Fri, Oct 30: Dharamasala

During the British Raj period Dharamsala was home to part of the British army.  What was the British army base is now a base for the Indian Army.  The first stop today was St. John’s Church, built by the British.  It was partially destroyed during a major earthquake in 1905 but had been fully restored.  It sort of felt like we were back in England as the church had beautiful grey stones and a couple of stained glass windows and definitely looked very English.

We then headed out to walk through a small village on the outskirts of Dharamsala.  There were spectacular mountains all around but they were very hazy.  It is sort of discouraging.

We saw hay drying in trees...

A good bit of village life....

including a very young calf.

There was a large tribe of goats on a hillside (yes, we googled it...a bunch of goats is called a tribe)..

and we saw some haggling over the purchase of one of the goats.

We rested by a shop while waiting for our car...they love their potato chips.  Note the interesting flavors.

We didn’t stay too long as Paul was having problems with the altitude and tiredness.  He thought it was maybe too much sun at Rohtang Pass.  

On the way back to the hotel we stopped at Grace Hotel, an 18th century manor home in the typical British Hill Station architecture.  It was once a home of the first Chief Justice of India.  We had tea and they let us tour some of the facility.

Then we went to the Dalai Lama’s compound where we visited a museum about the Chinese takeover of Tibet, walked through a temple and then saw the entrance to the compound that housed the Dalai Lama’s home.  It is heavily guarded and everyone entering the area had to go through security. 

We then took Paul back to the hotel to rest while Mary went out to have lunch with Tara.

While Tara then did some window shopping Mary opted to head back to the hotel in case Paul needed anything.  He slept most of the afternoon and early evening.  We then went down to dinner at the hotel.  They were exceedingly slow and it took us about an hour to get a cheese sandwich and a bowl of soup.