The Dalai Lama day only got better. In the evening, we went to hear the Exile Brothers’ Band play at a restaurant called JJI. We chatted with the owner when we were there for lunch, and she told us to come back at dinner time to watch her sons. We had no idea what we were in for. To start out with, only one of the brothers could make it. The one night of the week that they do this intimate gig, two out of the three were MIA. The remaining brother and his amateur friend set the tone of the night when they forgot the lyrics to the opening song, making up for it by joking with the crowd and improvising with the guitar. Out of nowhere, an older guy and this beautiful young woman walked in. The guy was introduced as the most famous Tibetan standup comedian (and only, as he informed us in his introduction), and the woman as a famous Tibetan singer. A toothless comedian that looked like Bill Murray and a gorgeous pop star – they combined forces to prevent any awkward lulls. He ended up speaking for the majority of the night, from telling dirty jokes in broken English to rapping in Tibetan. Hilarious. And she chimed in now and then with a soft, melodic song. There were many highlights of the evening, but the last part just plays over and over again in my head. After 3 hours of the brother and his friend, the toothless comedian, and the pop star, the mother/owner invited anyone from the audience to perform. Only seconds after, a lady from the front row was on stage, addressing the rest of us confidently: “This is an 18th century Italian love song, composed by ___ (some fancy Italian guy).” She just went all out, opera style, as if she had been preparing for this moment all her life. Or as if she was possessed by the devil – deep, low notes and screechy, high ones back to back. After 3 minutes of the dramatic rendition, she returned to her seat to absorb the applause that followed; She smiled and turned from side to side to thank her fans. If you had just walked in, you would’ve thought she was up there the entire night. On the hike to Bhagsu Falls yesterday, I was still laughing at the randomness of it all. Priceless. Bhagsu is a neighboring town, with an amazing view of the valley and a spectacular waterfall. When Bear, Steve, and I walked into Shiva Café and told the guys that we were continuing on to hike Triund, they said we were crazy. After the first 15 minutes, the rocky path split at least 30 times, with no markings in sight. We soon surrendered any hope of picking the “right” one, and of coming back the same way, for that matter. But it began peacefully: an abandoned mountain village of rock-piled houses and sheep. An hour later, we were bushwhacking, river-crossing, rockslide scaling, and direction-pondering. Quite an adventure, with a few scrapes and bruises as souvenirs. Three slices of carrot cake were well-deserved when we finally made it back to Om Guesthouse hours later. Today was not as crazy, however. Souvenirs consist of prayer flags, wool hats, “Om” shirts, etc. After parting ways with Steve, we cruised the handicraft-filled streets of MG, and stopped by the Norbulingka Institute of Tibetan Arts to watch the artisans carve wood, pound metal, and paint intricate mandalas for Thangka scrolls. On our way out, we walked across a basketball court. While pretending to dunk, we heard glass shatter nearby, and looked to see that someone had thrown a basketball down to us through the workshop window. Through the window. So we shot a few hoops, as well. Oh, and minor correction to the last post: when I said there were hundreds of people at TCV to see the Dalai Lama, I meant thousands. After Chris read my post today, he said that I was crazy, and that there were at least 8,000 spectators. A few hundred, eight thousand – same same (but different).

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