Hotel Himalaya Castle Mussoorie

... the Himalayas, in a dark candle lit room, while it's pouring rain outside. The electricity usually comes back within 10 minutes. Most people are ready to get out of the mountains. It's pretty hard up here, with little running water, limited food, limited purified water, and no heaters. Also there are "critters" everywhere. One of our friends had an experience. She was about to go to bed, and felt a small itch on her back. She felt her back, and ...

... on top. Then you say a prayer led by a Brahmin, then light the candle, then put it in the ganga. Then you give an offering to the Brahmin (50 Rs). I prayed for all of you, so you should all have good health! Then the Brahmins do this amazing ceremony of fire, I have pictures of it. It's kind of hard to explain. But it was really cool. Andrew wasn't feeling well by then, so then we left to go back to the hotel. The next day we came back to ...

To date, have written almost 45 postcards. Only 15 to go. Should have gotten more at the second Rishikesh visit. I'm tempted to photocopy them, front and back, as a supplement to this journal, and to my own photos (textual and visual documentation). I feel like when I take my pictures of the Taj Mahal, there will have been millions of ...

... s sake!! I would've just ditched em' and gone to the waterfalls myself but after hikling through the himalayan foothills at a sherpa pace...I wasn't keen on another hike to a ovewrcrowded waterfall.....thus I opted for the extended exercise in patience and grace...then it began to hail....I then decided it was time to go back to the 'Doon The taxi, was an old white ...

... Bombing down out of Manali into heavier and heavier traffic and civilization, the choice was quite clear; we'd take the roads less traveled by, and live with the consequences (i.e. hills). But first, to get to our turn off, we had to run the tunnel. The Aussies had warned us about this to "It's 3km mate, black as pitch, polluted as all hell, good luck!". And that's really about as accurate as it gets. At least we were going through downhill, headlamps on (didn't matter a bit ...

... to the bus waiting area and were told to get a numbered ticket from a man at a podium to determine our place in the bus line. We waited for about 10 minutes and then checked our watches. It was almost 11:00am, and it was doubtful that we were going to make it to the temple and back before check-out time. We deliberated for a bit while fending off three insistent little girls who kept trying to sell us the brightly-wrapped food packages used as offerings at the ...

... Pilger werden von 4 Traegern in einer Art Saenfte befoerdert. Dert Abstieg zieht sich etwas in die Laenge -- offensichtlich sind die Sikhs sehr angetan von unserer exotischen Schoenheit -- verm. eher von Bille und Kascha als von mir ;-) : alle 2 Minuten gibt"s mit der Bitte "Sir, just one snap please" ein Gruppenfoto mit Europaern. Wier fahren nach Joshimat waschen uns und unsere Kleider und relaxen fuer den Rest des Tages.

... in other words, a sort of "kitchy at it's finest" atmosphere emerges the further down the falls line that one wanders.<br><br>Later, back in Mussoorie, Nico and I discovered an amazing Tibetan restaurant that serves the best Momos in the world - if you don't know what a Momo is, then you're going to have to go to this restaurant to find out. Incredible. Delicious. We've been back four times in a matter of days. And yes, the food was fantastic ...

... are used on average every five seconds. The country is offically insane, topsy truvy and back to front...and some how you end up finding that endearing. Andy just told me that an author in a book he read described India as a place of the heart. That really hits the spot--it's illogical and irrational but really warms your cockles. We didn't really have that many plans of how our trip would pan out as we set off preferring to just wander and be quite open to what happened. It's ended ...

... classes. Two of his friends are joining us for dinner. Tomorrow, we take the train back to Delhi and will then fly to Udaipar for two days. Then back to Delhi and back up to Mussoorie for student teacher confererences. This trip has been very tiring and certainly not "fun" in the tradition sense of vacation fun. But what an amazing experience! As I've said, the sensory stimulation is continuous and very intense; thus the fatigue. That's it for today. Tim