The Brentwood Sanctury Mussoorie

... left 30 jeeps travelling on a loop road scaring what wildlife there was away to the quiet corners of the park. To get into the park was a nightmare though. 30 jeeps are allowed in the morning and in the afternoon and tickets are sold in the morning. Here's the deal; you have to bargain with a local with a small 4wd to take you there (1000 rupees), he lines up at 2am to get a spot, you turn up at 4:30am and take that spot, stand there for an hour getting pushed by Indians ...

... a picture later. The book is an autobiography of an Indian sex worker. It was really interesting, I already finished it. We then walked by this really odd area of town. It's basically a carnival. It's next to the cable car that takes you up to the top of the hill where you can get a great view. There are lots of popcorn venders and games to play like shoot the balloon for a prize. They also have a man powered ferris wheel. The passengers all board, then a man climbs into the ...

... are guaranteed to have hot showers). The two girls that we are going with are Summer and Goldy. Summer is a senior at UC Berkeley, and backpacked through India for two months four years ago all by herself! And Goldy goes to Davis and is the same year as us. She is also fluent in Hindi. So I figured if we had to pick two other people to go with, these two girls are the best to go with. Plus they're fun. Other people are also planning on going to these ...

... did me in, and I joined Tabby in the bus. Other departments we went to was the genetics department (which, according to the video, does something with hashish. Awesome, said those of us still awake at that part of the video, which literally was not all of us), where a woman in the lab showed her ice-cold samples and some of what she does with them. They showed us a family of eucalyptus trees that had concomitant generations and clones so really ...

... when trying to drive at the same time all the water buffalo are being herded home on this narrow, windy mountain road!! Four hours later, we stop for dinner, and no signs of being even close. Back in the bus, sun is setting, on we go, feeling more and more glad we hadn't tried to bike the road - civilization has dropped to almost nil since the hills are too steep for even the most aggressive terraced farming, and water sources are few, while the road is terrible much of the time ...

... amongst other things, pity for people who would never, could never, or had never seen this. I have always appreciated the beauty of a sunset, the stars on a clear night, or the changing of the leaves in Connecticut, but before recently I had never seen a sight that I felt that I could not take in. I could never take a picture that captured it or see it all in one glance. The point is, we spent last weekend living in a **** hole without a proper ...

Happy Labor Day to those of you in the U.S.! I can't quite believe it's already September, since it seems like it was just the middle of August when I arrived in India. I've been here a full 3 weeks as of today, and I think I'm settling in a bit. This weekend was a nice break from being in school! On Saturday, three friends and I took a day-long hike. We had originally planned on going to this place called Happy Valley where many Tibetan refugees have ...

... Saturday. This schedule along with trying to find time to eat and sleep in addition to reading the morning's handouts from the course has meant that we have not been doing much else other than yoga, yoga and more yoga. Combine this with a few extra things like watching an evening religious ceremony along the Ganga (arti) and the occasional trip to the eye hospital for an eye checkup and four weeks fly by. (I needed to get a second opinion because the first eye doctor did not ...

Wow its so fresh up here!! The air is as cool and clean as anywhere ive been before... Its brass monkeys at night though, plus there are plenty of monkeys wandering around having a look in your pockets to see if you got some food for them, Rick and I have been chilling for the last couple, after the extreme heat and fuss of dehli it is very welcome, good and cheap up here expensive rooms 4quid a night food for a ...

... walk up a path by flashlight to get our stuff. We stopped at Woodstock to get Will's things and then went back to the Clareridge. Sonia and Joan were in the library having a glass of wine in front of the fire, which they had set just for us. Now that was more like it! We retired about 9:30. I slept well, but the others didn't. We awoke to a beautiful, cool, clear morning, with breathtaking views. We had a nice breakfast (great coffee!) and a taxi ...