Spooky coincidence in spiritual Northern India

As predicted the overnight bus to Macleodganj was completely sleepless, being buffeted from side to side round every corner on the twisty mountain road. The bus helpfully dropped us at 4:30am, not in the bus station and not anywhere easily identifiable on the Lonely Planet map. We did manage to work out where we were but clearly after everyone else did because our chosen hotel was fully booked, apparently having given their last room away only five minutes previously. However the owner there took pity on us and invited us in to sit, telling us nowhere else would be open yet. It became obvious that we were in a Tibetan enclave, not really India, when he brought us free cups of tea to drink as we planned our next option. When we had rested a bit we headed out and found that most of the hotels in town were booked up. We were getting near the end of our choices when we found a hotel up lots of steps with our big bags which was able to offer us a room.

Our plan after checking in was to eat some breakfast then go to bed, but the hotel we were in had no kitchen and told us that nowhere would be offering breakfast yet. We were sure we had seen somewhere near the bottom of the steps which looked kind of open so we went down there to find they were actually serving breakfast on the veranda. Halfway through a rather poor breakfast of kidney beans, which were horribly dry, a tall slightly punky looking guy appeared at the opposite end of the veranda and stared for a bit. At first I thought it was big Davie from The Plain of Jars in Laos but the near-impossible coincidence and the fact he looked younger than I remembered him convinced me it was an unknown stranger instead. He kept looking, though, in a way that suggested he wasn't convinced either, but clearly did not have the extra too-young factor to completely put him off. In the end he cracked and asked “Michael?”. Of course it was him! But what an idiot I felt for not recognising him immediately. He was staying at this hotel.

The return of Big Davie

The day before Joanne had said to me that it looked like we wouldn't be meeting up with Davie. We had had a vague plan to meet him, but headed off in opposite directions when we reached India, and last email contact we got from him suggested he was still in Rajasthan, soon leaving for Nepal. In fact he was planning to enter Nepal from the West, via Macleodganj and Manali. Rajasthan, at 49C, had been ever hotter than Varanasi and too much for a Scotsman he expained. Certainly the three-day camel ride in the desert sounded like an error of judgement! Apparently alcohol had been so hard to get hold of where he had been in India that he had been on the wagon for several weeks and, in fact, had been drunk for the first time again the previous night. So he was ready for a reunion session later. He told us that he'd paid for a shave at a barber's the day before and thoroughly recommended it. I realised immediately that this must be the secret to his youthful appearance and asked him where he had got it.
We agreed to meet him later back on his veranda and went out in search of his barber to regain my lost youth. His directions were a bit suspect, but who gives away the secret of the font of youth? In the end I settled for another barber, reckoning that just a shave would do, even without the elixir of life. The whole experience was quite unusual: exposing your jugular to a stranger with an open razor, who is only going to get Rs20 if he doesn't cut your throat. But it was also very pleasant; total luxury at a low price. No need to go through the terrible hassle of foaming up and shaving your own face: just get a man in! I left feeling much nicer and fresher as I'd left it a couple of days too many in the relative cool of Manali. I didn't think he'd done as close a job as my Mach III normally does, but at Rs20 a day it would be cheaper to pay for a shave rather than do it myself every second day, Mach IIIs and Gillette shaving gel included. Why hadn't I tried this at the start of our trip? I was definitely hooked now.

We met Davie again later and went to what seems to be the only bar in town, where he had been drinking whiskies the previous night. He had warned us that the whisky seemed to be difficult to get hold of and only one employee would serve it to him. This time nobody would so we had to settle for beer, however the fact we were not ordering food seemed to make us of very little interest to the waiting staff and we were unable to order again. We decided to save a bit of money and actually get a drink by going to the off-licence outside with the intention of having a few drinks on Davie's hotel veranda. We had time for one drink before the very grumpy manager appeared and switched off the light, leaving us in the dark. It was only 10 O'Clock, but clearly it was time for bed. Our hotel had no common area so our last hope was to retire to Davie's room for more drinks, but as we were filing in his next door neighbour, a twenty-something french french guy complained that he would be able to hear us if we were talking in the room. It was only just after ten! And he wasn't even thirty! We gave up and Joanne and I settled for a couple of drinks alone in our bedroom. I much preferred Macleodganj to Manali, but clearly it was not anything like as much of a party town.

Rubbish collection in India!

As usual in India, the next morning we were denied our catch-up sleep from the bus journey by noisy people early in the morning. It's a nice little town but there's not loads to do and the only tourism we had intended was a visit to the Tibetan Museum. Although we hadn't had many drinks the night before, they had all been strong beers and ciders, and I was feeling a bit hungover as well as tired. I just couldn't face the museum; I went in, but it was hot inside and when I saw all of the exhibits were mostly text with a couple of photos, I had to leave. Reading was too hard. Instead I waited in a nearby cafe and managed to read the Times of India. Apparently the monsoon was now so overdue that there were serious water shortages all over India. Terrible for India, but it did mean that we had got a break from the early monsoon that followed all round South East Asia. They were expecting the drought to continue for another two weeks at least. I turned to the international section which I had noticed before seemed to be nothing but gossip and a half-naked Western girl. It was the same again. I found a couple of older papers and checked: same again. Apparently the only news Indians get about the West is gossip and proof that all Western women are loose. No wonder they feel at liberty to grope them if this is the only way the are portrayed in the media! Joanne appeared and confirmed that the museum had not been all that interesting, but, for what happened in Tibet, she was now adding China to her travel-inspired list of evil countries which until then had only contained the US, for what happened in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. She suggested that we should re-route to avoid it for political reasons. On the way back to the hotel we were completely drenched as the late monsoon appeared just to spite that morning's newspaper.

That evening we met up with Davie again, but earlier, in the hope of getting drunk before the town shut down, this time not on strong beers in the hope we could avoid the disproportionate hangover we had both suffered earlier. We managed a bit better, but it really isn't a party town.

The next morning we were woken early again, but the non-strong beers seemed to have done the trick and I felt more human again. We spent the day wondering around town, buying bus tickets back to Delhi and off-loading the books we had read; as usual we came away with more books than we got rid of, which really isn't the point of the exercise, but when you see a good English bookshop in Asia it's hard not to go a bit overboard. Macleodganj in absolutely crammed with monks but what is particularly unusual is the very high number of female monks (or is it nuns?). Apparently the branch of Buddhism practiced in Tibet is far more egalitarian than other forms.

Again we had only been able to get an overnight bus, but I hoped that this one would be a bit more comfortable after the first couple of hours when we would be out of the mountains and back on the plains again. When we arrived at the bus station Joanne was not impressed: the “semi-deluxe” bus we had booked didn't look very deluxe at all. I found it comfortable enough and slept more than I had on any other bus trip. Joanne was not so lucky because, even though it was a night bus, they still crammed as many people in as possible, and she had people leaning against her headrest all night. Some people were trying to sleep standing up. They must have been even more exhausted than Joanne by the time we arrived in Delhi.

written by  The Happy Couple on June 29, 2009 from Macleodganj, India
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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