Himalaya
Day 38: Dharamsala and McLeodganj

I stop to make some notes leaning up against a metal post crowned with a thick mesh of unprotected electric cabling. A boy, not more than five or six, holds out his hand.
'Hello,' he repeats softly, 'Hello.'
An older man with a stick simply stands there with a small pail, whimpering soundlessly. Passing these wraith-like figures are the substantial, muscular, Western backpackers who home in on these places, looking for cheap accommodation while sporting designer shades that would cost a street mender six months' wages.
Poverty is corrosive, but it's always worse when it is found side by side with wealth. Occupants of shanty towns in the Philippines or South America are as poor as this but they have their own, fierce, communal pride, and (apart from BBC film crews) they don't have rich foreigners walking their streets every day.
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PALIN'S GUIDES
- Series: Himalaya
- Chapter: Day 38: Dharamsala and McLeodganj
- Country/sea: India
- Place: McLeodganj
- Book page no: 84
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RELATED LINKS
- India
- Day 25
- Around the World in 80 Days
- Mumbai 14 October 2008
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