Dharamshala and Down

Getting back to normal life after the retreat felt like being reborn, with all the fear, confusion, awkwardness, novelty, and delight that comes with those early days of existence. With my gaggle of new friends I found a cozy room up the hill in Dharamkot to lay my head for a few days and digest, as well as plan the next leg of my trip. Gatien, from France, and Boris from the Netherlands were my companions. I’d also befriended Chris, an American who lived in Georgia as a snowboarding instructor and Andrew, a Jewish guy who lived in LA and is hilarious. In fact, I met tons of really great people at Tushita and I even came to a better understanding with some of the Israelis. The Israelis are human, and they are victims of the zionist ideology which is so hard to escape when you have grown in that cursed holy land. I need to have compassion for them in order to understand them and maybe one day put sense into them. At the hotel I met a Mumbai man named Abhay who I became very close with. He had a familiar quiet sadness in him but was also funny and knowledgable and aware and was in town for the film festival which I attended with him and others. The festival inspired me and was a great tool for reintegration into the world. I reconnected with Chris from Australia and Doug from New Zealand, they were both still around and enjoying the peace of the mountains. Dharamkot has a nice energy to it, but the conflict in Israel once again cast a long shadow. All the stores had signs in Hebrew but barely any Israelis were there to meander, you could tell something was off, businesses weren’t anywhere near capacity. After a point I knew I was burning too much time there. The film festival was cool. It was the first time I needed to use my glasses and I realized I had broken them while shoving them in the handlebar bag. This would be a fairly easy fix, no stress. Some films really inspired me but most were just poverty porn. Why do so many people make short films about poverty? People are poor, we get it.

My IBS relapsed. It started again during Tushita and now my movements are regularly irregular. It’s frustrating but I have to keep my hopes up. The gut will heal. My mind will help it heal faster. It was with a bittersweet hesitance that I left the cozy gravity of Dharamkot and mounted my bike once more. Mostly everyone else was gone now. I hugged Abhay, promising to keep in touch, and thanked my host at the homestay, and then I rode my brakes on that steep inclined hill, realizing how different a person I was on the day I had climbed it. My bike ride from Dharamshala was wonderful. I bought Tibetan medicine for my gut in Dharamshala, all they did was feel my pulse and look at my tongue to get my vitals, and was doing my best to use it correctly. It came with a lot of rules. No onions or garlic, only hot water. I needed to take these bitter tasting pills that I would chew in my mouth 3 times a day before and after meals and I needed to find hot water to take it with. Without a camp stove I had to go to little chai shops and attempt to explain I just wanted hot water which is more difficult than it sounds. But it gave me an excuse to meet and speak with lot’s of people and they were all friendly and no one ever dared charge me for the hot water. I met so many wonderful friendly people in that area of India. Children led me to my first campsite in an old fort turned school and temple. I was invited to warm meals in multiple homes. My attempts at payment were repeatedly refused. I had my glasses repaired free of charge. Nobody wants my money in India. Just a month ago everyone wanted it. I found ideal camping locations and slept well every night in the tent. Soon I was in the land of the Punjabis, who were even nicer than the Himachalis somehow. I ate more delicious food and experienced more human kindness. I camped in tall fields of sugar cane and cycled through midwestern-style rain storms, dark clouds colonizing the massive expanse of sky and raining down in fury. I relied on Google Maps walking mode to avoid highways and explore off the beaten track. The results were mixed. At one point Google Maps led me straight into a river, but I was lucky enough to be able to convince a stray boatman to ferry me across in a tiny dingy which saved me a days long detour. As I approached Amritsar I was eager to leave the wide road I was on and took another google maps shortcut that wound along a drainage canal on a single track dirt road that gave way to nothingness and muddiness. I cycled along power lines and through trash and in refuse. I fell in a muddy wet road of cow poop. It was delightful. My phone fell right in the puddle but I was able to salvage it. Some friendly Indians saw my muddied beaten down state and towed me out back to the highway on their motorbike. Later that day I arrived in the congestion and chaos of Amritsar, the city of the Sikhs, the cultural capital of Punjab. The mountains were behind me, and India was before me.