McLeodganj, A Buddhist Pilgrimage

Tashi delek! Here we are – at the bus stand, the heart of McLo (short for McLeodganj). This is where you’ll find yourself when you reach the town.
Roads radiate from here to various points around the town including back down to Dharamsala.
You’ll find Buddhist monks walking around in their burgundy robes, telling a rosary as they go about their daily business. In the centre of the bazaar, south of the bus stand, is the Namgyalma Stupa surrounded by golden prayer wheels that are turned by two main roads – Temple Road and Jogibara Road.


¤ A Home of Dalai Lama

McLeodganj is best known as the headquarters of the Tibetan Government in Exile and home of the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso. The Tibetan settlement here is a delightful example of their agreeable nature.

The community has taken over the hospitality business and provide cheap and clean hotels and small friendly restaurants.
All this makes McLeodganj is a colourful little town, a perennial den of tourists – a place you can chill out in and do your own thing. While you stop to wonder at a Tibetan trinket or a shawl, you’ll realize that your stomach is involuntarily responding to the lovely smell of wantons wafting from a nearby joint.
McLeodganj is steeped in Buddhist culture – you can find anything from Tibetan food, good luck charms and thangkas to Enlightenment. In fact, many disenchanted foreigners come here seeking solace, meditation or to champion the Tibetan cause.


¤ Main Attractions of The Town

As for sightseeing, you’ll be quite agog with the sheer length of the itinerary. Begin with the quaint church of St John-in-the-Wilderness, and then going over to the host of Buddhist sites like the Tsuglag Khang, Namgyal Monastery, Dip Se Chok-Ling Gompa, Gangchen Kyishong with its Library & Archives andMedical Institute, TIPA, Mani Lakhang Stupa, Nechung Monastery, Norbulingka Institute, and the Chinmaya Tapovan. If you’re looking for some classes on the Tibetan language or Buddhism, there’re enough options for that. The walks around this place are just too good to be missed. Whether it’s Naddi or Dharamkot, Bhagsu or Triund, Dal Lake or Kareri Lake, you’ll be nothing less than spellbound.


¤ Take Care While You are In Dharamsala

With heavy tourist traffic, Dharamsala is quite cosmopolitan in character. However, a certain decorum needs to be observed while visiting Buddhist shrines.
Walk clockwise around shrines and stupas and on the left-hand side inside monasteries.
Buddhist monasteries are open to all and you may even visit the resident lama. But be sure to be dressed modestly. An audience with the Dalai Lama can be arranged too but one cannot record the event – no cameras, video cameras or sound recorders allowed.


¤ His Holiness - The Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism. The title does not belong to any person.
As soon as the Dalai Lama dies, his reincarnation is identified by traditional means and tests.
The Dalai Lama is believed to be a reincarnation of the Buddha. When he dies, his soul is thought to enter the body of a newborn boy, who is then declared the new Dalai Lama.

The first man to bear the title of Dalai Lama was Sonam Gyatso, Grand Lama of the Drepung monastery and leader of the Gelugpa or Yellow Hat sect. (Sonam Gyatso received it from the Mongol chief Altan Khan in 1578. ‘Yellow Hat’ sect was then applied retroactively to the previous leaders of the sect.)
In 1642 another Mongol chief, Gushri Khan, installed the fifth Dalai Lama as Tibet’s spiritual and temporal ruler. His successors governed Tibet first as representatives of the Mongols, but from 1720 to 1911 as vassals of the emperor of China.


¤ Tenzin Gyatso-- The Present Dalai Lama

The present Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, is the 14th spiritual leader in line. When China’s Communist regime occupied Tibet in 1950, it came into increasing conflict with His Holiness.
The Dalai Lama left Tibet after an unsuccessful rebellion in 1959 and has since lived in India. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for leading the nonviolent opposition to continued Chinese rule in Tibet. In 1995 the Dalai Lama came into conflict with Chinese authorities over the identification of a new Panchen Lama (the second most senior Tibetan religious authority).

In 1996 he published Violence and Compassion, in which he and French screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière discuss topics of political and spiritual interest.

One look at the Dalai Lama’s bright beaming face is enough to convince you that if anyone can bring happiness and solace to this world, it is him.


¤ Fairs & Festivals

Losar
Losar is the Tibetan New Year, the most popular festival of Dharamsala and Buddhist populated places like Lahaul. It’s celebrated with great gusto in late February-early March and its high point are the ritual dances. Homes and kitchens are cleaned vigorously to appease Thalpa the god of home and hearth.

The Losar Celebrations
A grand feast and ritual dance are held two days before Losar. The dance, signifying destruction of evil spirits, is accompanied by drums and radong (long trumpets).
Originally it used to be performed at the courtyard of the Potala Palace, the main temple in Lhasa. The chhaam dance on the eve of Losar is a spectacular event with dancers wearing elaborate costumes and masks. Symbolizing good over evil, the dance marks the killing of a cruel Tibetan ruler – Langdarma (9th century).

Saga Dawa
The 15th day of the fourth month of the Tibetan calendar is believed to be a very auspicious and significant day. It was on this day that Sakyamuni (Buddha) was conceived by his mother Queen Mayadevi; on this very day 35 years later, Buddha attained complete Enlightenment; and to top it all off, he passed into parinirvana, the ultimate state of peace, on the same day.

In fact the whole month is said to possess such potency that anything you do, good or bad, is said to be multiplied a hundred thousand times!
Consequently, people refrain from eating non-vegetarian food, so much so that they even buy animals and set them free. Prayer wheels are set into motion with rare devotion during this month.

Dal Fair
Held near the Dal Lake (1,700m) every August-September, this fair is especially favoured by Girths and Gurkhas (hill tribes). There are the usual festivities of feasting and dancing.

¤ Shopping Hubs - The Bazaars

Shopping at McLeodganj Bazaar is great fun. It is a good place to bargain for carpets and handicrafts (metalware, jewellery, jackets, handknitted cardigans and gloves).
Tibetans usually quote a fair price to start with, so there may be no need for bargaining. Tibetan textiles, especially carpets, can be purchased from the office of Tibetan Handicrafts opposite the State Bank of India.

Fine New Zealand wool carpets and Indian wool carpets are also available. In fact you can even watch them being made at the same outlet. You can also have a chuba (the dress worn by Tibetan women) stitched on order.

Books on Tibet, its religion and culture are easily available in McLeodganj (try Charitable Trust Bookshop), and so is Tibetan music. You can take your pick from meditation music, folksongs and Tibetan chants. Look out for Tibetan herbal incense at the Tara Herbal Gift Shop near the bus stand. At the Green Store you could pick up some hand painted T-shirts and handmade paper. But the most interesting shop is undoubtedly the old-fashioned Nowrojee Store run by a charming old couple. The couple are a storehouse of information in McLeodganj and are also extremely friendly.


¤ Arts & Crafts

Carpets
Here are beautiful carpets of traditional Tibetan designs. They are delicately woven and are a riot of colour. Motifs may vary from natural scenes to monuments to incidents from a folktale or mandalas (traditional Tibetan designs of the cosmos).

Thangkas
McLeodganj is the place for excellent thangkas. These are actually ritual paintings displayed during certain Buddhist festivals, but they happen to be extremely popular with foreign tourists (and cost the earth too!).
Thangkas are intricate and brightly coloured scroll paintings on canvas, edged with a border of rich silk.
They usually depict the Buddha and other deities and the wheel of life. The painting follows complex dicta like proportional grids for each diety and traditional vegetable or mineral colours are used.
The Norbulingka Institute is the centre of learning this ancient art of Tibet. You could also place your orders here.

Woodcarving
Like carpets and thangka painting, woodcarving is also something which the Tibetans excel in. It is in Dharamsala that the masters have kept this ancient tradition alive. and the centre for all these activities is the Norbulingka.
The woodcarvers make traditional and ceremonial carved furniture, like altars of all sizes, elaborate thrones, folding tables, incense burners and so forth. After the carving is done the pieces are either polished or painted in bright colours.

¤ Gastronomic Delights

While you’re in McLo, the best grub to have is, of course, Tibetan chef-d’oeuvre. The aroma wafting from Tibetan food joints run by the locals is enough to tell you that. Try their wide range of delicious, non-spicy dishes including thukpas (soups), noodle dishes (gyathuk, thin noodles; thenthuk, flat noodles), steamed or fried momos (dumplings) and shabakleb (pretty much like flat and round momos).


¤ Eating Joints

However, there’s a lot more on offer. Keeping the taste of both the international and domestic tourist in mind, McLeod has a wide range of eateries that serve all sorts of cuisine – Indian, Tibetan, Italian, Continental, Israeli, to name a few.

Friend’s Corner is good for breakfast; Hot Spot for fast food; Shambala for cakes and pancakes; and the German Bakery on MI Road for bread and brown rice (open till 0100). Aroma on Jogibara Road serves excellent Israeli fare. The log-shaped, shack-like Chocolate Log surprises with its delectable cakes and snacks. Try Tibetan Dasang for excellent porridge, fruit muesli and whole-wheat bread.


¤ Think Globally, Act locally The residents of this tiny town of McLeodganj are great environment freaks, so don’t ever throw empty bottles and other garbage just anywhere; drop it all in the green bins. This new project, started by the Welfare office and a young Dutch man, is like a boon for this tourist crammed place. Manned by only a few, this profect does some great work.

The four ‘green workers’ in the scheme collect about 40-50kg of recyclable stuff from around the place each day, like paper, glass, plastic and metals. In fact wherever you stay at McLo, you will find a bin planted by these green workers. The Nechung and Namgyal gompas, the Dialectic School and Gaden Chuling Nunnery have special baskets with separate sections for different materials. These are emptied once a week and the materials are then separated and sold. However, the money got is little more than one worker’s salary.

Step into the Green Shop on Bhagsu Road if you’re an environment freak. The shop, another scheme run by the Welfare office, sells rechargeable batteries, hand painted T-shirts, natural cosmetics and boiled and filtered water. In the tourist season the shop to sells some 100-120 bottles a day.