Raw Orchid Tales

This is a travel tale, that depicts a long ago encounter with the magic and mayhem of India. It started in Thailand though, in ways. En route to Delhi.

My boyfriend and I had just spent a couple of weeks in infamous Bali, and had a connecting flight to Delhi via Thailand, or Bangkok to be precise. A good friend of ours was already in Bangkok, and kindly welcomed us to stay with him overnight. He had been in Bangkok for a month already, and had set himself a personal goal of completing 100, 000 Buddhist prostrations. It was an act of seeking a sense of salvation, a cleansing, and challenge of spiritual practice. The apartment he was inhabiting, to produce this physical feat, was in a downtown precinct. It was owned by an old friend of his, who was an accomplished business man, and who somehow had a ‘friendship’ with the King of Thailand. His friend came to meet us, wore his gigantic Rolex watch ( a royal gift), and chatted away impeccably while smoking a cigar and drinking a glass of expensive whiskey. Our prostrating friend was in good spirits, and explained how he was inching closer to his prostrations grand total by intermittently watching a Fashion Channel on local satellite television. A bizarre mix of activities and mental focus, yet somehow in the bedlam of the inner city and in light of achieving his goal, it seemed doable and perhaps practical?

The next morning we returned to the airport. I was full of anticipation to arrive to the surrealistic beauty of India. To visit the myth. And a short flight later, stood in Delhi Airport, thronged by a sea of earnest passengers, taxi drivers, and tour guides. We had booked a room at a recommended guest house, but failed to recognise or locate the guest house driver who was sent to collect us. In the gentle chaos of it all, my boyfriend eyed off a taxi driver who looked at him beseechingly, and held the promise of a quick exit into the city. The taxi driver politely looked at our directions to the guest house, nodded several times, and we took off into the city streets, weaving and darting around traffic at not sensible speeds. And we trusted him. Shortly after, we pulled up in front of a worn hotel building, and knowing we were at the wrong address, protested at the drivers incompetence, and were quickly ushered inside and cajoled into staying the night. The hotel was run by a Kashmiri family, and around 1am that night, I read a reputable travel guide that warned and advised travellers about this exact experience, or ‘scam’ to put it bluntly. So we were duped, but it felt amusing anyway. And the next day we managed to relocate to our beautiful guest house, with a sense of relief and gratitude. No harm done...

We had come to India on pilgrimage. To travel north to Himachel Pradesh, to Dharamsala, to spend a month amongst the Tibetan refugee communities. To attend Buddhist teachings, and with luck, to have an audience with HH Dalai Lama.

There was a taxi ride to the train station. Followed by an overnight train to Patenkot, where we would continue by bus into the foothills of the Himalayas. And what a bus ride it was! There was a blend of pilgrims and Tibetan monks and nuns onboard, and a sense of magic in tow. It took 4 hours to travel the 100-odd kilometres. And necessarily so. As we drove higher and higher, the road began to resemble a mere ‘wrinkle’ etched into the mountainous terrain. The bus and truck drivers seemed to have a specialised gift for inching past each other, with precipitous cliff edges only millimetres away. We passed small towns and villages, some with meandering small rivers that were flanked by Jurassic looking boulders, that had tumbled down the mountainside, perhaps centuries ago. It was like a rite of passage, though simply the pathway that was leading us skywards, up into the mystical thresholds of Dharamsala.

We arrived, and set off walking up to the village hub, in search of somewhere suitable to stay. Past reverent ancient Tibetan elders prostrating through the streets and bustling visitors, all of us startstruck to be enveloped in the palpable magic of this holy place. And temples and stupas laden with thousands of prayer flags that sliced through the sky, bringing a sense of exotic protection. A bevy of accomodation houses teetered on the hillsides, and we continued searching until we found a small slightly tired looking guesthouse with a large, lush garden of marigolds out the front. It was tucked away on a quiet street, that led up from the central village. And, this became our home, for the duration.

Days were spent exploring the local village, full of beautiful Tibetan shop-owners, cafes selling delicious Tibetan food, rosy-cheeked children, market stalls, and the odd mix of Indian people here and there. Plump lepers sat quietly on the cobble-stone street corners, smiling, and content to watch the world go by. It was like being in an exotic film, and everyday you could feel the air was imbued with a heightened sense of spirituality.

We did meet the Dalai Lama. We were blessed and grateful for this incredibly special audience. We also attended Teachings by highly esteemed Lamas, and sat graciously, with hundreds of other visitors from all corners of the world, and the devoted Sangha. And to this day, I feel it was probably the most fulfilling adventure I’ve enjoyed

You would have to go yourself, the feel the magnetism of this Himalayan region, and savour the holy ambience.

I could not recommend it more!...