So as planned we had an early breakfast and drove down to the temple in lower Dharamsala where the Dalai Lama had been teaching for 3 days. Apparently his timekeeping is idiosyncratic -- it's quite common for a lecturer scheduled for 10 am to be in full swing by 9:15. There's a short of grapevine so that everyone gets notified. So it was by several phone calls and texts that we knew when he would leave the temple / conference centre and had back up the hill to his residence. We bagged a spot by the roadside in front of the temple gate and tried to look inconspicuous! Imagine that........
Leads of Indian security; they recognise him as equivalent to a head of state. After another 15 minutes the lead car appeared, ready to clear a path through the crowd. Next his limo and we had picked the right side of the road because there he was, just three feet away smiling benignly as ever. I was alongside Philippa, who sometimes leads the tour and who knows him. So I think it's perfectly reasonable to say that we both waved and he smiled and waved back.
After that, the rest of the morning was inevitably an anti-climax! We wandered round the complex, Tibetan craft workshops, and the nunnery then finished with a leisurely lunch in the gardens.
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