Today: I was praying for a close family member of mine at Dalai Lama's temple last night, when a Tibetan monk asked me to come with him to the Holy Lama Karmapas Monastery. He was very sweet and his eyes were glowing by friendlyness and joy, so I went with him on a bus in the morning. One hour later I was at a monastery with 300 monks waiting in a big crowd of Tibetans and Western people to get a blessing by Karmapa. A few minutes later I was in his room. He was much younger than I expected, only 21. He looked at me and put a red string around my neck saying some mantras. A second later I was outside the monastary, wondering what just happened. It's something unsentimental and very down to earth about the whole Tibetan Buddhist approach that appeals to me very much. They don't make a big fuzz about things.
Tomorrow: Early tomorrow morning I'm going to hike to the top of a mountain behind McLeod Ganj with the monk - he asked me if I wanted to go with him, and of course I couldn't say no hiking a mountain in the Himalaya with a Tibetan monk...
Saturday, September 12
Friday, September 11
From hell to heaven
Taking the bus in India is nothing I would recommend to anyone afraid of death, dirt, poverty, speed, mad traffic, no rules, cockroaches, mosquitos, not being able to go to the bathroom for four hours, stinky holes in the ground where you finally get to do your necessities when it's poring rain and you don't know if the bus will leave you there, dropping your scarf on the floor realizing it's not a floor but a flood of mud, or getting everything you own completely covered in an odor I can't even explain here.
I'm afraid of all this, and you can imagine how relieved I was when we finally reached Dharamsala this morning.
Apart from all the stuff above, I met some wonderful people in all this mud.
The cabdriver who took me to the bus was a sik, named Mr Singh. He knew I didn't have any extra cash to tip him (because we couldn't find a working ATM machine). Despite this, he carried my bags through herds of buses and people and waited with me and all my luggage for half an hour at the bus station - muddy, stinky, cabs, homeless, hot, chaos. They had a rule saying they were not selling the bus tickets until 15 minutes before the bus was leaving - DESPITE that they had the three ticket guys there doing nothing, rolling their thumbs, while 20 people where waiting in front of them. Bureucracy in it's most stupid form! When we finally got the ticket Mr Singh hustled me onto the bus with the bags and all. I took his number for next time, and anyone going to New Delhi - Mr Singh is your driver.
When I settled down in the bus I met another saint-like-person. An Irish 20-something guy who just had been volunteering as an English teacher in the slum for three months. He told me the most heartbreaking story, starting off with three kids in in the class, ending the summer with more than 40 kids who'd learnt English and the possibility to start in a public school. He was really excited talking about the kids, and I started to wonder what I'm doing in the film business.
And now I'm here. In a guest house in the Himalaya above the monastery of Dalai Lama. I'm chocked, tired, weird in my belly and head, wondering what to do about this world. Just like all the other western tourists soul searching in India. It's not even the first time I'm in India, and surely not the first time I'm having this experience, I just sort of forgot what it felt like to really, really be alive...
No! No hanky panky. It's the busdriver doing his morning toilet + talking on the phone while serpentine driving.
I'm afraid of all this, and you can imagine how relieved I was when we finally reached Dharamsala this morning.
Apart from all the stuff above, I met some wonderful people in all this mud.
The cabdriver who took me to the bus was a sik, named Mr Singh. He knew I didn't have any extra cash to tip him (because we couldn't find a working ATM machine). Despite this, he carried my bags through herds of buses and people and waited with me and all my luggage for half an hour at the bus station - muddy, stinky, cabs, homeless, hot, chaos. They had a rule saying they were not selling the bus tickets until 15 minutes before the bus was leaving - DESPITE that they had the three ticket guys there doing nothing, rolling their thumbs, while 20 people where waiting in front of them. Bureucracy in it's most stupid form! When we finally got the ticket Mr Singh hustled me onto the bus with the bags and all. I took his number for next time, and anyone going to New Delhi - Mr Singh is your driver.
When I settled down in the bus I met another saint-like-person. An Irish 20-something guy who just had been volunteering as an English teacher in the slum for three months. He told me the most heartbreaking story, starting off with three kids in in the class, ending the summer with more than 40 kids who'd learnt English and the possibility to start in a public school. He was really excited talking about the kids, and I started to wonder what I'm doing in the film business.
And now I'm here. In a guest house in the Himalaya above the monastery of Dalai Lama. I'm chocked, tired, weird in my belly and head, wondering what to do about this world. Just like all the other western tourists soul searching in India. It's not even the first time I'm in India, and surely not the first time I'm having this experience, I just sort of forgot what it felt like to really, really be alive...
No! No hanky panky. It's the busdriver doing his morning toilet + talking on the phone while serpentine driving.
What's your dream, Antoniette?
I met Antoniette when I visited The Imperial Hotel yesterday. She was having afternoon tea with a couple of handsome French gentlemen. I found out that she lives above Dalai Lamas monestry close to Dharamsala - excacly where I was going - so I was lucky running into her in New Dehli. She's back here in a couple of days and then we will hook up again. What an inspiration meeting a lady like that!
Holywood
I've just got this postcard from the talented artist Andreas Nilsson, who also seems to have a talent meeting gurus that it normally takes 3 years to get special audience with. Andreas was here last week and met Dalai Lama with his friends. If someone asked me what my dream was, this is it:
Thursday, September 10
We've got no internet mum, because it's raining.
Arrived last night to New Dehli, took a cab to the hotel in the usual deadly mad traffic with a 24 year old driver. He was really worried about that he didn't have any children with his 20 year old wife yet. When I explained that people in Sweden often get children after they're 30, he just laughed as if I was crazy.
I stayed in a really rough part of town in a place called 'Ashu Palace'...well "palace" was a bit misguiding...it was clean cheats anyway. They didn't have internet 'beacause it's heavy rain today mum'.
Now I'm at Imperial Hotel where I managed to get internet and book a night bus to Dharamsala since the train was full.
See you in the Himalaya tomorrow!
I stayed in a really rough part of town in a place called 'Ashu Palace'...well "palace" was a bit misguiding...it was clean cheats anyway. They didn't have internet 'beacause it's heavy rain today mum'.
Now I'm at Imperial Hotel where I managed to get internet and book a night bus to Dharamsala since the train was full.
See you in the Himalaya tomorrow!
Wednesday, September 9
NEWS: Changed plan. I'm going to Dharamsala instead of Ladakh

The reason why I wanted to go to Ladakh was because I wanted to meet 'the happiest people of the world'. I saw a documentary about these people by Helena Norberg - Hodge called 'Ancient Futures', and I wanted to meet Helena and the people from Ladakh. Then I found out that Helena just left Ladakh for Bangkok! Luckily I managed to meet her here. What I was told wasn't a happy story.
I did some research about Ladakh, but Helena told me that what I might find on internet isn't really the true picture. These days Ladakh is corrupted by western influences, and the idea of the traditional mountain tribe is gone. Before it used to be the families running the villages together. Now the young people has moved to the suburbs, and usually it's one woman alone left in each former village to run the farming with a few emploees.
Instead, Helena told me firmly to go to Dharamsala. This is where Dalai Lama and a lot of Tibetan refugees are based, and it's a lively scene for spiritual seekers. So at the moment I'm trying to book a train ticket from New Dehli to Dharamsala. I've traveled by train in India before, so I know that it's not excacly like you book a ticket online and just go...everything is a long and complicated bureaucratic proces in India. Leaving Bangkok tonight (Thai time). Any advice would be appreciated.
The adventure continues!
What's your dream, Nun?
I met Nun, who's got a clothes stand in a small Bangkok market. He's interested in fashion and want to travel the world. We were talking for quite a while before I filmed this and I think he got a bit shy. He worked in a hotel before but didn't like it, he said he's happier in the market.
Tuesday, September 8
What's your dream, Helena?
I just met Helena Norberg Hodge - the well renowned global economy analyst, documentarist and author of Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh - here she answers the question 'What's your dream?'
My Heroine
Now I'm going to a talk at the university by Helena Norberg Hodge, my heroine and inspiration why I want to go to Ladakh. She's been filming the people who live in Ladakh, or 'Little Tibet' for many many years. Helena about the changes in Ladakh:
"When I first arrived in Leh, the capital of (Ladakh) 5,000 inhabitants, cows were the most likely cause of congestion and the air was crystal clear. Within five minutes' walk in any direction from the town centre were barley fields, dotted with large farmhouses. For the next twenty years I watched Leh turn into an urban sprawl. The streets became choked with traffic, and the air tasted of diesel fumes. 'Housing colonies' of soulless, cement boxes spread into the dusty desert. The once pristine streams became polluted, the water undrinkable. For the first time, there were homeless people. The increased economic pressures led to unemployment and competition. Within a few years, friction between different communities appeared. All of these things had not existed for the previous 500 years."
(- Wikipedia / Helena Norberg Hodge)
"When I first arrived in Leh, the capital of (Ladakh) 5,000 inhabitants, cows were the most likely cause of congestion and the air was crystal clear. Within five minutes' walk in any direction from the town centre were barley fields, dotted with large farmhouses. For the next twenty years I watched Leh turn into an urban sprawl. The streets became choked with traffic, and the air tasted of diesel fumes. 'Housing colonies' of soulless, cement boxes spread into the dusty desert. The once pristine streams became polluted, the water undrinkable. For the first time, there were homeless people. The increased economic pressures led to unemployment and competition. Within a few years, friction between different communities appeared. All of these things had not existed for the previous 500 years."
(- Wikipedia / Helena Norberg Hodge)
Monday, September 7
What's your dream, Thoo?
Thoo working on a market in Bangkok selling Herbalife Smoothies, dreaming about traveling, a new house for his family and more time to spend with them.
Update
Dear friends,
Coming to Bangkok from the quiet Chiang Mai was once again quite a contrast. My film camera broke in the heat, humanity and rough handle. So I went out in the tech-jungle of Bangkok yesterday to sort out a temporary replacement. It's pretty crazy out there, you can tell that a lot of people are in the Buddhist state 'World of Hunger' - there's a craving for things, alcohol, sex and money in the air. I'm not saying that it's the only driving force here, but as in all big cities it's quite predominant. Finally I found a wonderfully small Sony Cyber shot with a 16 GB memory stick that I can film for more than 2 hrs with! With a happy smile on my face I felt like the buying experience soaked into my body like smooth balm for my craving soul...
Coming to Bangkok from the quiet Chiang Mai was once again quite a contrast. My film camera broke in the heat, humanity and rough handle. So I went out in the tech-jungle of Bangkok yesterday to sort out a temporary replacement. It's pretty crazy out there, you can tell that a lot of people are in the Buddhist state 'World of Hunger' - there's a craving for things, alcohol, sex and money in the air. I'm not saying that it's the only driving force here, but as in all big cities it's quite predominant. Finally I found a wonderfully small Sony Cyber shot with a 16 GB memory stick that I can film for more than 2 hrs with! With a happy smile on my face I felt like the buying experience soaked into my body like smooth balm for my craving soul...
Spetziale Guest
Structured Activity
This is a phychologist living in New York, meeting the ancient culture of northern Thailand. I met her at a foot massage place in Chiang Mai when she just came back from a three day hike with the hill tribes. She told us the story about staying with three Israelians in a mosquito tent, sharing huts with the animals and having no running water. Sex in the City goes tribal, anyone..?
Chiang Mai - Chedi Hotel and Spa
Aight, this is me newly awake trying to give you a guided tour at the Chedi...
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