Sight-seeing around Dharamshala - Part 1

 2 April, 2022

My parents, brother, sis-in-law and I are at the most picturesque homestays near Dharamshala. Snow can be seen on the towering mountains behind the near by rows of hills. I could just stay at home curled up with one of the many books stocked up in this house, while the tender april sun dances on my face. I have a whole week to do that.

We finished our sumptuous breakfast of aloo puri and headed for a sight-seeing trip around Macleod-ganj. We piled onto a 5 seater sedan to ferry 6 people across the twisting roads of these hills. Our first stop - Norbulingka Institute of Tibetan Culture Studies came about before we could complain about being crammed into this vehicle. Once you step into this institute, the calming sounds of flowing water take over, even the bulbul needs to raise its pitch to be heard in these parts. The landscaping artist has done a marvelous job utilizing the space so well. Our guide - Lhamo - joined us shortly and took us around to a number of workshops and studios that were open that day. It is a place where tibetan art and culture is taught to willing students and they eventually find employment within the institute or elsewhere. 

As we ignorantly walked into each of these spaces, Lhamo would explain what is being taught within and the students would show us what they are working without any outward display of annoyance at our intrusion. The buddhist imagery which we are not faniliar with, we tried to associate to their equivalent ones in our legends. The painting workshop piqued my interest. The master had put up a sketch on a board at the center - it was of a diety called "Tara" sitting on a wide lotus, with curls and twists all drawn to proportion. And some students were sketching it and painting it. There were two groups of classes, one which used acrylic colors and created an embossing effect for some and the other group which did the "Thangka" painting using naturally made dyes and pure gold. My mom was very curious and walked up to each student finding out what each was drawing and her exclamations filled the room. 

In flitting from one workshop to another we had reached two storey levels higher and stepping out of this last workshop, we were treated to an amazing view of Dauladhar range right behind where we stood. After admiring this serene view we headed to the Buddha temple where the main statue was made of a head of gold and gold plated bronze body. I tried to sit idle in its quiet quarters.

Next we headed to Naddi viewpoint which is where Triund trek starts. We were rewarded with magnificent views of the might Dauladhar range up and close. These are peaks rising over 4000m which reared their snow capped heads in between swift moving clouds. With my brother's new phone which could erase any ugly power grid lines, we have some really good photos to take back home. I wish we reached here by evening and not high noon. The heat haze over exposed all the photos on my camera. 

We headed to munch some momos - surprisingly even my parents who are generally very reserved about what goes in their mouths, gulped a few of these yummy steamed momos. After this we headed to a cafe near our next tourist stop, which served some disappointing food. The tourist spot deserves a post of its own. Watch out for the next one.