Day 7: Dharamshala to Dalhousie: Museum, Stadium, and walk-up-um in snow.

We got ready pretty fast and left for the monastery. Niti, Saumya, and I spent the last ten minutes turning the mattress upside down to hide the burn and arranging the bedsheet in a fake rugged fashion to hide the burn as well. Most people may learn of this news while reading the blog post. (Yes, we burnt something here too.) Moving on... We did a small touch and go to the church.

Turns out the monastery was the Tsuklakhang complex's Dalai Lama temple that we had visited yesterday so the same bunch of us turned to the museum next door. The winds were fast at the entrance as usual as we entered the museum. I was surprised because I knew nothing about the history of Tibet and China. Here’s a small recap:

History lesson begins. The museum is a gem full of history displayed beautifully, but I don't recommend you to go visit the Tibet Museum if you want to keep your spirits high.

In 1949 China invaded Tibet. The occupation was accompanied by policies and actions intended to wipe out the Tibetian identity and traditional way of life. More than a million Tibetians died as a result of the occupation, victims of fighting, hunger, execution and labour camps. Spiritual and material treasures was robbed, buried, destroyed, and were lost forever. Tibets forest were killed and its sacred lakes polluted - it became a vast military base and a nuclear waste site. These terrors forced many people to flee their Homeland, and the mere survival of Tibetan culture and identity is now threatened.

Like every story, there was a resistance, there was destruction, and there were people who attempted to escape. The Museum has stories of all these people - people who were sentenced to imprisonment, people who were hung from the ceiling, those that had cigarettes stubbed on their bodies and were beaten severely with metal wires. Some female prisoners also had electric weapons inserted in their private parts. There was never enough food, and all of the prisoners were made to work without their basic needs being met. It was a pure human rights violation and I cannot believe that this happened in the past few years.

To add to this, a bunch of people mostly aged between twenty to twenty-four self-immolated. They set themselves on fire because they thought that was better than the life they would live in China occupied Tibet. There were their last words displayed along with passport sized photographs.

History lesson over.

After the eye-opening visit, we ran to do some last minute shopping in the spare time. Niti was getting anxious about reaching the bus on time, but Saumya and I were pretty sure we still wouldn't be the last people (and we weren't!). We got a small dabbi for Saumya's mom as she has a collection of them. It was really pretty. Adesh got a peace sound-maker as far as I remember. I don't know what the actual name is, but its this bowl which has a thing to be moved round and round to generate a peaceful sound. Upload a picture in the comments maybe?

The next stop was to the stadium. We wanted to make a pit-stop at Illiterati again for some cake (too bad for me because it had egg) and our driver agreed to pause for a minute. Jay got off but was greeted by dogs guarding the door and I guess he's afraid of dogs, so no one ended up getting cake (too bad for egg eating people they got their hopes up for no reason hehe) and the driver became impatient and called him back.

We reached the stadium before we realised - it felt like a really short distance - and it was beautiful. So much green. And blue. And snow-capped mountains. Those cricketers sure are lucky. I have no sentiment attached to it, but I think the guys do. We took lots of photos. LOTS.

Make sure you go to the end immediately and take photos because no one really goes till there and then you'll get photos without people in the background.

My lovely class

We tried taking a class picture (the only one) but it didn't end up that great. Whoever is reading this, make sure one happens on traditional day please!!!

Post the stadium, the only aim was to reach Dalhousie as fast as we could. We cracked a lot of inappropriate jokes that I cannot mention because my family reads this. One of them was on Shrey's beanie. Why Saumya, why?

It began snowing by the time we reached Dalhousie. We got so excited.

"Look at the snow!", everyone shouted. "Oh no no no", said the driver. "Why why why", said we. "Because one kilometre walking uphill with luggage it is going to be." said he.

And that was that. With the bus slipping, it wasn't really possible for him to come up. Doesn't matter that a 40 seater bus compared to our 14 seater made it.

So we walked. And grumbled. And got irritated. And walked. And cried. And walked.

And by the time we reached, everyone had lost it. Because we were angry. A lot of us shouted at the tour operator. "Get us new rooms." "Get us a new hotel." "This hotel doesn't even have a gate or reception." "Our servant has better accommodation than this."

BAM. Shots fired. Not good. But did we do damage control? No. We still kept shouting. I think everyone really needed to let out their anger. Not sure that is the best thing that we did, because accommodation finally didn't get changed, and we still haven't got the promised refund, but I am sure Nikesh is working on it.

We had a little fight amongst ourselves too. To go to Amritsar tomorrow or not to go? To change hotels tomorrow or not to change?

To be or not to be?
Kanksha

I added the 'to be or not to be' just like that.
(But did I miss anything? Let me know if I did. We meet in college every day. Or you could just comment. *shameless publicity* okay bye.)