Sunday, October 22, 2006, Dharamsala. (Day 1 of the conference)

The first day of the conference is dedicated to visit the various antennae of the AirJaldi network.

The choice is between 3 tours, the first one for the real alpine climbers, the second one for moderate climbing and a visit to the Tibetan museum, a temple and a Kora, that is a 2 km walk around the palace of His Haleness the Dalai Lama and the third one is for people that do not want to climb at all, they go by bus.

I have registered for the second tour. Today I try to walk all the way up through a mountainpath. It takes me 45 minutes, but it is a real challenge with steep climbs.

I am early, so I can upload the material for the weblog and send a mail to family how to get to the blog.

 
 

When I arrive at the TCV through the backdoor, I can see the work in preparation of the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the TCV. It will be a sportsday and His Holiness the Dalai Lama will attend the plays!

When we leave for the tour, I am impressed by the progress they made

The guide of our tour is either not informed about the fact that this tour is for moderate climbs, or my idea of moderate is wrong. We take an other route than what we expected. It starts with climbing stairs to more steep climbs than I have seen so far.

The award are some fantastic views, even though the weather is not real good. Here is the view backwards to the sportsarea close to the auditorium. Note the prayerflags. The come in five colors representing the 5 elements. Green for Earth, Blue for water, White for air, Red for Fire and Yellow for Light or Space.
On our way, the guide draws our attention to the prayerflags. The higher they are placed the better! Another view is the one to McLeod Ganj, our goal today.
On our way down (again very steep) we meet a few monkeys.
 

After visiting two places with antennae, we visit the Tibetan Museum. Really shocking how the Tibetans are treated and tortured. Wished we could do something against it.

We also visit the temple. This morning His Holiness the Dalai Lama was there to bless a few statues.

    

As the final activity, we make a clockwise round around the place where His Holiness lives. This is a ceremony and is called Kora.

We see a number of stupa's. Note the many flags on the right-hand side picture.

In the evening I had planned to go to a performance of Tibetan culture and to got to the opening party of the conference. However, to reach the performance I have again to go a steep street down and then a few flights of stairs. Of course I have to climb them back going to the hotel, where my body is overheated and lets me collect all the blankets in the room, make a nice pile of them on the bed and snuggle underneath them.    
Here is a preview of the sportsday tomorrow.