Busy time in Rishikesh

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Time flies when you are having fun, right? So not surprisingly, I can't believe that in a week I will be leaving India for Nepal... Where did all this time go?

After I finished exploring Ram Jhula and Laxman Jhula, the two most popular areas of Rishikesh (for Westerners), I spent a couple days doing very little. It was really great, relaxing, peaceful, rejuvenating would also be a good word to describe it. Focussing on yoga, and on sitting on my balcony, smiling at the hills. Then I got back into my old habit of wanting to do more... And signed up for hindi lessons. It felt like all of a sudden INdia got a lot hotter! I was sweating bullets! The teacher is a wonderful man, and he is very good too, but it is one on one lessons, so I better be on the ball! It's only an hour every day but, waw, after about 45 minutes usually I start laughing for no reason, getting things more mixed up and ready to give up! Then my teacher says "ah this child laughs a lot"! And he gives me little pats on the cheeks. Sometimes I also get chai, and then very proudly I say "accha chai! (good tea) and my teacher shakes his head "acchi chai!" Right, chai is feminine... I should know that... After 2 lessons I could say sentences like "It is 4 o'clock now" but by the time I was done with making the sentence, it was 4:30.... Now I can do a little better but as my teacher says :"this student knows a lot of hindi but she still confuses go and come". Oh well... But I'm trying! Last week, I went back to my hotel a bit worried that after a few lessons I still couldn't understand a word of what people were saying on the street... Then I was told that around the hotel most people speak a different language... Ah! No luck, really!

So days go by, between yoga, breakfast, hindi lessons, chai drinking with my American neighbour, reading, enjoying the balcony, etc... Rishikesh is strange though because there is so many Westerners, it hardly feels like India at times. But the locals are very nice, and I know a few of them, and I start to even know some of the cows and dogs around, and I enjoy watching the monkeys too. Most amazing thing, I even met someone I knew from Inuvik and Whitehorse! Small world.

Yesterday, I visited a beautiful ahsram and some waterfalls on the way. And spent the rest of the day enjoying the beach, and a cold swim in the Ganges. Mean while my sister was giving birth to Frederique. Congratulations!

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