Day 8– Megan

I awoke to another early morning, freezing because as per usual Joanna stole all the blankets.... Then we headed off to to St. Paul's school to say goodbye to Mrs and Mrs Singh and take a few final photos of the campus. Our tiny taxi arrived at our hotel midday and it took us up a steep windy road... And by steep I mean the wheels were skidding in first gear! I seem to be always writing when we have near death driving experiences. Anyway when we reached our destination it was time to search for western food which McCleod Ganj has a lot of, so we settled for a cute Tibetan cafe where the tables were low and we could sit on little cushions. I have a cold at the moment so I have found out my new love of lemon honey ginger tea, which fills you up and clears the sinuses. 

After lunch we did some shopping for friends and family (what we bought will not be named as the recipients of the gifts may be reading this) then we went back to the hotel and mum got very excited about the nice laundromat down the road where we could do our washing... Maybe a bit too excited. 

"And don't forget it's washed and dried in one hour and the man does it". Then it was time to eat again- this time Italian followed by dessert.  

McLeod Ganj is very mesmerising, like a piece of Tibet perched on the snowy mountain tops of India. There are many Tibetan people living here in exile, due to Tibet being under Chinese rule since 1950, when they came and invaded and destroyed all their temples and banned all practice of Buddhist religion. McLeod Ganj is also the home of the Dali lama, whose temple we visited today, to find out more about where Buddhism originated from - (it originated from India and was then spread north up to Tibet and through many more Asian countries) and the political situation with Tibet and China. After going to the museum, Joanna and I decided we wanted to buy "Free Tibet" shirts. They were not hard to find and seemed to be sold everywhere. Now we are sitting in a cafe passing time, wasting the cafe's wifi and waiting for our bus to Chandigarh, where we will meet mum's friend Avinash and his family.