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Return to Mao Fort & Pathankot
I visited India and Nepal for the first time on a Buddhist pilgrimage led by Shantum Seth in 2007. The following is from my 2008 trip to India, Nepal, and Tibet. After 2 weeks in Dharamshala, India, most of us headed back to Delhi.
The sangha — everyone remaining, including people who stayed at Kashmir Cottage — enjoyed an Indian lunch at Cloud’s End.
We climbed into five white cabs, as we had before, and experienced a queasy-dizzy drive from Dharamshala. We circled around and around down the mountain, as we had up the mountain, and I felt dizzy and nauseated from the drive round and round, down and down from Dharamshala. This time I uncharacteristically refrained from keeping quiet about it, and I said to Rachel, who sat beside me, “I’m feeling dizzy and nauseous.” Rachel thought I meant that to the extreme of needing to stop the car so I could vomit on the side of the road, but no, I said that wouldn’t be necessary.
We stopped at Mao Fort, the same hotel/restaurant we had stopped at on the way to Dharamshala. Up on the roof, David Russ offered me Chinese herbal cold medicine he got earlier on the trip and didn’t need any more. Considering how I was coughing, it was obvious I felt ill.
I eagerly said, “Sure! That’d be great!”