Dream Trip 2008: September

Great Travel Moment

In the summer of 2008 I spent five weeks in the Indian town of McLeod Ganj, a little misty village in the foothills of the Himalaya range. I would often pass the time by taking the three mile walk to Bhagsu another tiny little Indian hamlet. On the road one day I was stopped by a woman who had her hand over a basket, hiding its contents. She asked me for money and being bored and curious I handed her a ten rupee note (the one pictured here). She pulled back her hand to reveal the snake you see above. Something in me clicked. This was the India I had seen in movies, and read about in books, that exotic place where magic and religion blend with masala and chai to form a spicy heady blending that is both intoxicating and intense.