This year, I’ve travelled to Taiwan, a Mahayana Buddhist country), then to Thailand a Thevarada Buddhist country then last but not least, the final leg of my Buddhist pilgrimage, I’m flying to India, Dharamshala, a Vajrayana, Tibetan inspired Buddhist colony where the Dalai Lama reside.
I woke up at 6am in the morning. My mum and sister decided to accompany me on my first drop off of the trip. My sister drove me from Singapore, crossing over the custom, alighting in Larkin, Johore Bahru bus terminal.
I then begin to take the 4 hours bus ride to Kuala Lumpur, Bukit Jalia bus terminal. From there I made a change to the local train and reach KL Sentral. At the basement of the building, I took the daily operated Air Asia bus to LCCT.
Once I reach the LCCT, KL airport, while waiting for check in, I realize my mobile has no auto roaming signal. Some of you can’t live without a mobile phone but how about auto roaming? I called Singtel to resume my auto roaming because they have automatically terminated it while upgrading my plan. Miserably, they have forgotten my phone number. At times, my heart will be quite happy about not receiving any nuisance or work calls, but there is a certain kind of peace of not knowing who call or missed. However, my mum is not going to be too happy about it. How am I supposed to call home whenever I reached a new destination? Running around looking for overseas calling centre is not fun.
The journey from KL to Delhi takes 41/2 hours. Can you imagine I’ve already spend 15 hours just by reaching, Delhi, India Gandhi airport? Funny enough, when I arrive in Delhi, it still looks like it is late afternoon even though my time shows 8.30pm in the evening. The traffic jam in the city is atrocious and the taxi I took from the Gandhi airport broke down on the way to Manju ka Tila. I’ve to transfer from the Taxi to an Auto (tuk tuk). By the time, I arrive at the MTK (Tibetan colony), it’s already 9.45pm and 12.30am (midnight in Singapore). Too late to catch the bus to Dharamshala, I stay a night in Potala palace, which I’ve previously stayed, but this time the condition of the room is so different, it’s hot with a stench of long un-vacant smell, perhaps it’s located next to the generator. Furthermore, the electricity was cut off in the middle of the night.
I can’t help but to think of last year, with good fortune, I bumped into the organizer of the Dalai Lama’s teaching tour, the committees of Tibetan Buddhist Centre. With that, my journey was smoothly paved all the way from low land to high land. My accommodation and transport was nicely arranged so that I was not at all feeling like a tourist but rather hosted by the locals. This year, however, perhaps my good karma had exhausted, or the idea of flying to Kuala Lumpur to Delhi is not sluggish enough to begin with, I’ve got a feeling; the “best” has yet to come. Whatever happens, nothing compare to the obstacles Buddha had gone through before enlightenment. This might be one of the toughest journey I’ve ever endeavor. I’ve sheer determination I’m going to complete this entire pilgrimage.
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