Just before 9 AM, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama made his entrance. Everyone stood up. There was a hush, that particular sound of hundreds of people holding their breath. A few people around us started crying. Practitioners of Buddhism bowed in prayer.
Our day trip to Badrinath was the perfect array of the elements that make up what it is to travel in India: crowds, opportunistic capitalism, generosity and spirituality.
Were Stan to sweat, we’d see every bead, but he doesn’t because he’s too cool.