A Chance Meeting
I’ve posted some pictures below of a couple of my friends in Dharamsala, Saja and Chuden. Both are Tibetan monks, and the circumstances of our meeting were unusual to say the least. To make a long story short, I found myself agreeing to lead an English class for a French woman, an Indian policemen, two Indian taxi drivers, and two Tibetan monks one Saturday evening earlier this month. A couple fellow Cross-Cultural Solutions volunteers decided to go with me at the last minute, and I was very glad to have their company! A few days after the class, my friends from CCS saw the monks in Mcleod and received an invitation for lunch at their house in Dharamkot, a town above Mcleod. I wasn’t able to go then, but we later scheduled another lunch meeting and had a thoroughly enjoyable time. It takes about 45 minutes to hike up the mountain from Mcleod to the monks’ home, and there are very few houses along the way. Walking up, I couldn’t imagine anyone living in the area because there was just a gravel road lined with lots of trees. It was higher in elevation than I had hiked before, and the views of the valley below were stunning. At one point, there’s a trail that branches off from the road and leads to a beautiful barrage of prayer flags strewn throughout trees in the woods. A bit further up the trail is a small house where the monks, Saja and Chuden, live. We had a wonderful morning with them, and I thought I would share some photos from our adventure.
