April 12th, 2011-

This morning we visited Tsuglagkhang, the main complex of important Tibetan temples and buildings, including the official home of the Dalai Lama. I didn’t see the Lama himself, but I did think often and fondly of Bill Murray’s Dalai Lama story in the movie Caddyshack.

Good views of the Himalaya and central McLeod Ganj were in abundance.

We spun the wheels of time, adding one mantra to our karma for each revolution. (“So I’ve got that going for me—which is nice.”)

Apparently no shoe was safe at the entrance to the temple. (Read the sign.)

One of the main temples, when empty.

Tibetan Buddhist monks chanting in the same temple. (I think I burned up all my karma by taking this photo.)

Our irrepressible simian friends patrolled the grounds.

Brenna snapped this photo of a fellow tourist’s sleeping child. She talks more and more seriously about stealing an Indian baby each day. I fear for the children.

Around 2pm, monks started gathering in the central courtyard. We were just about to leave but decided to stay and see what’s up. We weren’t disappointed.

The monks paired up and began conversing—arguing, more like it—with one sitting and the other standing, swaying, and intermittently emphasizing a point with a stomping of the foot and a clap of the hands. Each monk fingered a string of rosary beads in the process.

As we later learned from an elder monk in a restaurant, these young monks were debating Buddhist philosophy: one of their many forms of meditation practice. The standing monk posed philosophical challenges or questions to the sitting monk, who then had to respond.

Some of them REALLY got into it. I was a little jealous. I wanted to participate, but it was all in Tibetan. And, I suppose, I’m not a monk. (But there were a handful of apparent lay people in the mix.)

That evening we attempted to join our first conversational English class (as volunteers) for Tibetan refugees. We were a bit late, so we grabbed dinner at the “Peace Cafe” instead, where we ran into a weird, weird old man (more on that later) and a positively delightful little Korean-Tibetan girl.

Brenna asked me to get the chloroform and burlap sack. I resisted.