Dharamshala September 25th to October 1st

My mission to find peace and quiet in the Himalayas now had a destination name, Dharamshala. This is where the Dalai Lama, aka His Holiness, resides when he is not busy travelling the world. It is also a hot spot for yoga, meditation, trekking and learning, of course, about buddhism.

Close to the Himalayas with mountains as high as 4200 meters, I was confident it was going to satisfy my quest to find refuge in nature. Well this was definitely not the first impression I got when I arrived… After taking the second bus of 4 hours and getting off at Dharamshala bus station it was as chaotic as any of the other major towns I had been but this was soon to change once I took with my fellow travelers, Mike and Samba, a bus to McLeod Ganj and then a tuk tuk to Dharamkot. A big thanks to Samba who helped us navigate from Amritsar to Dharamkot. Without his help in Hindi I am sure the trip would not have been as smooth…

After getting off the tuk tuk and started walking towards our hostel which was literally lost in the woods, I finally saw signs of nature and less urbanisation. The number of cars, motorcycles and people had drastically dropped and I could have sworn that there were moments that I could not hear any vehicle horn sounds! So needless to say, I stayed there more time than I initially expected.

Transport

End of our first leg of the trip, 4 hour government bus ride!

Streets

View from the hostel. Can’t complain!

Cows, what else?

Miss my bike 🙂

Kids playing cricket.

Interesting construction techniques…

View of the valley

Liav, my Israeli friend I met there, under the Bhagsu cake fever 🙂 Bhagsu cake is a specific cake made in this town only and is composed of chocalate, short bread and probably something else.

Baby girl from the guest house.

Public swimming pool.

That’s an interesting way to welcome guests…

Monks!

Love this grafitti!

Attemps are being made to keep the town clean. Not an easy task…

Bar called Once in Nature where they play live music. When I went they were playing psychedelic music. Felt like being back in the 70’s! Cool hippie environment!

Dalailama (His Holiness) Temple Surroundings

Praying wheels

Triund Trek

We went for a day trip up to Triund which was at 3200 metres. If we had had more time we could have trekked up until 4200 metres! Maybe next time.

Posing time!

Mysterious red colored pond. Wont be dipping my toes in there though.

Only way to bring things up here is via a donkey.

Beautiful clouds.

Yoga

So many different yoga centres. I tried for the first time the Ashtanga yoga style. A little more dynamic than the Hatha I believe. A welcome exercise given the lack of it over the past weeks!

Food

Momos!

Meet the momo monster! He probably holds the record of number of momos one can eat in a week! 🙂

A super authentic Tibetan restaurant. The mutton momos and their Thupka are amazing!

Trying to compensate by having healthy breakfasts. The fruit muesli of this place was delicious! Had it 3 times…

Spinach eggs benedicte. Incredibly tasty!

Falafel! Dharamshala is a hot spot for Israeli tourists. Many signs and adverts are in hebrew! I had no idea!