Open-mike night at Ka Na Nirvana is the event de-la-notte for Mondays. No matter how good or bad you are, at the conclusion of your performance the little coffee café erupts in a huge wave of support. Everybody from should-be rockstars, to never-will-be-rockstars, to poets, to storytellers, to philosophers have a go at it. The highlight of our last Monday there was an elder Punjabi gentleman who really stuck out from the hipster travellers. Well, he tore the house down with a traditional song and dance that made us all feel like we were at a Caravan wedding in the desert. Unfortunately, it was one of those moments that was so amazing that I forgot to take a picture. Incidently, Paul, the MC, was the first person we met in McLeod and the place lost a great presence when he left. An important thing to know is that Ka Na Nirvana is owned by Tibetan ex-political prisoners and hires other Tibetan escapees in 3 year cycles so they can learn restaurant management and english. They have political speakers, jam session nights, chess nights, film nights, and they make the best burrito in India.

Question: How do you get all the people you like in the same place at the same time (especially when I'd rather drink lighter fluid than the booze here and no restaurants can accommodate more than 8 people in a party)?

Answer: have a nice, non-alcoholic 12 hour Sunday brunch!

In order to make a clean exit, we've handed over the dog responsibility to a lovely Tibetan woman named Tashi, and we've also finished our conversational English gigs. We've been here for almost three months and we've met some really amazing people. One of the side-effects of living in New York is that I could never imagine enjoying dinner with the same people four or five nights a week. Well, as I find myself doing exactly that on a very regular basis, I bite my tongue again. Nestor, Lauren, Chris, Monica, Sally, and Connor, we never got tired of having the most amazing conversations in the same four restaurants. Thank you. And I also have to say thanks to Shinyen, the Liverpool bred Buddhist monk who I met in New York last spring. He actually logged more World Cup viewing hours than anyone else I know. How can you not like a guy who planned his 8-day silent retreat so it wouldn't clash with the World Cup finals? The rest of these are just a few of the faces that made our stay so amazing. I always felt so claustrophobic in small towns, but Mc Leod was another story....

And here are a few more parting glances that make up the odd little village of McLeod Ganj.

Now we're attending one more of the covetous week-long Dalai Lama teachings before we go to Amritsar to see the Golden Temple, then on to Thailand where I plan to sit on a beach until I look like a piece of Florida shoe leather that happens to be holding a little umbrella drink.

PMB 20/8/06.