chartandwaters

Mine is Wednesday. I know that because I just opened my Yahoo, and it turns out today is the 18th. Which would make yesterday the 17th and Wednesday my birthday. Last night I was having trouble sleeping because of the cold. And I had decided I needed to get to Amritsar, which is supposed to be warmer, and has nice Sikhs, I can't spell it, and a golden temple. But this would require packing. So again I lounged in Dharamsala. I got caught up in a wonderful conversation at the great Sunrise Cafe, great because 4 feet by 8 feet, one table surrounded by benches, so everyone feels quite friendly--amazing how proximity can breed affection as easily as hostility--and surpassing cheap. It was a conversation about many things: MP3 players, Steve Martin, yoga, and I could go into details but I'm a bit tired. But last night in my sleeplessness I decided on a project I would do for the website my friend Stephanie edits, a website called "Tango Diva" or www.tangodiva.com devoted to solo women travellers (like me). She doesn't know about this yet.

By the way, aren't my parents awesome? They are both so unbelievably supportive, and I got to be born to such supportiveness. Because I may be on a bus on Wednesday, I want to thank them now, now, thank you! oh parents for being so supportive of and having faith in your travelling daughter!!!!

Then I went to lunch and journalled a bit and accidentally read some Sartre, but that's okay (interesting but depressing series of short stories "Intimacy"), and ate vegetable and tofu soup and a plate of two enormous fried vegetable and tofu springrolls, and lemon tea--there are many teas to which lemon is added here--a LOT of lemon juice, it's more lemon juice than tea and unless there's honey too it takes a while to get down, and I drink one with almost each meal so I am no doubt being detoxified out the wazoo. By the way, American restaurants make a HUGE mistake not adding "honey lemon ginger tea", as well as sweet, mango, strawberry and other fruit lassis, to their menus. As my brother would say, don't make me say this twice.

The meal was perfectly cooked and came (I'm guessing people like to know prices) to a little less than $1.80. Tibetan food is sometimes referred to as bland, but I find it very soothing, lots of tofu and vegetables, and very wide (1") soft noodles called thentuk that, when done right, melt in the mouth. There are also fried noodles and other fried delicacies, and meat. I'm more cautious than the travel doctor at home says I need to be about eating meat, but I promise to try some before I go. There are many people selling big pots of steaming momos on the street, a good-sized snack of five is 10 rupees (about a quarter) and sold in a little tinfoil tray or paper bag made of newspaper. (Plastic bags are outlawed in Dharamsala and I think all Himachal Pradesh--there are many good reasons for this, including that stray animals sometimes eat them--and as a result they are hard to find. When I threw one away, the hotel owners cleaned it and hung it to dry.) In any case, because there are so many opportunities to buy momos, if you like them you get to say the word "momo" over and over again. I think this would be a very good mantra, momo. Momos can be steamed or fried; they're dough pouches (like money bags) of spinach and cheese or mutton or mixed veggies or something else. Momos shaped like crescent moons and fried on one side are no longer momos but "kothays".

Ani di Franco is playing in the cybercafe, as great as the previous Bryan Adams was not.

Thing is, Tibetan food's not spicy at all; like any sensible culture the chili sauce comes on the side. So, since I do not have the gene that can handle spice, I have been able to luxuriate in the food here (and in other Tibetan sanctuaries/refuges) in the way that I, predictably, could not in North India (they say Southern Indian food is not so hot--I mean, it's good, but not hot).

Michele asked me about where I'm staying. The Snow Lion's right in the center of town and run by a Tibetan family who also hires four young, fastidious and weirdly thoughtful boys--3 Indian and one Tibetan--to run its restaurant and clean. The hotel is completely full and people come by wanting rooms every day since it's in Lonely Planet. It's also nice because everyone knows where it is, and the restaurant's popular so you're likely to have a nice conversation with someone if you want it. My room is I think the cheapest they have at 150 Rs (about $4.00; you can get rooms for less at the nearby town of Bhagsu), so it will go very quickly when I leave.

What made me happiest about the place is, first, that I actually got a room for cheap, but much more that when I first arrived the place was so busy that I didn't expect to have any nice relations with the owners of the Snow Lion. My room is right next to the four hired boys, who share two bunk beds in a room the size of mine, and we share a bathroom. So of course we smile constantly and wave and do our laundry together and apologize when two of us are competing for the bathroom.

None of the people in the Snow Lion have begging or overselling tendencies, everything's extremely straightforward. There have been only a few other attempts at relating. Partly hoping to engage the solemnfaced sisterinlaw, I asked her where she had her chupa made; I then had one made there as well but she was unimpressed as everyone does that. (I have become a SHOPPER here and am very interested in LOOKING PRETTY.) On the day of the birthday celebrations I decided to wear my chupa, and had, despite such careful observations, tied it all wrong. I came down to meet Kyrsie in the restaurant, and although it was closed the owner's wife Dolker was in the kitchen. (Dolker is always very sweet and, judging by how frequently she uses it, has learned that her beautiful smile does wonders to reassure customers who are feeling challenged by the big language barrier.) The seats were all on top of the tables but Dolker offered Kyrsie and me free chai and pie: "No, today you don't pay". Then she saw my untidy chupa, fixed it aggressively and taught me how to sit properly in it. When I commented that she wears only Western clothes--she wears loose, stylishly worn out jeans and simple tops--she said, "Not Western, not Indian, just Dolker". (Later, when I asked her if she liked a Kashmiri robe I was wearing, she scrunched her nose and said no, she only likes chupas and Western clothes, that's it. And one night, as she was hanging laundry, she loving me showed me a simple lavendar bra she was holding like, I don't know, the finest silver or, no, a precious cat she wished she could keep. "Gabi looook. Loook. I like so much." She laughed a little at herself--"Laundry, Korean girls downstairs"--and pointed to another one in blue, "Different color. I like....."

Wait, I forgot to tell you--

If you read the earlier blogs you heard me go on and on about the incredible Tibetan fashion and the women's full chupa, or dress. What could be the best, most awesome thing women would wear under their nearly floor-length chupas? So that if they hike them in the rain you would see these--what would it be--

Yes! Pantaloons! They wear pantaloons! With lace trim.

Anyway, so after eight days or so Dorkel looked at me warmly and said, "Gabi, how long are you staying?" and I realized that somehow I was "in". We had barely been able to have any conversation, but we'd had just enough to agree we were totally fond of each other. It really pleased me. And it's why I really like staying in a place a while. Even the chemist nextdoor has started looking at me warmly, and I haven't particularly enjoyed our encounters (because he's brusque, because someone told me he overcharged Westerners, because he frequently doesn't have what I'm looking for and because I don't think he's a good chemist). Of course I'm a good customer, and it is partly that, but I think it's also just the sense of comfort we're all getting from familiarity.

Back to, um, lunch. Over lunch I wrote out some recent adventures and realized I could no longer survive here without a laptop. So I went immediately to ask my hotel where they had gotten their laptop, which the owners use to play solitaire. They said it belonged to a friend and they were trying to sell it for him. It is a 1997 IBM Thinkpad, with I believe no USB--I have to figure out all this--but with disk drives and workably light and should perhaps cost me $100, which is what I would like to spend on a laptop. So that was an odd coincidence. However, in standard bargaining style they have quoted me a very high price, but have loaned it to me for three days to try out. So that's nice. I wonder what I should do Wednesday? The bus to Amritsar leaves at 5am.

Much love and happiness! The song they're playing now is a Hindi, electronic version of Pretty Woman.