Over

Hi folks, I’m back in the UK now. I live with my Mum and I don’t have a job. I left the house the other day. I went to Tesco Express where I bought a pint of milk for just 49p.

I haven’t updated this blog for ages. It’s because I downloaded this computer game called Eufloria. And when it comes down to the choice between updating this blog and playing Eufloria, Eufloria is always more attractive. Sadly, I’ve completed Eufloria now.

In time I’ll describe all the insane stuff that happened to be in India. But to summarise, the Tibetan language course became ridiculously difficult. As if it had been purposely engineered to be twenty times more difficult that it needs to be. In October, we had the end-of-year exam. I failed by 4% and got kicked off the course. I was delighted, but a week later the euphoria wore off and I felt a bit... anti-climactic.

But no-one goes home empty handed! That’s right! Because I, Adam Buckley, have won a Tibetan girlfriend! Her name’s Lhamo, she’s 30 and enjoys cooking and singing. Right now she’s in Delhi finishing off her travel paperwork. But by March she’ll be here. She’ll also live with my Mum and not have a job. Hmmm... I wonder if Eufloria has a multiplayer option?

Sorry

Hi Folks, a few people have been asking me to update my blog. Yeah, well I'm overloaded with work. Sorry. By the time I've finished my homework, the only thing I want to do is play Battlezone or try to drum up a bit of inspiration by watching Captain Picard being charismatic and getting things done.

Check back in... a year...

Dog

Today I rescued a dog which was stuck up a tree. Yes, up a tree. I'm not entirely sure how he got there, but he was stood on branch quivering and whimpering. I inched my way along the branch to where he was and took hold of him. But this was all very dangerous. If I lost balance, me and the dog would fall.

Luckily I have a cold and I was wearing a scarf which someone had bought me for my birthday. So I tied one end around the dog and the other end around my neck.

At that point, a monk walked past, laughed at me and then walked away. Similarly, an old Tibetan man walked past, laughed at me and then walked away. Finally a Tibetan boy walked past. I told him to help me and I lowered the dog down to him.

On the ground, I told the dog he was now free and he should run away. He didn't. He just stood there quivering, presumably having a panic attack.

Cows

Dharamsala is run by cows. They give orders to the dogs who control the streets. The dogs assert their authority by barking all night. All f-----g night.

The humans are the workers and required to produce food and luxury items for the cows.

The monkeys aren't happy with this and they're trying to subvert this system. They are therefore terrorists. The cow below is 'censoring' radical material placed there by the monkeys.

Spices

Not long ago, I was walking down into Dharamsala and I passed a spice mill. My nutty Hare Krishna brother had previously introduced me to vegetarian Indian cooking, so I decided to have a buy-in of all the funky spices.

The shop was staffed by a sweet old Indian gentleman who presumably remembers the days when India was ruled by the British Raj.

I had a lot of fun trying to express which spices I wanted to buy. I would identify spices by pointing or smelling, and he also suggested unknown and exciting spices that I may like to try. Every time I would indicate that I only want a small amount of the spice, and he would load a bag with a whole kilo. But that was OK - he was old and slightly doolally. And it wasn't going to cost *that* much, was it?

I eventually left the spice mill with my backpack and two carrier bags loaded with spices. The total price was one-thousand one-hundred and eighty-three rupees.

In reterospect, the shopkeeper wasn't sweet and quaint at all. He was a capitalist vulture and saw me coming a mile away. I eventually gave 90% of the spices away to my classmates, as they would have gone mouldy in my kitchen.

Extractor

I walk past this extractor fan every day on my way home. I think it's enough to put anyone off smoking.

Hant

On Sunday mornings, I am an "conversation partner" for monks who are learning English in the local monestary. The monks are new to English pronunciation, so the lessons mainly consist of the following:

Adam: Hand
Student: Hant
Adam: No, 'Hand'
Student: Hant
Adam: No, not 'Hant', 'Hand'
Student: Hant
Adam: No, look at my mouth, 'Hand'
Student: Hant
Adam: No, you're still saying 'Hant', I want you to say 'Hand'
Student: Hant
Adam: Can anyone else say Hand?
Another student: Hand
Adam: Exactly, now say Hand again
Student: Hant
Adam: No, you said 'Hant', I want you to say 'Hand'
Student: Hant
Adam: Can anyone explain how to say Hand?
Another student: (in Tibetan) Imagine that you're spitting a piece of spinach at a passing yak, but you get hit in the face with a prayer wheel that was spinning too fast.
Student: Hand
Adam: Exactly! Now say 'this'
Student: Jis
Adam: No, not 'jis', 'this'

And so on and so forth...

Sorry

Hi folks, sorry I've not updated the blog for ages. It's due to a combination of being work-logged and being lazy. My brother Guy is recovering just fine after having a load of snot sucked out of his head. I'm overloaded with Tibetan studying and every now and then I want to cry and go back home to my mummy. The first student dropped out yesterday. I saw her this morning and she seems very relieved and happy, instead of the neurotic stressed-out mess she was last week.

I'll try to add some more stories sometime soon. But to be honest, don't get your hopes up. :-)

Dinner

I texted my Mum to ask her how things are going with Guy, as I heard he'd had his big operation. A minute later, the phone rang and I could see it was my Mum. Oh no, I thought, she's phoning me because it's serious. "Hello Adam", she said, "I'm just passing the phone to Guy".

"Hello."
"Hello Guy... wow... er... how's it going?"
"I'm just having some dinner. And I had my head cut open."

Then my Mum said the time was up because she's just about to run out of credit. When I called back, Guy was asleep again. My Mum told me that he'd had a big operation to remove the mass from his skull. The surgeons said they were amazed at how much stuff they'd removed, and they'd also blocked up the hole to his sinus, so that the problem won't happen again. He's got a big scar across the top of his head and down behind his ear, but HE'S ALIVE! And having a spot of dinner.

So thanks everyone for your support and good wishes and positive vibes, they might just have saved him! And thanks also to the doctors. Although this was terrible news from the start, I think an incredibly fortunate series of events has taken place.

Surgery

So the latest on Guy is that it's likely the polyp which started in his nose a couple of years ago. It's spread into his sinus, face and skull. It is operable, which is good news. He will be operated on either today or tomorrow hopefully, by 2 or 3 separate teams of specialists! It looks like our prayers might actually have worked!

Guy

Today my Mum phoned me, in tears, to tell me that my brother Guy has been rushed to hospital. An initial scan shows that he has a growth in his brain which is either a benign polyp or a tumour. Either way, he'll require major surgery.

So this is a big shock for me and my whole family. In the afternoon, I went to the temple of HH Dalai Lama and made an offering in his private office. I understand that HH Dalai Lama will personally pray for my brother's health! I also prayed in front of statues of Guru Rinpoche, Chenrezig, Green Tara and Palden Lhamo. I was told that the statues in this particular temple are especially powerful. When I got home, I emailed two Buddhist masters who I have a connection with. I guess I'm kind of 'cashing in' on my previous good karma.

I also eventually managed to get hold of my Hare Krishna brother in Venezuala. He will orchestrate his own set of prayers for Guy related to Dhanvantari, the god of Ayurvedic medicine.

So in light of this, I might not be writing any 'funny posts' for a bit. Bear with me on this.

Monkeys

Today I moved from the guest house in Gangyi up into Mcleod proper. My new apartment is fabulous and I've properly landed on my feet. I haven't kitted out the kitchen yet, so at lunchtime I went to Mcllo Restaurant to eat Chilli Panir and memorise 11 new Tibetan words.

On the way back, as I approached my apartment, I could hear animal noises, like dogs fighting. When I arrived, I looked from the balcony and the trees and rooftops were full of monkeys. About 30 or 40, and at least half of them were baby monkeys. I think that two separate troops had coincided and were fighting over territory. Fighting meant biting each other into submission. Biting each other into submission whilst being suspended in the middle of a telegraph wire or on the branch of a tree.

While the big monkeys were fighting, the other monkeys were opening dustbins and throwing the contents around, knocking bricks off roofs, shaking trees to see if anything would fall out or terrifying the local Buddhist monks.

In the UK we had a problem with 'hoodies', which were gangs of bored trouble-making teenagers that loitered on streets letting down car tyres, putting windows through and attacking the occasional old person or French-exchange student. This gang of monkeys was basically the same, except they had more hair. I don't think I want them to be my friends any more.

Studying

Three-quarters of my classmates already have some experience of Tibetan. I have none. Absolutely none. So in all my free time I'm studying. Just all the time. Memorising new words, learning how to read Tibetan, how to write Tibetan, how to pronounce the vowels.

Fortunately, I'm somewhat social, so I'll go and sit in a street-cafe and rope locals into helping me with pronunciation. Now, this is the thing - I can only receive help from Tibetans who speak Lhasa dialect. Tibetans from any other part of Tibet have their own unique accent and that will just throw me. Think about all the stupid accent's we've got in England.

I carry my notepad with me everywhere, so if I'm not shopping or trying to extend my visa, I'm studying. I went to the pub on Friday and spent the whole time writing the Tibetan alphabet in Uchen script. And drinking Cobra premium.

Shar

Tuesday was out first 'official' school day, and our wonderful new Tibetan teacher introduced us to the Tibetan alphabet. The Tibetan alphabet consists of 30 letters half, of which, are pronounced "shar". So today's lesson mainly consisted of the following:

Teacher: Shar
Student: Shar
Teacher: No, 'shar'
Student: Shar
Teacher: No, not 'shar', 'shar'
Student: Shar
Teacher: No, look at my mouth, 'shar'
Student: Shar
Teacher: No, you're still saying 'shar', I want you to say 'shar'
Student: Shar
Teacher: Can anyone else say shar
Another student: Shar
Teacher: Exactly, now say shar again
Student: Shar
Teacher: No, you said 'shar', I want you to say 'shar'
Student: Shar
Teacher: Can anyone explain how to say shar?
Another student: Imagine you're lifting a 35kg suitcase whilst balancing a par-boiled new potato on your tongue
Student: Shar
Teacher: Exactly! Now say 'char'
Student: Char
Teacher: No, not 'char', 'char'

And so on and so forth...

Mcleod Ganj

I'm staying in a guest house opposite the school until I find more permanent accommodation. The school is half-way up the hill between Dharamsala and Mcleod Ganj, a place called 'Gangyi'. If anyone's ever been to Manchester, Gangyi is a miniature equivalent of Levenshulme - a noisy main road, with a few houses and shops clustered around it.

Monday was the first day at school. I met my new classmates - 6 boys and 15 girls. 3 of the boys are married and another is a monk. Oh yeah! Today was an informal school-day and after lunch I got a taxi up the hill into Mcleod Ganj. I went with my new classmate, venerable Drolkar, who is an Australian nun. She gave me a tongue-in-cheek tour of Mcleod Ganj and then we spent ages in Mcllo Restaurant drinking tea.

Mcleod Ganj, I understand, was nothing more than a hill station set up by the British during their occupation of India. After the Chinese entered Tibet in the 1950's, many Tibetans fled the country by hiking over the Himalayas into India or Nepal. Those who entered India, including HH Dalai Lama, chose to settle in Mcleod Ganj.

Nowadays, Mcleod Ganj has become a backpacking hippy hotspot, and consequently, it has been overtaken by Indians cashing in on gullible, spiritual middle-class white tourists. Talking to veterans, only 5 or 10 years ago, "it was all just forest here". Now it's a circus of shabbily-erected concrete buildings, jeeps, internet cafes, insanely-driven vans, restaurants, motorbikes, convenience stores and Indian women begging for money by showing off their mutated limbs and week-old babies.

Dharamsala

My train journey from Old Delhi to Chakki Bank was worryingly uneventful. When I arrived, I got a taxi to Mcleod Ganj which took 3 hours, and was through the spectacularly mountainous Kangra valley. On the way I saw monkeys. Lots of monkeys. Like, big troops of monkeys. I'm so excited! I wonder if they'll be my friends? (Apart from the rabid ones, that is.)

The taxi arrived in Dharamsala which is a regular Indian town up in the mountains of Himachal Pradesh. The 'town centre' of Dharamsala is an intimidating intersection of narrow and dangerously overcrowded roads. At this junction, the driver curiously choose to drive up an extremely steep and narrow side-track which looked like the driveway to someone's house.

Unfortunately, it wasn't anybody's driveway, it's the main road to Mcleod Ganj. This 'main road' is a crumbling farm track with a set of extremely sharp inclines and cliff edges. Despite this, it's full of motorbikes, jeeps and taxi-vans, all arrogantly hurrying its rapid decay (see photo left).

Half way up the track the traffic became intensely congested and degenerated into a gridlock of horn-blowing. It was at this point that the taxi driver stopped the car and told me I was at my new home.

Delhi

This morning I got my flight to New Delhi and then a taxi across to Old Delhi train station.

When I arrived at the train station, a 'porter' offered to help me with my luggage. See, I've got my laptop backpack which contains my valuables and which stays on my back or within arms reach. And then I've got my suitcase which is big, purple and weighs 37kg.

I explained to the porter that I wanted to go and find a quiet cafe or restaurant and sit there with my luggage for 6 hours, so I can get some work done. I presume he didn't understand so I just said 'restaurant' which he agreed to. Instead of pulling the wheeled suitcase along, the porter insisted on picking it up and balancing it on his head. Which made me somewhat concerned for the safety of the porter's skeleton as well as the safety of the suitcase's contents.

I followed him up a flight of stairs, his movements becoming slower and slower as we neared the top. I stayed right behind him the whole time, ready to hold him if he lost his balance. At the top, sweaty and exhausted he finally offloaded the suitcase. He took me to the "Upper Class Waiting Room" and cleared off when I gave him the RS30 he demanded (which is about 40 pence).

So where was the restaurant? Well there wasn't one. I asked the folk there and they told me that the restaurant is downstairs. Hmmm. So I pointed at the suitcase and made the facial expression "how the hell am I going to get this back down the stairs?" They pointed to the elevator and told me to use that like everyone else does. Hmmm #2.

So now I'm sat in the 'restaurant' which is actually a filthy cafe. But compared to the rest of the station it's quiet, and it's got a power outlet for my laptop. I've got 5 hours to kill before I get the overnight train to Himachal Pradesh.

Akshardham

Friday, my last day at work was slightly sentimental. After work, one of my team members took me to a fabulously grandiose temple called Akshardam belonging to the Swarminarayin movement. During the period of Diwali, the temple exhibits a special display of candles in its giant courtyard. Ten thousand candles actually. And they are replaced every day.

Panir

I've just eaten the best chilli panir I've ever had. I congratulated the waiter in the hotel restaurant and extended my compliments to the chef. The waiter brought the restaurant manager over to my table and I congratulated him and extended my compliments to the chef. The restaurant manager brought the chef out of the kitchen to my table and I got to congratulate him in person. I would have shaken his hand, but my hand was covered in chilli panir and butter. The chef is Nepalese and is a Buddhist. I wonder if he'll give me the recipe?

Traffic

Ok, I think I may have figured out the road law in India. Although terrifying, it's remarkably simple and intuitive. There are only two rules, which are as follows:

1. Give way to anything bigger than yourself
   And, conversely, if you are bigger than the other traffic, you have right of way.
   
   
2. Use of signals is not necessary
   When joining a main road, just drive straight out without looking. It is the responsibility of oncoming traffic to avoid any collision. Likewise, when changing lanes, pull out without looking. Any overtaking traffic would have already blown their horn/flashed their headlights to let you know that they intend to pass.