Onward

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My stay in Rishikesh, which turned out to be considerably longer than I had originally planned, has come to an end. Tomorrow I leave for Pathnakot on train to get a bus to Amritsar to see the Golden Temple and make a trip to see the extravagant border closing ceremonies on the India-Pakistan Border. From there I am planning on going to Dharamsala and then Manali. However, it seems to be quite cold and rainy there lately, not my favorite combination. So I am beginning to consider other opportunities. Maybe I'll make a trip to Rajasthan instead.

I have really enjoyed my time in Rishikesh, even though it is a little crowded with tourists and because of much rain at night and some during the day, my pants are very much spattered with mud. I enjoyed my Yoga classes, which turned out to be different than expected. The actual course of classes was cancelled, but a Yogi still taught an intermediate class once a day which I enjoyed very much and sometimes attented another Ashtanga yoga class in the evening. I met a very interesting and cool British girl through the yoga classes who I had bumped into before in Varanasi when I was flustered and coming back from my failed train station visit. We hung out a lot and played some chess, which I haven't played in a very long time, and promptly lost every game. Its really refreshing to just get up, do some yoga, get some lunch and then hang out all day, maybe do some more yoga, read plenty, or just talk, with nothing else to worry about. It sort of makes me dread my train journey tomorrow on which I have to be up at 4 using nervousness and two very quiet alarms, assuming the train may be on time, to not go to Kashmir instead of Pathnakot, which I guess wouldn't be horrible, but rather disorienting.

Had a very interesting dinner last night. Yesterday morning I was feeling pretty lousy and very tired so I didn't go to yoga but slept most of the day instead. But Ella went (the aforementioned English girl) and in a discussion with the yogi, asked about whether he drinks, he said yes and invited her and myself to dinner, giving her the impression that he would procure some red wine. As I was feeling much better after my long nap, I decided I would happily go to dinner with the interesting yogi and have some alcohol, which I haven't had since having a couple beers before leaving Sikkim. ?I don't know if I mentioned that there is no meat or alcohol to be found in Rishikesh by the average traveller abiding by standards and not searching for it.? So anyway we go to dinner and when we get our food the waiter then brings him a box, which has some, what claimed itself to be, and tasted good enough to me, Premium Indian Blended Whiskey, which was fine with me, as I prefer drinking whiskey and water to wine (I have decided to start drinking more wine to develop a taste for it because I find it strange to not like it), but to Ella, this was not the most pleasant of surprises. She said with surprise that she thought he was getting red wine, and the yogi said, "Yes, in India, this is red wine," which I found rather hillarious. Anyway, we still managed to have a good dinner and our yogi fascinated me with many little tidbits of knowledge about India and frequently repeated his view of life in acknowledging his vices of smoking cigarettes and drinking that while he sees them as bad things, he sees them as personal harm and that its ok as long as he never creates and harm for everyone else in the world. This reflects my views very closely, (ha, and probably most good people's) and I found it great to discuss these moral views with someone of such a different culture.

I thought the only bugs I needed to worry about, other than the mosquito, (which over here seems to scream Malaria as everyone runs in fear, I suppose myself included), and the frequent cockroaches in my room. However, I came across a scorpion wandering along the road the other night which was certainly much bigger than the one other dead scorpion which I have seen in my life that wasn't in a pet store. I'm not really worried about them crawling into my room and getting me in my sleep though. But very cool to see, and funnily frightening for their size and awkward scattering.

Hmm, just realized I have five Rupees less than how much this should cost me, so I better not add on any more time. Yes I am only carrying 10 Rupees at the moment, which is worth slighly more than a quarter in US dollars.

Goodnight.

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