I was from the States, the guy lit up in delight. “Namaste! Welcome to Dharamsala!” he exclaimed, clasping his hands in the traditional greeting. I thanked him and asked him how safe the city of Dharamsala. He suddenly went into deep thought, displaying his toothless grin “Don’t worry, the Taliban won’t find you here!” I laughed at the absurdity of the comment but in that moment it all hit me. Finally, after the long plane rides, bus trips, crazy traffic, and months of planning and preparation I'd finally made it Dharamsala!

I was dead tired when we arrived at my uncle’s apartment but was restless. We were greeted by my uncles landlord’s ferocious Lhasa Aspo and neighbor's grandson, Yonten, who upon seeing me pointed and yelled “inji leso inji leso!(foreigners here! Foreigners here!)” My body was telling me to crash but I wanted to adjust to the time zone as quickly as possible so my uncle and I set off on a hike up to McLeod Ganj, the heart of the Tibetan community in exile. Instead of taking the main road we took the ‘shortcut’ to the town. I definitely wanted my first visit to be memorable which is why I opted for hiking instead of taking a taxi. This was a horrible decision. I had no clue where we were and assumed that Dharamsala was a small town. Nevertheless, we started up the hill through a back-country trail. Halfway up the hill, I asked my uncle how far it was to the top. “Oh, its just 10.” I was super-confused, "Uhh, ten what?" I asked. "10 kilometers to McLeod!" I froze and did the math in my head, it was a 6 mile hike. 3 hours, 4 bottles of water, 2 pit stops in the woods and 1 blister later we made it to McLeod Ganj. It definitely was memorable and the most grueling hike I’ve ever done. I was in decent shape before leaving for India but two weeks of fun in Germany, a dozen time zone changes and a sharp increase in altitude completely drained me of energy. It certainly was memorable though.

The town of McLeod is probably one of the most unique places in the world. People from all over the world come here to see the Dalai Lama and the town has exploded into a metropolis full of tourists, both domestic and international. The majority of residents up in McLeod are Tibetans, both locals and fresh refugees from Tibet. Second, local Indians have tons of shops and businesses, while Indians from all over the country come here to see the temple and hopefully get an audience with the Dalai Lama. The rest of the town is made up of Israelis, Koreans, Russians, Canadians, Americans, Swiss, Brits, Germans, Taiwanese, Australians...and more. People here come for travel, learn about tibetans, learn buddhism or smoke hashish. Walking down the streets of McLeod is just like walking through the streets of any metropolitan city in the world, except for the cows everywhere.

Seeing the Dalai lama's main temple for the first time was amazing, thousands of people visit it a day. It consists of three large Buddhist statues, a large courtyard and area for circulation. The current census on Tibetans is that there are approximately 150,000 Tibetans in exile. That means other than the around 5 million people in tibet, 150,000 are in India, Nepal, Bhutan, Western Europe, Canada and the States. Its an amazingly small number, there are more people living in my hometown of Vancouver, Washington than there are Tibetans worldwide. I think this small number is the reason for the tight communities among Tibetans. Walking around McLeod for the first time elicited a fair share of staring. I obviously stuck out due to my American clothes(t-shirt, shorts) and my 6’2’’ height, but I kept getting double takes since my face looks pretty Tibetan. Anyway, my first day in Dharamsala would be similar to the rest of my time here where people would assume I was a foreigner, but then I’d speak Tibetan and explain to them that I was born in the States. I honestly, go through this process at LEAST 3 times a day and I have to admit its tons of fun every time to see the expressions on people’s faces.

After seeing the temple my uncle took us to a pretty nice restaurant run by the Indian government in the center of town. The highlight of my day was when I went to the bathroom. While using the urinal an Indian guy walked up to the stall next to mine. Glancing over, I saw that he had a sub machine gun hung over his shoulder, he was one of the hotel guards. Its become commonplace now for me to see people walking down the streets with handguns, rifles and machine guns, but those first few instances always put me on edge. At the bank where I exchanged my US dineros was a huge Indian guy holding a double barrel shotgun too. I felt like I was in the wild west or something.

The next day I moved into the U-Pel guest house close to the Tibetan government Office. The place was great except there was no water and I was told to keep my windows closed due to the monkeys breaking in and stealing food, soap and toothpaste. I signed up for basic Tibetan language classes and started them the same day. The teacher for the class is an elderly Tibetan nun named Ani Chorzom. She’s very grumpy, but a great teacher and has been schooling me in Tibetan. Our basic level class consists of a pretty diverse group with people from Taiwan, Australia, Israel, India, France, Canada and the States. Class so far has been a cakewalk since I’ve got a Tibetan background, but its been great to get a strong foundation in the Tibetan language and learn proper speaking grammar.

I also started my internship with the Tibetan Government at the Department of Information and International Relations. The office I’m working at is the US equivalent of the state department with research offices on human rights, the environment and China. The office I’ve been placed in is the Environmental Development Desk. My job is to do policy research on China/Tibet environmental issues and essentially see if they are gaining ground within Tibet. So far, I've been working on lots of translation work, especially with fresh exiles from Tibet. In the office are two staff members: Tenzin Norbu la and Chokyi la along with another intern from Thailand, named Ratawit whom we affectionately call Momo.

July 6th was the Dalai Lama’s birthday and my day started out at 6 Am with a prayer service on the hill around the Dalai Lama’s temple. It was my first religious ceremony in McLeod Ganj, and I was completely surprised by the huge turnout of Tibetans. The prayer ceremony lasted about
two hours and it was a really amazing event.
The only downside was that a few tourists showed up in a taxi. I had a few problems with them from the start: first of all, they took a taxi up to a place that should be walked up to. It was both disrespectful and lazy for people to be praying and then for a taxi to pull right up and start popping out people. Second, they brought cameras galore and video equipment. I could not believe how inconsiderate they were of all the whole tradition, they were going straight up to monks praying and taking pictures in their face while at the same time filming people who were making prayer offerings up at the temple.
Granted, there were foreigners who were extremely respectful and sat, but this small group was really pissing me off. It reminded me of a tourism class I took at UPS where people have no clue about any of the religious traditions in foreign countries but nevertheless show up and snap pictures like crazy with their extravagantly large cameras.

It was pretty embarrassing to watch all of this happen and sadly, all of these people doing
the picture snapping were American! I couldn't believe how bad of an image they were
displaying. At the time, I didn't feel like it was in my place to get up and say something
but in retrospect I should've politely asked them to move or show some respect.

After the prayer ceremony in the morning, there was a cultural show at the dalai lama's temple. The Dalai Lama himself was in Delhi celebrating at an official function by the Indian government while the Kharmapa was in attendance. The temple was PACKED full of people and I barely saw anything over the huge crowds, except for a guy in front of me who embodied the model tourist with his fanny pack of bottled water and T/P. I wasn't really able to see the performance so I ended up exploring the city during the celebrations. At the end of my first week there my uncle and I traveled to the Norbulingka Institute. The Norbulingka was created by the Tibetan Government to serve as a place to preserve Tibetan art such as thangka painting and craftsmanship. The grounds were amazing and I was really amazed at how strong a system of preservation was in place.

Near the Norbulingka is the residency of the the Kharmapa.
By chance, we happened to be there on Saturdays, when the Kharmapa gives brief public audiences for blessing. I'd seen the Kharmapa before in Seattle but didn't want to pass up this chance. After waiting in line with hundreds of people I was able to briefly walk by and receive a blessing from him.
On the way back from the Norbulingka my uncle and I opted for the public bus a.k.a. the rolling death trap. All seats were full when we jumped on yet dozens of people kept piling in on which made me feel more and more like a sardine. There are a ton of motorbikes and scooters as well which fill up the roads. Cars try to pass each other all the time and it seems like everyone is in a hurry on the road. Suprisingly, road rage is pretty low, as I've never seen anyone wave a finger or yell at someone who deliberately cut them off.

My first week in India ended with a cultural performance at the Tibetans Childrens Village(TCV) where I was able to see some authentic Tibetan song and dance. It was great to see the peformance, except for the 5 km walk back in the rain as all the taxis were taken by people who left right before the main act. I've still only scratched the surface of Dharamsala and plan to do a lot more exploring of the city.

Jamal Metro

Frankfurt, Germany

The first stop towards my gate was EU customs. There were several lines and the one I needed was the "foreign passport" holder line. Unfortunately, there were was a huge crowd of people in line. Knowing that waiting would truly screw me over I ran over to the only empty line entitled "EU Diplomats." I ran up to the sleepy German customs officer and quickly told him of my predicament and that I was about to miss my flight. Checking my passport, he said "Ja, Ja, Ja, its always Americans who are late, go ahead." Thanking him I headed to my next obstacle, airport security. Thinking that it was like security back in the states I stripped off my shoes, belt and took out all of my liquids as I waited in the security line. Much to my dismay, I actually didn't have to do any of those things and embarrassingly but put back on all of my clothes before I went through security. Emerging from security I realized that I was at Gate 2 and needed to get to Gate 67. I began my 2 km run down the terminal, I could almost taste India. The Frankfurt International Airport really is a beautiful airport, unfortunately, I wasn't really able to enjoy the architecture. I must have run past hundreds of stores along the way and felt like an idiot as I was the only one running while everyone else was walking leisurely. 65 gates later, exhausted, sore and sweaty I got to the gate just as they were beginning to pull up the ramp. The Indian attendant at the gate saw me and exclaimed "Glad you could join us today!"as he scanned my crumpled ticket. I tried to say in response, "Glad to be here!" but it came out more like "ghuh to bheh he" . As I walked in the plane, the female flight attendent greeted me with a warm "Namaste! Oh Sir! Your panting!" I gave her a grunt as I walked to my seat at the back of the plane. I sat down, completely drained, it felt like I'd just run a cross-country race back in high school. I popped in my headphones as the engines on the plane revved up I checked to see what the in-flight movies were. Mamma Mia and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. It was a nine hour flight to Delhi. FML.

New Delhi, India

Two bad movies and nine hours later I was walking off the plane and taking my first steps in India. Heading off the plane we were funneled into a health check line, as apparently I lived in a N1H1 flu country. Apparently, people in Germany, India and rest of the world have dubbed it the "American flu" as for some reason were to blame for everything that goes wrong. After the health check which was a joke(all they did was check my health questionnaire card that checked if I had flu symptoms) I passed through customs to the baggage claim. The Indira Gandhi Airport is pretty like any other airport, huge terminals, tons of people and signs everywhere, except the one difference was the dozens of soldiers patrolling in pairs with rottweilers, sub-machine guns and rifles with bayonets. Yay!

Exiting the airport was pretty intimidating. There is only one exit for international flights and its this long pathway with gates on both sides. Taxi drivers with signs lined up both sides, yelling, trying to find their passengers. I found my uncle, Kalsang Phuntsok la at the very back, sitting on a bench. Cho Kalsang la, or Cho Khapi la, is the former president of the Tibetan Youth Congress, the largest Tibetan NGO in India. After a warm greeting we headed out into the blistering Delhi heat of 110 degrees and jumped in a taxi. Ironically, the driver was blaring the Jai Ho song aka the slumdog millionaire theme song. Ridiculous.

After an hour long taxi ride we made it to Majnu-Ka-Tilla, the Tibetan Colony in Delhi. Majnu-Ka-Tilla is the main district of Tibetans in Delhi and was my first experience with a tibetan community in India. The district itself is very self-contained and the majority of hotels, restaurants and shops were Tibetan owned and operated. We hunkered down for the night at Hotel Tibet. The next morning my cousin, Tenzin Chokyab came down from Dehra Dun, where is attending University to meet up with us. We traveled around Delhi during the day, seeing the old castle that the Mughal king ruled from in Delhi.
It was pretty amazing to see the architecture and also to learn that a Muslim used to rule India. On the way to the castle I got a firsthand look of the streets of Delhi. Looking out through the side of the auto rickshaw I saw the craziness that is Indian traffic. There are rules on the road, but they are more like suggestions, as everyone tries to race ahead of one another on the streets. Horns, are used very liberally here and are in as common use as using a turn signal back in the States.

After a short day in Delhi we boarded the bus to Dharamsala. The bus up to Himachal Pradesh was CRAMMED. There were western tourists, monks, Tibetans and Indians all crammed into a small space for the 12-hour overnight journey. The bus ride itself starting in the evening, we would arrive at our destination at 6 AM. I didn't sleep the whole night, instead I hunkered down in my seat and looked out the window to see as much of the Indian countryside as I could.

The New Berlin

Frankfurt, Germany

The city of Frankfurt is only an hour south of Marburg. Moritz, Becky and I went down for a day to do some shopping and see the sights. The city pretty much felt like any metropolis back in the states with its concrete streets and tall buildings. In the center of the city exists a no-driving zone, where people are allowed to walk on the streets. Its a pretty cool idea and Moritz told me its common in every major German city. Around the main shopping center were street performers, restaurants and every major label shopping center.

For lunch, I had a Bratwurst from a guy at a portable stand. It was pretty decent and I was amazed when the guy didn't accept my tip! Near the end of the day, I was hanging out in front of American Apparel while Moritz and Becky picked up some clothes when I saw this big crowd of guys headed my way.

Standing in front of me while sitting in front of AA were two girls talking and smoking cigarettes. This huge crowd of guys, probably 20 deep walked up to them, about half of them had beer and wine bottles in their hands(open containers are legal). In the center of the crowd was this one really tall guy wearing a white shirt and what looked like a basketball hoop on his back. He walked up to the two ladies and immediately started saying a bunch of stuff in German. I had no clue what they were saying but based on the girls body language, they were weirded out.

Then, the guy pulled out a small rubber basketball from his pocket. Immediately the girls lightened up. The guy handed one of the girls the ball then took a few steps and turned around. All the guys in the crowd starting clapping and cheering as the girl lined up her shot. The shot ended up hitting the guy in the back of the head and bounced to the ground. Everyone laughed and the white shirt guy walked back up to the girls and took out a stick of lipstick. Laughing, both girls applied the lipstick, kissed the guys t-shirt and then signed their names! This whole time, I sat on the bench taking pictures as the dumbstruck American that had no clue about what was going on. The crowd all took pictures together with the girls then drunkenly kept moving on.

As soon as they left Momo and Becky came out. I told them the whole story of what had just transpired. They laughed and explained that the white shirt guy was about to get married and it was his Facking Bachelor Party! Apparently, its tradition before marriage in Germany to go do crazy/stupid/fun things, especially in public. Its widely known across Germany about these 'rituals' and people love to play along. I definitely agreed that it was an awesome ritual and definitely plan on bringing this tradition to the states(LARGE!) After Frankfurt, my next stop on my euro trip was to the Northeast.

Berlin, Germany

"Hi Honeys, Ready for Sausage Time?" was my first impression of Berlin. After a breezy 5-hour carpool ride on the Autobahn from Marburg to Berlin I was hanging out with my old friend from Mtn. View, Andre Krois aka Kroisberg. Kroisberg was a german exchange student at my high school during my junior year. We met during Cross-Country and swam on the swim team together. Obviously, Tibetans and Germans have some bond. During the 5 years between his time and Mtn. View and a few weeks ago we hadn't kept in touch. On a visit back to my old high school the week before I left the States I was able to hunt him down via my old guidance counselor. After exchanging a few e-mails I figured out that he was back in Berlin, fresh from a year and a half stint in Australia teaching Scuba Diving. After meeting up with Kroisberg at his flat we hit the streets of Berlin for a drink. Upon hopping off the S-Bahn/Subway we emerged downtown.
I definitely knew that prostitution was legal in Germany, but didn't know the extent of how prevalent it was. Every one we walked by tried to get our attention and kept asking, in German of course, if we had some spare time. The best one though, was the 'sausage' lady who walked up right in front of us and stopped us. Kroisberg and I grabbed a drink at the "Hollywood Stars Cafe" and then checked out a few more bars.

The next morning we got an early start, as I only had one day on Berlin. Our whirlwind tour of the city consisted of pretty common tourist things, seeing German movie stars, fighting stormtroopers, hopping on tanks and riding conference bikes. Our first stop was the Wall. It was pretty crazy to see the actual object that divided this city and I was amazed that large portions of the wall were still kept up. A bunch of construction people were white-washing the wall too. Kroisberg asked why they were doing it and the foreman explained that the original artists who had drawn their art on the wall over 20 years ago were coming back to redo artwork.
It seemed pretty cool to be doing that and to bring closure for those people who had lived in East Berlin under the communists. And of course, I took the standard foreigner picture by the wall.

Checkpoint Charlie was our next destination and it was again flooded by tourists. On the way there, we ran into the filming of a movie and saw Til Schweiger, who is apparently is apparently a really famous German actor. Apparently, he was in Tomb Raider and Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. Kroisberg and I really didn't give a crap and kept walking. At the Brandenburg gate there were more tourists galore. By the way, during my whole time in Germany it was so easy to spot the American tourists because they were the clueless ones speaking in loud English, had huge cameras, sandals, shorts and the Hawaiian shirts. It was really disturbing to witness how America is represented in other countries. At the Brandenburg gate, there were an assortment of characters including, stormtroopers, large bears and angels, all dressed up and ready to take a picture with you in front of this historic monument of German history. Heading deeper into the city we saw an old Soviet monument to soldiers during WWII with two T-34 soviet tanks. I hopped on board for a quick pic, cleverly eluding the Polizei. The best part of Berlin though, was when I spotted a Conference Bike! A friend from college's grandpa was the one who invented it and I had the awesome chance to ride it back in Tacoma. Kroisberg and I jumped on, joining some danish girls on summer holidy and we proceeded to ride around the central park. The driver of the bike was pretty crazy, I almost fell off several times as we swerved through pedestrian and bike traffic. Our last stop for the day was the Berlin Zoo, a huge park near the center of the city. At the zoo, we saw Knut, the magical ice bear. After throwing back a few beers at the playground zoo, I headed back to Marburg via the amazing German carpool system. I shared a ride back with three cool German dudes named Sven, Patrick and Joel. We talked about everything on the 5 hour drive back from topics ranging from the WWII, Iraq, EU, Turks and the abundance of prostitutes in Germany. 12 hours later I was back at Frankfurt Intl. Airport saying goodbye to my gracious hosts, Moritz and Becky.
Hanging out with them was definitely the best part of my trip and I learned a ton about Germany, Germans and Eurotrash (not Momo and Becky, of course)

The line for the Air India gate was huge. I inquired with an attendant about what the hold up was and she told me the computer systems had crashed and that they were working on it. My flight was leaving in an hour and a half, but she ASSURED me that all flights would wait for the passengers and be delayed half an hour. After a two hour wait in the line I finally made it to the front desk. Upon checking my bags and receiving my ticket, I asked the attendant what time the flight would be leaving. She double-checked my ticket, then quickly grabbed the phone and started dialing. She started arguing in Hindi on the phone with whoever she was talking to. I started to get worried. She slammed down the phone then said to me, "Sir, your plane is about to take off you will need to head there immediately" I froze and quickly absorbed the info, if I didn't make the flight, that would throw a wrench in my India plans as I had a relative coming down from Dharamsala to the Delhi airport the following day. I asked the attendant how far away and where the gate was. She told me I was at gate 67, pointed me in that direction and stated that I still had to pass through customs and security which would take at least 15 minutes. After yelling "Damnit!" Jack Bauer style I sprinted towards my terminal, determined to catch my flight to India.