JL and I left Dharamsala a little after nine this morning. It was a pleasant drive along the road heading east back to Palampur. We turned off the road north heading into a forested area and then wound our way around some low hills and then on to the top of the hill where Dorzang Rinpoche is building a retreat center. Actually it seems that Drugu Chogyal Rinpoche is the one really building it but one must remember protocol and hierarchy.The forest retreat comp[lex of many buildings and monks quarters is unfinished but magnificent. It is very clean with few people other than an occasional monk and then the Indian workers finishing the construction. It is in the middle of a pine forest with grass underfoot and clean dust free air. Drugu Chogyal met us out front of his residence. We spent two hours talking and then adjourned for lunch. None of us ate very much as the conversation continued over the formally prepared lunch table. We looked at an amazing assortment of paintings both actual and photographs. I managed to copy all of the important images and will return to New York with them and add them to the HAR website. Most are from the late 17th, early 18th century and painted by the great Drugpa Kagyu painter Cho Tashi. I took numerous pictures of the retreat center and surroundings.
Leaving Drugu Chogyal we proceeded directly to Tashi Jong and spent some time in the main temple again photographing paintings of the former Khamtrul Rinpoches. Again, these paintings were in the style of Cho Tashi if not by his very hand. After that we traveled the short distance to Bir and took a room at the Deer Park Institute for the night. This time JK and I were able to meet with his eldest son at the local TCV school and take some photos. On the return to Deer Park we stopped and visited Orgyan Tobgyal Rinpoche at his house that I call a palace. Many of you will remember him from the movie "The Cup" where he played the disciplinarian - the very stern head monk.
Darkness sets in very quickly in India; it could also be that there is a lack of street lighting. I will quickly finish this and then go and get something light to eat. The plan is to get up relatively early and head off towards Tso Pema. If we can get there in a reasonable time and see what we need to see then we will head south-east down to Simla. If that isn't reasonable then we will spend the night in Tso Pema and leave the next morning.
