Chance Encounters with the Dalai Lama

But first…animals have been giving Colleen a hard go at it lately. First she was head butted (in her side) by a passing cow in the streets of Udaipur. I got a good laugh out of it but she felt bad and wanted to know ’why the cow did not like her’ because she does not even eat cows. This was followed up by a stray monkey chasing her down the hallway and up the stairs in our hotel in Agra. For someone who loves animals so much lets hope her luck turns for the better.

With the beauty of the Taj Mahal fresh on our minds we headed northward, a quick day stopover in Dehli followed by a night bus 12 hours north to the city of Dharmasala. From there it was a 5 kilometer taxi ride straight up a mountain side to the small town of McLeod Ganj. Our reason for visiting was that since 1959 it has been the home of the Tibetan Government in exile including the Dalai Lama (thumbs up to India for welcoming the Tibetan refugees to the area).

We settled into our $8 guest house with a private balcony overlooking the valley and headed out on foot to explore the village. As has been customary on this trip, when possible Colleen enjoys her Diet Coke and Chad enjoys his daily coffee (or in this part of the world, chai). As we searched the streets for a good deal on Diet Coke (regular soda is always a set price but a premium is charged for diet) we noticed a large crowd had begun to line the main town intersection. The crowd was set a few people deep and everyone seemed to be focused on the traffic coming down the single lane road from uphill. We overheard talk of a ‘Lama’ but figured there was no chance of the Dalai Lama passing by and thought most likely it to be a lower ranking Lama in the community. Then it happened. A patrol car passed by followed by a gold colored sedan with the broad smiled Dalai Lama waving out the passenger side window. We sat there somewhat mesmerized. Neither of us follows the Buddhist faith (although we see much to be learned by its teachings) but we are big fans of the Dalai Lamas writings and work. We had no idea he was even home within the city and to watch him pass by within a few feet of us was a special treat.

Volunteering has been difficult so far on the trip. That seems like an odd thing to say but most NGOs and other opportunities want at least several weeks, if not months, worth of commitment. Without that commitment they say that the time is more about the experience for the volunteer than the work they are actually contributing. That is good and well but we would like to spread our time and efforts over several continents so the ’challenge’ of volunteering has presented itself. By chance, in Mozambique, we were approached while sitting in a café by local teens who needed assistance in converting their resumes from their local language to English. They worked in the local museum and hoped to send their resumes off to museums in the UK and receive sponsorship in order to travel and work overseas. So we spent the evening helping them with the translations and grammar, it was a chance encounter but definitely rewarding for both sides.

The main volunteer opportunities in McLeod Ganj are with the constant incoming flow of Tibetan refugees. Opportunities include helping document new arrivals and helping them set up their new life in a new town. Again these opportunities all require multiple months worth of commitment. We figured our best bet was to come up with a way on our own of how we could help the community in a matter of a days worth of time. We decided to keep it simple and pick up litter. Definitely a generic task but with the amount of visitors visiting the region on a daily basis, the surrounding hillsides are littered with plastic bottles.

We set out on foot on a 5 mile trek uphill out of town. Out destination was a small remote lake atop a mountain. As we went we picked up any and all plastic bottles we could find, emptying them into bins as our bags became full. We reached the lake after a couple hours time and began to head back down via an alternate route. The work was quite messy. We were loading the plastic bottles into our day packs (trash bags are not available in the community) and had no plastic gloves. Many of the bottles were in ditches and water ways which had all forms of human and animal products running down them. About halfway back down we decided to take a break, and have a sip of water. We were standing there on the side of the road, sweaty and covered with mud, when a familiar vehicle came around the turn from uphill. I immediately recognized it as the escort vehicle we had seen the day before and muttered something on the order of ‘I think he is coming again’. And of course, following the patrol car was the gold sedan and again the smiling Dalai Lama. He was seated shotgun on our side of the road and as he strolled past he gave us a slow nod and a hand wave. He probably wondered what these two westerners were doing with on the back gravel roads, covered in dirt and sweat and holding overflowing backpacks of plastic bottles. We could not be more thrilled.

It was our own private encounter with the Dalai Lama. No one around but us and him and his chauffer. Definitely something we will cherish for a long time…and we picked up 151 plastic bottles in the process!