trip to Tibet

this weekend I wanted to go to a little village where Tibetan refugees live, so I jumped on a bus to Madikeri on Friday night. Madikeri itself is not a very beautiful village. Though I went to a little hill station to see the sunrise, because I arrived at 5 o'clock in the morning. After a big breakfast I decided to visit some big waterfalls nearby. At least the waterfalls were pretty amazing and I took a rest there for a little time talking to some Indian guys who promised me to visit me sometime in Germany ;)

Back in Madikeri I took a bus to Kushalnagar from where the Tibetan villages are easier to reach. The bus ride was one of the most exciting ones I had over here, as the bus driver really want to test the absolute speed limit you could go with this bus downhill! I have to admit that I was really
scared at some point but although it was a fun ride. I actually really reached the roof f the bus with my head sometimes. In Kushalnagar then I took a rickshaw to the first Tibetan village, called Namdroling.

I visited the golden Temple which is really famous around here. The 18 m Buddha statue there was really impressing and after I walked around the temple environment I took an other rest on a greenfield before the temple and immediatelly fell a sleep. I woke up, because 15 Indians sat around me starting to sing some songs using me as a drum! I was pretty appalled at first but they just thought it was funny. After a little standard chat they left again and I fell back to sleep again. The next time I woke up I was surrounded by a bunch of monks :) Not that surprised this time I finally decided to go on.

The next village I visited was Sera. Roughly 5000 Monks live there and in the immediate vicinity and it is really funny to walk through this village and all the people you see are monks :)
It got finally time to look for a place to stay for the night, but the problem is that you need permission for doing that. This permission of course takes a few months to get it, so I did not even think of applying for that. My plan was to stay in a Buddhist Centre, but when I asked there for a room and admit that I do not have a permit, the first word the Tibetan guy said was "scheisse" :) He really was a funny guy and gave me a room though. If I got caught it would not have looked good for both of us (see the sign). He told me to wait until its dark and to hide from any Jeep I see on the street, because that would be the police on its daily patrol.

Pretty excited after all I went out after six o'clock to go to the main temple. The Tibetan guys at the Buddhist Centre told me that I was really fortunate to come at this time, because at the moment there is a Puja (not the same as a Hindu-Puja) at the Temple. This one year event takes one week and about 4000 monks come there to meditate and pray together. When I arrived at the temple I could already see thousands of shoes lying all around :) I went in carefully and sat down near an other white guy. I was really surprised to see one and after a while I recognized an other western women. It was the most intense atmosphere I ever felt. Sitting there with 4000 Monks and meditate was incredible. When it was finished I went for a walk with the two western people. Sarah lives with the monks every year for some months and she also had a shaved head and wore monk clothes. Coby was here to teach for a couple of weeks and then wanted to travel through India. After some interesting conversations I finally went to bed.

The next morning I had breakfast with some monks and went to explore the city. After lunch I said good-bye to everyone and hopped onto a Bus back to Bangalore.

So that was my last weekend here in Bangalore and on Thursday my time here for the internship is already over. Looking back the time really rushed by. So Thursday I leave for Delhi again and will then fly to Darjeeling for an other 3 days. So then take care.