Three things converged to keep me from posting as often as usual during the past few days. First, like many here, I was a bit under the weather with a mild stomach flu for much of the week. Second, I've needed to put more time into the English class I'm teaching, both because there's more for me to do as we near the end of the class (at the end of this month), and because some of the students are so enjoying writing in English that they've been handing in more pieces of writing than I've assigned. Third, I've now been here long enough that my social circle has expanded to the point that I can rarely go anywhere without having a good, long conversation--time I otherwise might have spent online.

Something I love about India in general, and which seems especially dramatic here, is the remarkable diversity of experiences and encounters that happen within a short period of time. Take this weekend, for example. In this normally calm town, my days start and end with the sound of gongs and chanting from the nunneries across the street, and nearly every other person strolling along the street is a Buddhist monk or nun. But Mcleodgang turned into Party Central this weekend, because three Indian Premier League cricket matches are being played in lower Dharamsala, just below us, starting today. Cricket is to India as baseball is to the US, only more so, and passions are especially high this year because India won the Cricket World Cup just a few weeks ago.

Friday morning was calm enough. I started that day as I start each day except Sundays these days: after a quiet breakfast, a walk uphill through the cool deodar cedar forest, evading roving bands of rhesus monkeys (the big males can be very aggressive), to Tushita Meditation Center for the morning meditation session followed by tea on Tushita's deck overlooking the forest.

Later, off to the Lha office to teach my 2pm English class. To provide English listening practice, I used a computer speaker and my iPod to play an ancient Buddhist teaching tale (Jataka Tale), which we then discussed. Emerging onto the street after class in an open-hearted state--the tale had been touching--I found people lined up, three or four deep in some places, along Temple Road. His Holiness must be returning from his US trip, I initially thought, and joined a group at a good viewpoint. But there, I discovered that people were waiting not for the Dalai Lama, but for a famous Bollywood actress. A few minutes later, a luxury bus pulled up, and out stepped a team of cricket players, to be met by enthusiastic cheering from their Indian and Tibetan fans.

As a Bollywood fan myself, I was quite tempted to wait for the actress, but I had a very different appointment at the Main Temple complex, where a Western nun, who recently was awarded a Geshe degree (the equivalent of a PhD in Tibetan Buddhism), was scheduled to give a teaching on the philosophically complex concept of Bodhicitta (luminous mind). My friend C and I had some trouble finding the lecture hall, but finally were pointed in the right direction by an obviously senior monk. Though he had the air of a very distinguished teacher himself, he immediately set aside his work and stepped out of his office to be sure we found our way.

Over the course of the weekend, the traffic in the narrow streets and concomitant honking have reached levels I haven't seen before, and the streets were jammed last night by excited fans and onlookers. Cars and motorcycles careened in the wrong direction along the one-way roads through town, pedestrians (including me) and animals scattered and jumped aside to avoid being hit, and I saw one motorcyclist skid out to avoid a crash. All in all, Mcleodganj looked more like the site of a Super Bowl party than the home of His Holiness in exile.

Today has been calmer so far, probably because the first game is being played in the big stadium in lower Dharamsala. Just now, the car traffic is markedly reduced, and I've been watching several cows, goats, and sheep, and one water buffalo who've reclaimed the road for now and are ambling towards Bhagsu village.

I spent this morning at a rooftop table in the shade of the yak-hair tent at Llamo's Croissants restaurant, breakfasting, preparing lessons for this week's classes, and then having a long discussion about green business and other not-necessarily-related subjects with a traveler-philosopher from Montreal. Then it was time for lunch with my friend C, who's headed home to Oakland tomorrow, and T, a researcher working for the Tibetan Government in Exile. T is investigating how health insurance and improved health care could be provided to exiled Tibetans living in India, so that was a main subject of our lunchtime discussion. So was the arrival last week of newly-elected Dr Lobsang Sangay, who will soon be inaugurated as the new Kalon Tripa (Prime Minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile). Having just left his job as a law professor at Harvard, he is making a major transition. Given that the Chinese government recently declared him a terrorist, he will have his hands full.

Who knows what will happen next? My plan is to have a quiet evening back at Llamo's Croissants, watching a documentary on the yogis of India. But perhaps on my way over, I'll encounter a cricket or Bollywood great instead.