Into India!

India - 2006 ☺

India has over 300,000 mosques and over 2 million Hindu Temples, I however, was on my way to a Buddhist Monastery.

Second only to China for population India has over 1.37 BILLION people who inhabit the country. Small percentage of the Indian population is made up of Tibetan refugees given exile by the Indian government. One of these areas and a small group of these people are who I was going to see.

Days and nights they travel, sometimes escaping and dodging from the bullets of Chinese border police, with only the bags on their backs, risking their lives to get the blessing of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and to pursue genuine traditional monastic studies.

In 1949, the Peoples' Liberation Army of Communist China invaded Tibet. For a period of ten years, the political and spiritual leader of this sovereign nation, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, tried to negotiate a peaceful settlement with the Chinese, but to no avail. On March 10, 1959, His Holiness was forced to leave his native land. He fled to India to safety where he has since established a Tibetan Government in Exile.

The country of India has generously provided Tibetans with refugee status and in the 1960s provided them some land to live on.

At great risk to their lives, Tibetans continue to leave Tibet to this day. Parents send their children to the monasteries in India with the hope that they will receive an education there and be instructed in their Buddhist religion.

Friends of mine from the monastery all relayed stories to me about hiking at night across the mountains to avoid being seen and shot at during the day. Sleeping back to back sitting up army style when they'd stop to rest, and most horribly seeing the bodies of other Tibetans, even children who hadn't been lucky enough to stay hidden lying in the rivers.

Monks arrive from Tibet with absolutely nothing, requiring all essentials (bedding, medicine, robes, texts etc.) and in dire need of medical assistance show up at the monastery each year. Hundreds arrive at Drepung Gomang Monastery which now provides for more than 2000 monks, others will join some of the other local monasteries.

This monastery-one of Tibet's largest before it was destroyed by the Communists during the Cultural Revolution--has been rebuilt on the original 40.4 acres of property provided by the government of India in the early 70's.

I'd travelled before. Bought my one-way ticket to Australia, and gone off on my own. I was nervous and excited to start a new journey but this time I'd be going into India and thankfully I was also not going alone.

I'd been working on starting up a not-for-profit organization with my older sister and a small group of other people who were interested in supporting the Drepung Gomang monastery.

My sister had joined Amnesty International and been involved in regular meetings with a local group that was contacted by a young lady from the area who was now teaching English in a monastery in South India.

The Drepung Gomang Monastery in Karnataka India had regularly been sending tour groups of monks into the US to share their religion and culture through various arts on their scared art tours and to help raise funds to support the monastery.

Involved in event planning at the time my sister had agreed to see if she could help bring the tours to Canada. The tour arrived in January 2006 and it was very successful.

Our excitement to see the tours continue to come to Canada and the support to increase for the monastery led us to start the not-for-profit organization in hopes of continuing the tours on a regular basis.

An invitation was extended to us from the monastery to join a temple opening right across from the Drepung Monastery in November the same year. The new temple of the Drepung Loseling Monastery had been completed and the Dalai Lama was coming to perform an opening ceremony and do some talks/teachings for the monks and local Tibetans from the refugee camps.

My sister, a good friend of ours Nick Scime and I accepted the invitation and booked our flights to India. The adventure was only about to begin!

Our trip started off with a few hiccups from the airline not having a record of our e-tickets to having to make an emergency landing in England due to one passenger suffering from a medical issue and anther being arrested for smoking in the airplane bathroom.

Next stop Heathrow. Germany was probably the smoothest part of the trip!

Once we left Germany we were headed into Mumbai (formerly Bombay). A couple of hours before we were to land there was a smell that took over the plane and started to grow as we got closer to our destination. In the beginning we were certain that the bathroom on the airplane was backed up. The smell was overwhelming when we got about 20-30 minutes out of Mumbai. You see, the smell however wasn't from the bathroom on the plane........it was India!

You can smell India from miles away. It's true. The fact is is that a large part of the population does not have proper sanitation, and you can smell it. There are cattle (which are considered sacred and often seen walking in and out of houses in some places) and other animals in city streets and garbage is not something that gets collected the same way it does here!

Eventually however, like any place that has a certain smell too it, the longer you are there the less you notice it.

Once in India things worked quite differently too. A bus was there to shuttle us to another plane as we headed out of the Mumbai airport. Suitcases and my sister hanging off the back bus it sped off at top speed as it took off across the tarmac to our final plane.

A shorter flight to Goa was nearly over when I looked out my window seat to see the upcoming land. I've rarely been without words, and even in a crisis have been able to get something out. Looking out the window as we flew over the water all I could do was wave frantically at my travel mates as I realized the shore line we were aiming for was actually higher than our plane. To say we had a "heavy or hard" landing in Goa would be putting it politely. We slammed onto the runway but thankfully we were fine.

Our hosts were waiting for us just outside the airport to drive us down to the monastery. 4-5 hours down the coast.

Our plane rides were over, but we had a 5hr drive still to go! Our dear friend Migmar from the Gomang office and another friend who had been on the tour in Canada helped load our suitcases up and off we went.

Driving through India is something I will never forget. India was breathtaking!

Literally! I could've held my breath for the whole 5 hrs because it literally took my breath away to see the beauty of the jungle and the poor conditions of the people in the villages and along the roads we travelled. Children in rags sitting in doorways with cows, entire families on motorcycles (not a helmet to be had), and the natural beauty that surrounded it all with lush green trees and beautiful flowers. I knew people in other countries were less fortunate and the living conditions were much worse than ours, but to be right in the middle of it was hard. I couldn't breathe. I know I said it before but imagine the feeling of seeing something that made you gasp and take that sharp breath in, and then, imagine not being able to let it back out. It was heart breaking and shocking, and nothing could've prepared me to see it in person.

Nick and I exchanged looks of awe. It was all we could do. I don't think I could ever go to India and not feel that way. You never want to see another person suffer, or be without like that.

As dusk fell our vehicles got stopped on the road through the jungle. There were some local religious groups fighting in the road. I sunk low in the back seat of the jeep and put several of my bags over my lap & face. The locals were used to the monks travelling around and generally left them alone. Being fair, with blonde hair was something foreign to many of them as we had learned during a stop along the way for lunch. We had stopped in a restaurant and I sat in the corner looking down at my rice. I had only had a couple of bites when Laurel elbowed me and nudged for me to look up. I raised my eyes to see the table surrounded by 20-30 local Indian people all staring at me. It was little unnerving to say the least so when we were stopped by the fighting in the road I tried not to be noticed.

We pulled into the monastery at long last and took our things into the guest house.

The monastery was quite clean and built up in comparison to the Indian villages we passed along the way from Goa. Even the refugee camps surrounding it were in much better condition. It was striking to see how the people who have been in India only a few decades as refugees, from a completely different environment were able to create living conditions that far outweighed the people who had lived in the country for hundreds of years.

Now it's not to say the people in India aren't resourceful and that there aren't some very nice areas that have been built up and improved on over time - there are.

The point is the Tibetan's had come from a completely different world up in the mountains and cold to the jungle and heat and had to clear the land, build their temples, houses and farm the land all from scratch with nothing but what they had on their backs.

Over the next couple of weeks we would tour the monastery and the local refugee camps. We went to the opening ceremony of the temple and sat in on some teachings from His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.

The Abbott of the Monastery gave us a gift as thanks for our help with the tours. A beautiful Thangka painting done by one of the highly skilled artists in the monastery.

We were honored to be given such an incredible gift.

We shared dinners with our friends old and new, went for walks and tried our best to communicate with each other with my limited grasp on the Tibetan language and their basic English (for those who had been on the tours and learned some).

We shopped at the local refugee camps and visited nearby villages. Occasionally we would stop in one of the villages for lunch.

Now if you've never been to India you have still very likely heard that washrooms over there, especially in smaller remote areas are not like the ones here. We knew this as well. The problem came when it was time for us to have to use them.

I'm not too proud to squat over a hole in the ground if that's what the situation warrants, but after being surrounded in countless restaurants and stared at while I was eating, I was not going to squat over a hole in the ground when the "walls" of the washroom stalls were literally waist high in several of the places we stopped.

Waiters and other customers could walk past these "bathrooms" and I wasn't prepared for a crowd to join me on that one.

There were some nice washrooms in airports with people sleeping in them on cardboard waiting for you to come out of the stalls and to offer you paper towels for rupees. There were very nice ones in the Consulate offices when we went with the monks to apply for future tour visas however none of them had any toilet paper.

Washrooms were something of a challenge for me when it came to travelling in India and to this day I will always be thankful for the monastery's washrooms being as "western" as they were.

I can honestly say I've been in the Dalai Lama's bathroom! 😂

Something I never thought I'd do in my life. Of course I wasn't using it, it was part of the tour of the monastery we got to go on.

Bathrooms would become some of the most memorable parts of our trip.

One particular instance being the morning after we arrived in India. We had slept quite well considering the jungle is alive with the sounds of the wild and often rabid dogs at night.

The next evening however Nick had come across the Guest House to use the washroom that was between the room Laurel & I were staying in and one of the other rooms.

I was lying with my feet up the wall as my ankles had swollen to literally the size of elephants from the long hours of flying. A matter of moments later he came out. The toilet was clogged.

Now, the monastery had plumbing unlike most of the places we visited in India, and we were thankful beyond words for that, however it did still have it's issues. The delicate balance between toilet paper use and water pressure there was a finicky thing.

After a few laughs and some hesitation Laurel and Nick managed to ask the monks if they had such a thing as a plunger. They did! It was a miracle, that was until we discovered they had given us a round plunger that was a little smaller than normal, and the drain pipe of the toilet (I kid you not) was square.

To this day I will not get over Nick and Laurel wrapped up to the elbow with plastic bags over their arms praying not to get dysentery from the water, plunging a square hole with a round peg! Me with my enormous ankles slung up the wall listening to the plunging and gagging and hysterical laughter coming from the bathroom. What the monks thought of us after that Lord only knows!

One day a very dear friend of ours Kensur Rinpoche offered to have some of the monks take us on a tour of a very old castle he said was a couple of hours up the coast. Excitedly we agreed and set out on our way. Let me tell you, a couple of hours in Tibetan time, is A LOT longer "our" time! We ended up practically 7hrs up the coast in Hampi. The walking tour was incredible. We ate lunch at restaurants (and for the first time in my life I was thankful for food allergies and polite excuse to avoid certain things). Monkeys dropped down from nearby trees to try and sneak a scrap or two if they could get anything.

We visited ancient palaces, temples elephant barns and bathing pools.

The monks were enjoying the trip and asked us if was ok if we spend the night there.

Now, I tell you nothing strikes fear in the heart of a woman in the jungle of India than being asked to stay overnight in a completely unknown place, without her travel bag. I won't go into details but there were necessities in those bags we were not keen to go without.

Needless to say as dusk fell and the bats started diving in and out of one of the temples I chose to wait by the Jeep instead of visiting it and then we pleaded as politely as we could to return to the monastery.

We felt terrible, and had we known what was in store we'd have brought our bags with us.

In future we quickly became aware that for the most part when it comes to Tibetans and monks in particular time is does not have the same meaning.

We headed back down the highway towards to monastery and after 12hrs of not using a washroom because we just couldn't muster up the nerve to squat in public Laurel and I were beyond ready to find a bathroom.

A 5 star looking hotel appeared on the side of the road. We stopped for a drink and dinner and a bathroom break. Our hopes were quickly dashed when the waiter in the hotel came over in a nice looking suit and bare feet. We were escorted out of the hotel restaurant and behind the hotel to a very old looking run down shack that at night looked like something from a horror movie. Back in the dark near a bunch of trees we were let into the washroom.

A small door of normal size this time closed off the actual stall. I went in bravely first and very quickly decided I would be breaking a world record for the longest time holding one's bladder. There was a dark hole in the bottom of the floor and nothing else. Not that I was surprised, but in the dark of the night, in the middle of India, I was not hanging but bottom over a black hole for fear I'd either fall in or something would pop out of it.

After a LONG few hours back Laurel and I RAN into the Guest House and after 17+hrs of running around in the hot Indian sun and barely drinking we were never so happy to see the monastery washrooms!

We had many more moments from start to finish of our trip like Nick getting in trouble from the monks for almost wearing shoes in the temple (of course at the time we didn't know better), accidentally inviting the "oracle" (a chosen Tibetan who acts as a medium for Nechung an ancient Tibetan Spirit who gives advice or prophecies to the Dalai Lama) not exactly proper social etiquette.

While we certainly had our share of memorable moments it was something we will always remember fondly and 2007 would see Laurel & I return to India with a couple of other people involved in helping with that tour.

Bureaucratic red tape surrounding the visas made it impossible for the tours to continue with global attention on the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

Canada has special laws when it comes to Tibetans because they are not allowed to be deported to India as they are not Indian residents or citizens and they cannot be sent to China for fear of persecution. Many having escaped it already by feeing to India.

The combination of these things made it impossible to keep the tours going because the immigration offices wanted proof the monks would return to India after each tour and of course no one can prove what another persons future actions will be. We would never agree to force anyone to do anything, including return to another country. Some of the monks from the first tour had chosen to stay in Canada and we promised only to support the monks never to try and control them. As such the consulate would not approve the tour groups visas. It was heartbreaking.

Eventually life would shift focus for me again and the organization would quietly fade out. Friends continued to ask about the tours and support some monks who had decided to stay in Canada in search of more opportunities. I would eventually be caught up with raising my kids and family obligations.

Tibet and the monastery however would never be far from my life or my heart. My children's father is Tibetan. The Tibetan community in Toronto would become a major part of our lives over the next few years.

I still think of the monastery often and hope one day in the near future to be able to recreate a system of support for them from Canada. A way to continue the connection that was so well received when they were here. I hear from friends there and stay in contact from time to time with Migmar in the monastery office.

I truly hope one day in my heart when the time and circumstances are right I'll be heading back into India!