Getting up close and personal with Buddhism

So now I must write about the journey and not the destination because, as Gandhi says, this is the bit that matters.

So there I was, on the bus from Dharamsala to Manali, with a friendly American to the left of me and a monk in front of me. I must have paid my penance in dreadful bus journeys, I thought to myself, this is like bliss!

So for about two hours we travelled along like this. The monk did not recline his seat an inch - so I sat there, ipod on, head on my special red fluffy pillow, and I had space for my legs and everything!

And while I sat there all comfortable and that, I got to thinking. The fact that this monk hadn’t reclined his chair an inch told me that he was a happy man. This Buddhism lark must really work! If I did Vipassana would I then be able to just sit there, all upright, and sleep like a baby - no insomnia - and be proud of the fact that I hadn’t reclined my seat and that the person behind me was also comfortable. What an admirable man!

(In India the bus seats recline so far that the person behind can no longer put their legs down, like a normal person, and can only sit in an upright foetal position - imagine someone giving birth and you are getting close)

So on the bus went, and on Damian Rice went, and on my philosophising went… until suddenly, BANG, and OUCH! The monk’s seat flew backwards and flew backwards and flew backwards, so far, until it almost hit the edge of my seat, where he stayed, more reclined than anyone else in the entire bus, and happily snoring away like a pig in shit until the end of the journey (which was about 15 hours).

So for 15 hours I had my legs either side of the seat, with his shaven Buddhist head between my legs.

There are so many lessons to be learnt here, I don't know where to start.

It's all about the journey is it, Gandhi?

It’s a funny old thing, this travelling lark. According to Gandhi it’s not the destination but the journey that counts.

Good job, really - if I wasn’t getting touched up on buses and scammed on rickshaws there wouldn’t be much to write about.

“So today I went to a café and read my book and then I ate some food and then I walked up a hill and then I skyped my boyfriend and then I sat on my own for a while, bored, and watched a cow take a shit in the road.”

Surely not! Surely it’s meant to go something like this: “So today I roamed exotic lands wearing Indian silk harem pants and incense-scented beads, and then I frolicked in the ocean with skin the colour of a brazil nut: fulfilled; enlightened; joyful; free!”

Only I’m nowhere near the ocean - I‘m in the Himalayas. And the only thing that’s en-lightened is my hair.

These serious travellers - y‘know, the ones with the dreadlocks and those blasé facial expressions - they must be pretty dedicated folk, highly practised in the art of How To Do Absolutely Nothing Except Stare At A Mountain For Days On End.



Perhaps that’s why they always end up festering in groups on a hill somewhere, near sacred monuments, spinning silly bits of wood with fire on top and trying to outdo each other with outlandish trousers and ginormous hair.

Fortunately for you I’m off on a 12-hour bus journey to Manali tomorrow, which will no doubt give me something more interesting to write. Maybe I’ll get touched up again! Or perhaps I’ll break my leg. I’ll be wearing sensible trousers though, don’t you worry.

It’s also the Dalai Lama’s birthday tomorrow - what this quite means I haven’t yet been able to figure out.

“Dalai Lama birthday tomorrow Madam so maybe big party in the town. But Dalai Lama maybe not here my friend, so if he not in McCleod then no party and we do nothing. We see. Shanti shanti.”

That’s that sorted then.

Monsoon, my old friend!

Hello monsoon, pleased to be acquainted with you once again. Thanks for marooning me in my favourite café, with nothing more to do than look out the window at you streaming down the road in great, fat clumps and sigh despairingly.



The roads, which are about as steep as roads get, have now turned into dangerous rivers. Clouds are floating past the café and jaunting off down the road, transforming the edge of the tarpaulin roof into Niagara Falls. Huge flashes of lightening are periodically illuminating the greyness, and the Gods are definitely moving house up there.

The music has been pumped up to top volume and you can still only just hear it and now there's talk of an apple wine monsoon party. BRING IT ON!

Faithful cloud which I am in, I salute you. No sarcasm intended, I’m genuinely thankful.

I no longer have a need to feel guilty for not walking through the forest, up a mountain, down a waterfall, or participating in some sort of mental beauty pageant (sorry Jannet Angel - this body aint getting out of this café for less than a million pounds).

Or here’s a thought - WE COULD WHITE-WATER RAFT DOWN THE ROAD? It must be at least grade 4. I might have to hire a dinghy just to get back to my room.

But for now my feet are up, I have coffee in one hand, a book in the other and no reason to be anywhere else for at least 5 weeks. It doesn't get much better than this.

Same same but different?

Help. My inspiration is being strangled by stinky dreadlocks and squished by idendikit hippies.

Today I ventured into Upper Bhagsu - I’d been advised by the Finnish dreadlocker who had shared my bus that this was the place to be. Her exact words went something like this: “Is nice, you will like it. Is more Westerners than Indians and you can buy falafel and choclolate cake!”

On my way up there I bumped into said girl, alongside her friend. Or hang on a second, was it her friend or was it her twin - OR HAD SHE BEEN DUPLICATED?

Long blonde dreadlocks: check. Nose ring: check. Baggy trousers with elasticated bottom - like Aladdin‘s!: check. Vest top, anklet and obligatory blasé facial expression: check.

For the record, she almost completely ignored me, despite the fact I had spent hours chatting with her a few days previously.

“Namaste madam,” she said, in a mock Indian accent and carried on her dreadlocked way, no doubt heading down the hill to bang some bongos and smoke some weed.

Upper Bhagsu wasn‘t so great. More dreadlocks and facial hair than an entire family of overgrown and unshaven Mr Twits.

But much more importantly, an Indian lady called Jannet Angel - real name? perhaps not - just invited me to take part in the Miss World Traveller beauty pageant that's taking place in Bhagsu tomorrow. Going by her bright pink lipstick and illuminous red hair, it should be an interesting affair.

I said yes, of course. Watch this space.

From Delhi to Dharamsala

Phew. Have now escaped the suffocating humidity of Delhi’s pre-Monsoon heat. It wasn’t an easy escape, mind.

I just spent 13 hours on a bus being periodically, and ever so covertly, touched up for the pleasure of this mountain air. Two tablets of valium and not a wink of sleep, due to a voracious wandering hand that kept ’accidentally’ falling off the armrest and onto my leg.

And it wasn’t even a dirty old man. It was a young university student from Pune, who had earlier been part of a conversation in which a Finnish girl and I were explaining in detail what we would like to do to men who can’t keep their hands to themselves.

Chop. Their. Dicks. Off.

Perhaps he misheard?

So now I’m in Dharamsala, the home of the great Dalai Lama. Also home to about a million travellers, a billion yoga and meditation centres, a thousand ayervedic health centres and a rapacious Tibetan-themed marketing ploy.

I’m staying in a place called Bhagsu, which is a few kilometres further north into the mountains, which is full of winding alleyways and crooked houses and cows in the most inappropriate places.

Have found a room with a big window and a view out into the Himalayas. Unfortunately I think it might also have bed bugs, if the string of red welts on my arm are anything to go by. But for £2 a night and some beautiful mountain views, who’s complaining?