So, after spending 5 days at Amritsar, decided to leave with Marlieke on the bus to Macleod Ganj, the home of the Dalai Lama, amongst other things. The bus trip of 6+ hours wasn't too bad, quite rough at times, and those buses are not very well sprung, and the seats quite hard, the road felt like a gravel road, believe me! Also, the constant use of the bus horn, which sounds like a train horn, got pretty tiring at times, but we did have 2 refreshment stops, and the scenery was nice, lots more agriculture, sugar cane and cattle. It was not an express bus, and through the villages local people got on and off. We were held up at a rail crossing for about 15mins, and I spotted a stand selling fresh sweet lime juice, so called out the window, and we got one each. It was delicious, had also fresh sugar cane and salt - so refreshing. There were many villages along the way, most very dusty, everything along the road coated in a thick layer of dust, I don't know how the trees survive, let alone the people.
We arrived at the bus station at Dharamsalar at 7.15pm, had to hassle with taxi driver to take us up the hill to Macleod Ganj at a reasonable price (it should have been 120rupees) had to pay 150. He told us it was 10k, but we knew it was only 4k, if that. Anyway we were there very quickly, at managed to get some accommodation very easily, thank goodness, we were both tired and in need of a good hot shower, which we managed to have before going out to have a bowl of delicious hot noodle soup. A good nights sleep-in, and then awoke' threw open the windows to a beautiful day, with the mountains rising to the Himalayas in the background. We went walking up the narrow steep roads to find the cafes we had read about serving real coffee and nice food. Past many little shops and little guest houses, we found what we were looking for,and sat for an hour in the sun, chatting to a couple of girls, one from Canada, one Finland, who had come and done some volunteering work at a local school.
We had a good walk,looked in all the shops,after a couple of hours found another cafe, then walked down to see the Dalai Lamas temple. It was a very restful place - a lot of Indian groups looking too. It is so hard to believe we are still in India, because this is a very Tibetan place -so many here its like a different country. I am not ready to leave India behind yet! We will probably spend another couple of days here.
