Elsien's Traveblogue

After 6 weeks of Islam, a few days of Sikhism and several weeks of Hinduism still to come, I'm now in the middle of Tibetan Buddhism in Dharamsala, the residence of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile. I met the D.L. himself yesterday. He is teaching a course here at the moment and he shook my hand on the way in, saying something like 'how nice of you to have come' - I tried to mumble something like the honour being entirely mine, but felt too overwhelmed and just stuttered. I heard him speak as well, but it was in Tibetan and I didn't really want to sit with a transistor radio translator to my ear to hear someone else translate into English - I'll read one of his books instead. He does have charisma, even meeting him for 2 seconds!
It's incredibly beautiful here in the mountains, at about 2000m high. The weather is crisp, cool, clear and sunny, so there's a clear blue sky above the deodar (cedar) trees and the snow-tipped mountains, foothills of the Himalayas, behind. There are monkeys in the trees and eagles and this morning I saw a flock of green parrots. The views are stunning and there are lots of roof terraces where you can sit with some tea (yes, I've really enjoyed salty Tibetan butter tea, a bit like liquid cheese sauce) and marvel at them.
I actually went to a rather sad and dark little Anglican church with a graveyard full of old colonials yesterday morning (it's an old British Colonial hill station up here, called McLeod Ganj) to counterbalance some of all those religions with a smidgen of my own and was happily surprised by the choice of reading by a fellow traveller of Psalm 121, the one about lifting up your eyes to the mountains, something I've been doing constantly. I've done a lot of walking here, it's gorgeous and my legs are co-operating nicely.
I'm also finding out rather a lot about Chinese war crimes and human rights violations in Tibet, truly shocking. I've been reading up in the library here on history, ancient and recent and have also seen some documentaries shown here by the museum, which also has lots of photographic material. I'm not sure how I am going to keep my mouth shut once I'm back in China. However, I spoke to the D.L.'s secretary for Human Rights who told me to try and explain the Dalai Lama's Third Way instead, which proposes peaceful co-existence within China, within an autonomous framework, rather than plead for independence for Tibet. I will be trying to get to Tibet itself this year, but not sure about how and when yet.
By the way, Richard Gere has put his name on a public toilet here, as a sponsor. Is this true Buddhist humility?