Northern India travelogue
Trip outline
Ladakh [Page 1] - Manali & Hampta Pass trek [Page 5]
- Chandra Tal [Page 10] - Dharamshala/McLoad [Page 12]
- Pakistan Border, Wagah [Page 13] - Amritzar [Page 14]
- Shimla/Rishikesh/Manali [Page 15] - Nagar to Jari trek [Page 17]
- Rishikesh [Page 22] - Corbett NP [Page 23]
- Nainital [Page 24] - Taj Mahal [Page 25]
- Delhi [Page 26]
Dharamshala/Mcload
Our next stop after Manali was Dharamshala (Or the village of McLoad Ganj really). This is where many Tibetan refugees live, including
the Dalai Lama. It's the perfect place to hang around. We stayed there for 10 days. It was raining most of the time, but
still we loved the place.
A typical day in Mcload looks like this - Wake up, go to have a small breakfast at the French-looking
coffee shop. Hook up with Jarrod (Our new Australian friend) and hop over to the Yoga class (by Hari, who was a terrific teacher).
Go to Gakyi's for second breakfast & lunch, and then go to have an Indian cooking class (at Nisha's). Spend the rest of the
day talking, or reading or watching a movie, and you can see why we loved this place.
We met lot's of nice people in McLoad, but we usually hung around with Jarrod. He had great cycling stories. His taste in
books leaves something to be desired (unless you like gory bad-ending extreme sport accidents books, that is).
McLoad is basically just two narrow streets, with a bustling market.
Here are some pictures from Nisha (The cooking class. Recommended!) and from the Yoga place (Not a bad place to do Yoga!!). Hari
(The Yoga teacher) was really good. I think of him every time I try to do something quickly, but not fast.
When the skies are clear, the views down to the Valley are stunning.
One day we saw a beautiful double-rainbow over McLoad...
And that day we also had an amazing sunset, what colours!
You can visit the main temple, and see the monks during their lunch break. It's a strange session - the older monk asks
questions, and each question is followed by a large clap, and then the young monk answers. Funny.
One day we did a small walk up to Daramkot (A small village nearby). We saw lot's of monkeys, and Michal considered doing
some Vippasana meditation (but she abandoned the idea after 10 minutes or so).
The monkeys were cute and friendly. Later on I was attacked by a swarm of mad monkeys in Shimla, but these ones were okay.
After about a week of constant rain, one day we actually saw the skies (blue! what a fascinating color!) and we went for
a little walk - the Bhagsu's waterfall. Bhagsu is a village filled with stoned Israelis (That's a quote from our travel guide!).
The waterfall is nice, and there's a really cool garden-cafe up there.
And finally, a picture of Gakyi's - our favorite restaurant (The 'Lord Krishna' was good too, and Nisha's place was excellent as well).
