North of Dharamshala is McLeod Ganj.

Here lives the Dalai Lama along with the Tibetan refugee community who arrived here in 1959, when the Chinese occupied Tibet. I met a Tibetan who was 15 years old at the time. He told me they walked for two months across the Himalayas until they reached India. The path was narrow, and they moved in single file. Many couldn’t endure the harsh conditions and died. Along the way, they saw human skeletons: people who had set out earlier but couldn’t go any further. This is how the 14th Dalai Lama arrived here with approximately 100 000 Tibetans. Since then, many more have come.

In McLeod Ganj you’ll find the Dalai Lama’s temple and an entire Tibetan community. By coming here the world opened up to them and it also made it easier for the Dalai Lama to travel to other countries which helped strengthen the buddhist life view all around the world. At the same time Buddhism doesn’t see itself as a religion because every person is here on Earth for the same reason: to be happy. So speaks His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Here Tibetans live together with Indians preserving their own culture.

At the Norbulingka Institute, one of the centers of Tibetan culture here, you can see wood carvings, wood paintings and so-called thangka paintings; these are intricately painted spiritual images that often take 1–3 months to complete. It’s wonderful to see how much energy they embody and how many people are involved in creating them.

It’s wonderful to have the Tibetan culture so close here! It embodies authenticity and true ancient wisdoms from the higher Himalayas.