In BIR!

After five hours of sleep at the hotel in Delhi, it was back to the airport to catch a flight to Dharamsala.  The 1.5 hour flight north on a prop plane (see photo) was very bumpy and I must admit that I felt a little nauseous by the time we landed.  Nevertheless, all of our bags arrived safely with all of the passengers.

We (Richard Sterling, Paul Doherty, Modesto Tamez, and I -- the workshop instructors) were met at the airport by the director of the Tibetan Language Library who had two cars waiting to take us to the small village of Bir.  Driving on the roads here is quite an experience; dodging cars, overloaded trucks, cows, cars, stray dogs and the occasional goat over roads that are sometimes unpaved did not help with the way I felt when I got off the plane.  I'll try to post a video shows a small clip of the two hour drive.  Don’t adjust your computer – I tried to hold the camera as steady as possible!

We arrived in Bir, a small village of about 1,000 people at 4 pm.  A brief thunderstorm cleared the air a bit and cooled off the temperatures.  The workshop is taking place at the Deer Park Institute which has an old Tibetan Buddhist monastery on its grounds.  The Deer Park Institute holds classes and workshops throughout the year on a variety of topics.  The rooms for guests are quite basic:  a desk, bed, bathroom.  Everything, and I mean everything (use your imagination), is recycled at the Deer Park Institute.   

The village of Bir is nestled up against the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains.  From my room (see photo), I Iook out my door and can see a Buddhist temple framed by snowcapped hills that  lead to the highest mountain range on Earth.

Everyone took a few minutes getting settled and then Bryce Johnson, the director of the Science for Monks program, took us for a walk around the compound.  Dinner was served promptly at 6 pm and consisted of noodles, soup and cooked vegetables.  I felt much better by dinner time and was able to eat a bit.  The rest of the evening was spent preparing for teaching.  I took one of my melatonin pills (1 g) and fell asleep quickly at about 10 pm.  However, I woke up at 3:30 am and was not able to go back to sleep.