Off to Dharamsala

30th April 2017

Dhauladhar range: part of the outer Himalayas
From KC School
Madan, the taxi driver, arrives at more or less the agreed time, and I brush aside some young girls begging, as Tashi’s wife had instructed me to do. 
The taxi ride is as hair raising as yesterday’s.  We switch “lanes” – weaving in and out between trucks, busses, cyles, motorbikes, three wheelers and everything else imaginable with barely a hair’s breadth to spare.  I am becoming convinced that it does not pay to look at the vehicle in front of which one is merging – do not make eye contact, just proceed!

We pass by any number of hugely laden cyclos as their owners go about their morning business.  We also encounter some horse drawn traffic and pass by a cow placidly observing everything – at least it was out of the flow of traffic!

There are many road signs with directives about speed, staying in lanes, overtaking, and many other things, but I come to the conclusion that these are mere suggestions, as are the lane markings.  There are as many lanes of traffic as will fit across the road.

Flying into Kangra Airport
To my surprise, we slow down, Madan puts on his seatbelt and everyone is driving sensibly for about a minute.  Ahh, police are checking vehicles, that explains a lot.  Driving reverts to normal after we pass them.

We reach the airport in good time and I have plenty of time to spare to find a coffee and something to eat.  The former is available in very limited places.  I can say, with complete authority, that McDonalds premium coffee isn’t.

Check in and security is much as reported in previous blogs and I settle down for a long wait.  There is free wifi but I need a local phone number – which I do not have – to activate it.

There is, again, a lot of air pollution that impeded any view from my window seat, then a lot of cloud cover as we approach mountainous areas.

As we approach Dharamsala airport, the captain announces that visibility is 8km – still lots of pollution in Dharamsala, albeit not as much as in Delhi.

Clearly something was amiss with my communications the other day; there is no one to meet me, and waiting for an extended period does not help my ride materialize.  Finally, lacking a local SIM, I approach the taxi drivers and ask for help.  One calls the number I have, eventually I establish who I am and that I am at Kangra airport, and my ride will be here in 20 minutes.  The communication error was that there was an assumption at this end that my arrival time was 12:40am, not 12:40pm.  I request a stop to buy water en route to the school – am absolutely parched.

The school manager, Kanshi, gives me a choice of rooms, I choose the upstairs one as possibly having a little more airflow. 

Kanshi then takes me to the nearby little town of Norbulinga to purchase a SIM card and other necessities.  And to eat some food.  He inquires about whether I eat meat and I decline.  We go to a small restaurant and he disappears out the back to order food – I have no idea what is coming until a plate of vegetable momo arrives.  Stuffed with fresh greens and spring onions, these are delicious, served dipped into a little chilli mixed with vinegar.

We return to the school and I take time to settle into my room: sweeping the floor, shaking the blankets, wiping surfaces and, with the assistance of a student “mopping” the floor – at least, wiping it over with a wet bunch of cloths tied to a stick.  I also attempt to string my mosquito net – not as well as I would like but adequately.

While there is a sit-on toilet for staff use, the water supply is not working, so we have to take a bucket to the stream for water to flush.  The “stream” runs down a concrete culvert immediately outside the gate.  Here dishes are washed, clothes are washed, along with hands and feet and faces.  Some girls have a place further down the road and lower down by another river where they go to wash their clothes and hair – the water being clearer there.

I look for a bucket to wash some clothes but there is a thunder storm brewing and the girls definitively tell me I cannot wash clothes now.

It seems that, despite being told I would have a few days of orientation, I am on class tomorrow.  Stand by lesson plan for day 1: the story of my life.

There are 2 other teachers:  Nate from the US and Sarah from South Africa. 

I had rather assumed from the information book that the view was from the teacher rooms – it’s actually from the balcony and is stunning – my daily dose of the Himalayas.

Around 7pm Nate flags that dinner at the school might or might not happen and he’s thinking of going to a nearby village for dinner – I suddenly realize I am quite tired and decline to accompany him but then a student tells me he is about to cook.


Dinner is rice with fried potato (and maybe a hint of tomato) accompanied by Tingmo, the steamed Tibetan bread – something that I think will accompany every meal.

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