His Holiness

My family and me with HH the Dali Lama

The entire reason for me going on this trip is my father. He gave a presentation in Dharamsala about how meditation affects the brain and attention, along with several other presenters. His Holiness the Dali Lama is the political and spiritual leader of Tibet, to say the least. He is currently in exile in India and has been for 50 years, along with thousands of other Tibetans. Sitting close to him, it seemed like he emanated peace. There are no words to describe the high I felt that day, holding is hands, and then the lowest low of my entire life that shortly fallowed it. The reason I'm not saying more about His Holiness is simply because I can't describe it. I just can't.

I can describe though, the rest of one of the worst and best days of my life. One thing you must understand bout India is eating. Americans eating in India is nothing like eating in America. First off, you can't drink the water. Bacteria in it makes one drop deadly to anyone not born there. That means only bottled water, and being terrified of getting a drop in your mouth when taking showers. No salad, or uncooked food. Nothing washed in tap water. Even washed hands are just as bad as dirty ones. You have to be paranoid when eating if you don't want to get sick. I was doing very well, until a few days ago. It was one piece of not thoroughly cooked french toast for breakfast that did me in. By lunch after meeting with HH, I had started to feel queasy. A few hours later, after not eating my lunch, I had started to throw up. And throw up, and throw up.

One thing I can say for sure, salmonella sucks. I had gotten salmonella, a severe food poisoning, from eating that one piece of french toast. I have never been so sick in my whole life. That on piece of food resulted in me throwing up every two hours, for 18 hours, even my stomach was completely empty. For four days, no food and dry retching was all I did. After that, I literally didn't eat for four days, except for Gatorade. As a result of that, my body needed protein, so it ate me. My muscles. I now can hardly walk up a flight of stairs. I always need to be leaning on something, and am still not fully recovered. So Im' sorry for not posting, but I could hardly stand up.

This trip has been the best experience of my life. I helped Tibetan children read, I rode in a taxi without seat-belts, I got really sick, I had some of the scariest taxi rides up hill I will ever have, I met HH the Dali Lama, I stayed in a five star hotel, I made friends that will last me a lifetime, I saw monkeys, feral dogs, cats, starving goats and cows, I met the Dali Lama's oracle. I even got the link to my blog on the Mind and Life website.

I truly hope that my blog hasn't been a waste of time, and that you might have found it mildly entertaining, useful, or worth while, in any kind of way.

Dharamsala

The lovely little plane we took...

Arriving in Dharamsala was like a dream. I walked through the Delhi airport in a daze, still not believing that I was in India. The whole Mind and Life (the people who were participating in the conference with His Holiness the Dali Lama, which is the whole reason why I'm in India) group boarded a small propeller plane, like ones you see in pictures of World War II aircrafts, and arrived in Dharamsala in about one hour. As I looked out the window, believe it or not, the view looked exactly like I had pictured it so many times. To the left were miles of mountains; small villages nestled in deep valleys or on top of their ridges. To the right was the single handedly most breathtaking sight I have ever seen. The Himalayas. The snow-covered peaks were visible through the airplane windows, and I spent most of the trip with my face pressed up against them. The shear massiveness of them is mind boggling. No picture can do them justice.

Dharamsala is stuck in what the 60's were like in America. Young hippies is long skirts and dreadlocks ride on their motorcycles through the mountain town. Small shops line every street corner. I have been a terrible blogger, due to illness which I will explain later, and that is my main reason for lack of posting. That is why I'm writing about Dharamsala when I've already left. Sorry. It's a small town nestled in the Himalayas with breathtaking views. I wouldn't mind living there myself. Since my return home is approaching in a mere 12 hours, I will save the best detail to be told in person, as they cannot simply be read on a computer.