DHARMSALA, India - For every 10 people that visit China this year, just one will make it to the other Asian superpower.
That doesn't mean that there are same combinations of visor wearing tour groups, elderly Germans and wild-eyed church groups from Middle America that wander around China.
India attracts a different type of traveler, the kind relishes the 15-hour journey from Delhi to Dharmsala, the capital of the Tibet Government in Exile. Parts of the route follow the Great Trunk Road, an ancient highway that connected major cities in Northern India and Pakistan. The route is mostly paved now, but the trip still takes plenty of time thanks to prearranged stops and surprise matientance failures.
The first bus stops by a small lake in the outskirts of Delhi. There I start talking to Kara, already in India for five months. She wears baggy olive-colored stiff cotton pants and strings a large money belt on the outside of her button down shirt.
Kara decided against going to college home in Britian six years ago. It took her four years to get to Barcelona, then another two before she left the European continent. But after half a year off the grid, she seemed serene, convinced she'd made the right decision.
"I'm happy now," she said, and listed off adventures in Kashmir, Nepal and in Dharmsala. She was on her way back to Dharmsala to surprise a friend, and kill two weeks while her passport was replaced.
The document went missing on a long bus trip. "I actually should have lost it earlier," she said. "I had one of those bags with no zipper, just a strap thing."
All is not always calm. A Spanish woman yelled at the driver that she'd been promised a single bunk and did not want to be placed with a companion. She calmed down when an attractive and talkative Italian offered to share the bunk. Some other Americans were not pleased when the waiter the dinner rest stop tried to blatantly tack 60 rupees on the bill. But these incidents are soon forgotten. These people have seen it before and certainly will be come across it again during their extended stays here.
The bus didn't leave the roadside collection of outside tables and vendors selling Bollywood CDs, Menthos and chilled pudding until after 10:30 at night. The cabin's interior lights went out and conversation slowly died down. Someone in an upper bunk lit a joint and the sweet smoke drifted down to the passengers in the cheaper seats. Forty foreign visitors drifted toward the hill station of Dharmasala, peacefully.
