Oh, The People You'll See

As I’ve mentioned, there is a wide array of Westerners living in or visiting Dharamsala, drawn by altruism, pilgrimage, tourism, or the pursuit of some downright wholesome hash. Some of them are strikingly normal. Like Courtney, an Australian girl we met at lunch yesterday who accompanied us to a nearby waterfall (watertrickle.) and regaled us with stories of her solo travels throughout India. Or Milton, a retired English teacher from Arkansas who Jason assists with the advanced English class at Lha.

Others are a bit quirky or, at the very least, fun to look at. They’ve assimilated bits of Indian and Tibetan dress into their daily ensemble in the most curious of ways—dhotti pants, furry moccasins, “Free Tibet” scarf and a blanket/shawl wrapped around them expertly. My favorite one of these was a whole family of tourists, Mom, Dad, Daughter #1 and Daughter #2. Mom and both Daughters seemed to acquire a new, matching article each day, so that they were wearing Jamaican-inspired, Indian-made red, yellow and green jackets the first day we saw them, covering them with elaborately embroidered yak-leather vests the next day, and finally, after the Long Life Puja at the temple last weekend, ceremonial white scarves draped over it all.

After seeing these ensembles parading around for more than two weeks now, I didn’t think anything would surprise me. Then I saw The Most Beautiful Woman I Have Ever Seen (Really, Ever. In My Entire Life.)

An English woman, in her late sixties, perhaps, with brown and grey dreadlocks not much younger than her. Not just any dreadlocks, but dreads tied together on the top of her head, Pebbles-style, with a huge, floppy pink bow. Select dreads were wound with that really silky fabric that sometimes covers the cuddliest of stuffed animals, in a variety of colors. Her jacket incorporated green, purple, blue, and orange (heavy on the orange) in an 80’s-type design with those bizarre z’s and paint speckles all over it. The orange parts specifically had an amateurish sponge-painted look to them. Underneath, a fuchsia sweater, jeans, and pink Crocs that almost matched the sweater. She tied it together with an oversized wristwatch and a pile of hemp and beaded bracelets. I managed to note this much through sideways glances at a restaurant, and when I chanced one full-on stare I noticed there also seemed to be pieces of tinsel—the Christmas tree kind—wound into a few of her dreads, as well.

People are so beautiful.