India

So yes, I haven’t been all that diligent about posting here on this trip. In large part, the blame for that lies with the relatively poor internet cafe offerings here in India, coupled with the complete exhaustion one feels after a full day dealing with the noise and chaos here. More on that later.

For now, we’d like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas from India!

Currently, we’re in a place called McLeod Ganj in the north, in the first major swellings of the Himilaya. McLeod Ganj is the current seat of the Tibetan Government in Exile, and as such where the Dalai Lama lives (when he’s not away on business). So, we figured Buddhism, Christianity, what’s the difference, we’ll spend Christmas here. We’ve just finished our Christmas Eve dinner with a very nice group of New Zealanders we met a few days back, good times with many laughs.

The McLeod Ganjers have made a sort of Indian effort to either make westerners feel at home or cynically exploit foreign sentiment by having a few places decorated with lights and even a Christmas tree (first tree I’ve ever seen with pink balloons on it.) The small pastry shop on the corner was bustling with activity earlier today, as the proprietors tried to literally splice the wires from a string of lights missing the plugin directly together with a hot cable coming I believe from a powerbox on the nearest light pole, while the restaurant we ate in had their own lights and what we thought were some sort of fireworks. We later discovered that in fact there was a guy welding something on the roof, and the colorful sparks falling gracefully past the window were in fact the fruits of his labor. But, we had spicy pizza and beer, and some very nice cakes for dessert, and all in all a good time was had by all. Except maybe the welder.

Hope you’re all having a great holiday!

(and I’ll try to update more regularly, to tell  the story of how we came to be here where we are now…)