Crouching Person; Squatting Toilet

As I metioned yesterday, I'm in residence at the Dip-Tse Chok Ling Monastery close to McLeod Ganj. It's a beautiful and tranquil setting with great views and friendly people (and animals), but I do have two (relatively) minor quibbles.

The first is the path between the monastery and town is designed to bring you just one step closer to Nirvana. I've slipped and fallen on my backside twice so far, and I don't know what I was thinking trying to tackle the steps in the pitch black last night until someone came along with a torch.

I made my introduction to this person and her accompanying monk by slipping for the second time. Always make an entrance they'll never forget, that's my motto.

My second slight quibble - although it's more of an amusement - is the shared squat toilet, the use of which requires, skill, a good aim and legs of iron. Balancing in what I can only describe as a Guantanamo Bay style mid-air sit position I grabbed hold of the door handle with my right hand and gripped the strip of wood running down the centre of the door with my left. Not a pretty sight. But then you have to aim, and for that you need to track the trajectory of your projectile and reposition the squat accordingly. Stand up and you could end up ruining your the back of your trousers; aim either side too much then you've got a mess to clean from the floor. And I don't want to even think about overshooting (easy to do when you're a bit loose).

So it's come to this: watching my little quantals of Tony-compost as they make their way inmto the world. Thank God I don't have to correct the shot for windspeed as well.