http://www.woolgatherer.net Travel Blog of Nicholas Taylor Wed, 07 May 2008 02:38:27 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en JJI Cafe became our usual hangout. Each new day started with a JJI Special (eggs, Tibetan bread, stir-fried vegetables, and hot chai) and ended with a Tibetan thentuk or momo soup at the very same table, overlooking the valley. At night we'd go downstairs to the owner's apartment to watch ... http://www.woolgatherer.net/2008/05/06/fortunate-one/ The first matter in Dharamsala was to confront Indian beer. We chose McLlo's pub—hardly an ideal Indian venue, the decor of the place being clearly inspired by TGI Friday's, but authenticity matters little to the travel-weary and unshowered. Besides, only two places in McLeod Ganj serve alcohol. McLlo's is a ... http://www.woolgatherer.net/2008/03/19/what-we-talk-about-when-we-drink-with-tibetans/ Our bus arrives at midday in the hill station of Dharamsala. I'm on my way to McLeod Ganj, the famous Tibetan settlement, and home of the His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. Our bus wheezes its way up the steep Dhauladhar mountains, watched meaningfully by monkeys. The road grows steeper ... http://www.woolgatherer.net/2008/01/20/chenrezig-may-you-stay-until-samsara-ends/ The bus driver is gone an awfully long time. Lonely Planet gives the population of Pathankot, this bus-transfer outpost, as 140,000. I step outside to buy a drink, which I bring back to the bus, dodging the shawl salesmen. One of the passengers, a young man with a thin moustache, ... http://www.woolgatherer.net/2008/01/13/a-question-of-questions/ The immensity of India doesn't strike you right away. A visitor landing in Delhi or Bombay might comment sourly on the congestion, waste entire days in cross-town transit, or wince at the startling cacophony of car horns and Bollywood dance music, but he is unlikely to conclude that these places ... http://www.woolgatherer.net/2008/01/13/the-state-religion/ After grudgingly stuffing a small billfold of baksheesh into Bashir's shirt pocket, I climbed into the white jeep and closed the door. I was the last passenger to arrive, so I was given the passenger seat, a crumbling cushion sitting on a wobbly pedestal. Behind were several Kashmiri families piled ... http://www.woolgatherer.net/2007/12/25/jammu/ Day One Early next morning, the tout picked me up in a taxi at my hotel in Paharganj. For an astoundingly low price, he had arranged for me a plane ticket from Delhi to the city of Srinagar, which sits in the north of the Indian territory of Kashmir. He told ... http://www.woolgatherer.net/2007/12/18/five-days-in-kashmir/ By day three in Delhi, fatigue was setting in. My world was split in two: into the relative tranquility of my hotel room and attached café, and the steaming, stifling mess of city around me. In here, I could read, watch TV, or just sit for a while. Out there ... http://www.woolgatherer.net/2007/12/11/the-things-touts-do-second-of-a-series/ There is no possible description of Delhi that does not use or imply the word "hole". Whether prefixed by "hell-" or some other fragment, no other term could truthfully describe Delhi except as a pit, indentation, or aperture filled with some noxious substance. Within minutes of leaving the dumpy Indira Gandhi ... http://www.woolgatherer.net/2007/11/16/delhi/ As the postings here at Woolgatherer have been lagging significantly behind schedule (I've actually been in India for over a month now), what follows is a condensed version of the rest of my time in Europe and Turkey. Back in Istanbul with ten days to kill before my flight to Munich, ... http://www.woolgatherer.net/2007/11/14/the-never-ending-past/