February Weekends - Keif and the Gals

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Hello all,
Still catching you up on everything we are doing! Just thought I'd do a quick recap of the weekends during February - I had weekends off, so Keif would meet up with me and my fellow CFHI participants - the lovely Avani, Preetha, and Marti - and we would have adventures around Uttaranchal.
Weekend 1: We took a bus to Rishikesh, the Yoga Capital of the World and town of Beatles fame. Unfortunately, within hours of arriving Keif developed symptoms of a mysterious stomach bug and spent Saturday in the hotel room. Us girls visited a couple temples and saw the Ganga arthi, devotional ceremony consisting of songs sung on the banks of the Ganges river and offerings given. We also had to get by some very cheeky monkeys attempting to steal food and articles of clothing and a number of men who wanted a picture taken with blond haired blue eyed Marti. The next day with Keif feeling a bit better we took a bus to Haridwar, a holy site on the Ganges river where Vishnu, one of the Hindu gods, left a footprint. Bathing in the Ganges in Haridwar is supposed to be especially purifying, so the place was packed with people on pilgrimage.
Weekend 2: As we were all in Dehradun, we decided to check out the Tibetan Buddhist areas around town. We headed out to the Buddha temple which is incredibly peaceful and has beautiful grounds! The inside of the stupa also has pictures of important monks from the lineage painted around the walls and some of the more recent monks are painted with their sunglasses on!
Weekend 3: In the hill station town of Mussoorie, where we were doing a rotation, we took trips to nearby Kempty Falls (a popular honeymoon destination), Danolthi (a picnic area about an hour outside of town), and a beautiful temple at the top of a hill. From the temple there were incredible views of the Himalaya - a nice surprise as the hike was pretty steep!
So, enjoy the pictures - we all had a great time hanging out (well, us girls did, and I think Keif was able to handle the excess estrogen all right).

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Photos

Ganga arti
Shiva overlooks the evening ceremonies on the Ganges.

Bathing ghats in Haridwar
Bathing in the Ganges in Haridwar.

No peanuts at this stupa
The magnificant stupa in Clement Town...but leave the peanuts at home, folks.

The Crew
Avani, Keif, Blythe, Preetha, and Marti on top of gun hill overlooking the town of Mussoorie.

Himalayan view
Avani, Blythe and Preetha with the Gharwal Himalaya's in the background.

Comments

[ianmack]

keeping it real...buddha style
hey guys! good to hear you're living it up in India. Sorry to hear about Keif, (Karen can certainly sympathize about mysterious stomach bugs...) Oddly enough, I never really got sick in Southeast-Asia. Karen got most of the mosquito bites as well. She was probably the best person go travelling with...gotta love her magnetic personality. ;-) Keep the updates coming!