Rishikesh & Haridwar

The day trip to Rishikesh and Haridwar was terribly exciting. It took a few hours to reach Rishikesh, a town known as the yoga capital of the world. In the 60s, the Beatles rocked out at the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi ashram and wrote many songs for their White Album. We didn’t see any rockers around, but we saw plenty of random foreigners.

To venture into the town, we walked down, down, down a pathway to reach the Lakshman Jhula hanging bridge. Of course it was raining most of the way, so we purchased 10 rupee (25 cent) ponchos to keep our items dry. By the time we reached the bridge, the rain increased and the wind picked up. We kept walking forward on the swaying bridge as people screamed and we all wondered if the bridge would flip over. Hilary later informed us that had we drowned in the Ganges River below we would have gone straight to heaven… not exactly a comforting thought.

When we reached the other side, we crammed into a small shop to escape the rain. Lucky for us, the shop was filled with delightful shawls and clothing. The prices were unbelievably low. So just about everyone bought something. We had to pull Sherry out of the shop in order to find the rest of the group and reach our lunchtime destination. Unfortunately for us, the day got a little worse when everyone realized that our guide had no idea where the restaurant was and everyone was still soaking wet. The guide decided that we better eat at the “little budd restaurant.” Well our group of 20 was beyond their capacity. So lunch was postponed and everyone was given about 2 hours to shop and make it back to the bus on the other side of the river (via the foot bridge).

Thankfully, the rain stopped. Krys, Becky, Hilary, and Sherry decided to visit the huge 13-storey wedding cake temples of Swarg Niwas and Shri Trayanbakshwar. To enter, we removed our shoes and walked barefoot through the muddy street which was simply GROSS. The temple was surprisingly clean. We walked around and around to see the various deities and shops housed in the temple. As time progressed, we rang a few bells, left offerings, and collected our shoes. Now it was time to walk across the bridge to our bus.

The walk back was not that bad. Our guide almost led us the wrong way (again) but we ignored him and followed our instincts to the correct path. Our bus was thankfully full of delicious Italian food that we consumed on our way to Haridwar.

Rajaji National Park

The next morning we all got up very early to travel to the nearby Rajaji National Park, hoping to spot some wild elephants and maybe even tigers! No such luck, but we still had a good time. We got to the park around 8 am after passing over the sacred Ganges River at Haridwar and past several “wildlife corridors” which the guide told us connect the different protected areas through strips of land, which allow wildlife to travel back and forth without being in too much danger. Once we got to the park, we hopped into different jeeps and one stuffy bus. Becky and Krys rode in the open air jeep back for a while, which was really exciting when it drove through the muddy river and nearly drenched everyone in mud! On the road we saw a few super big lizards running along the riverbanks, and a bunch of pretty wild peacocks. We also saw one elephant, but it was a domesticated one near the entrance that the Forest Service uses for tourists. The landscape was pretty, but fairly scrubby, and like many of our trips, the drive included scary driving along a dirt road on a cliff! We also had a little fun when our jeep got completely stuck in the mud… we were sitting tiger bait for a while until the fearless bus driver came back and got us out. We had a very late lunch back at the park entrance (where the cows were a little too friendly and tried to eat food right out of people’s laps) before heading back to the hotel in Dehra Dun, where we got ready for our exciting trip the next day to Rishikesh and Haridwar.

Forest Research Institute & Cricket

The Forest Research Institute is a vast institution housed in gorgeous brick buildings dating to the 1800s. As usual, we began our tour with introductions via personal microphones and then toured the numerous museums throughout the facility. After that, we jumped in our bus and toured the chemistry area, biology labs, and a very interesting medicinal garden that was everyone’s favorite. Just when we thought the trip was over, we ventured over to the botanists offices and saw a very old specimen dating back to the 1700s (?). The main botanist was super excited about their specimens and took us on a tour of a huge bamboo forest. Just when we thought we had seen and experienced all types of bamboo, he showed us something new like giant bats that are the size of medium sized birds. Images of Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, the Birds, definitely crossed our minds.

Our guide was all about the bamboo. We toured the forest for over an hour and finally had to cut him off to return to the hotel. We were bambooed out!

That evening or perhaps it was another day, we returned to the Wildlife Institute to challenge their graduate students to a game of Cricket. Since we had no experience with this exotic game, we were mixed with the graduate students in order to create fair teams. Unsurprisingly, all of the Americans were just okay at this new game. Our hosts were incredible and took it easy on us. The game, which started off super slow, ended with an exciting finish. The final score was 69-70. Ask Sherry how to score a cricket game since she is the only one who figured it out. How you can score 40 runs in 30 minutes is beyond my imagination according to Becky.

shakin' the moneymakers

shakin' the moneymakers
Originally uploaded by MaymesterIndia08

Some of my classmates took a little break from studies to do the Cupid Shuffle. We had a blast. We even got Dr. Eaton to join us.

The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) & Reception

Our visit to the institute began with a round of introductions. This was our first experience with individual microphones per place setting. Apparently, this is on the rage because every institute we visited thereafter has a conference room with individual microphones.

The WII was particularly interesting to everyone because of the facility was impressive and information was pertinent to our visit. The first lecture we heard discussed a project that tracked and counted the amount and movement of tigers throughout India. The following lecture covered the history of environmental laws in India. It was interesting and rather long. Everyone’s eyes were closing slowly because it was difficult to hear the speaker and the seats were super comfortable.

After the lecture, we took a nature tour, where we got up close and personal with wild monkeys and observed natural plant life. The guides keep pointing out this and that plant while we kept photographing the much unappreciated and thieving monkeys that plaque the WII. Apparently the monkeys enjoy entering people’s homes and stealing their food. To us, these thieves looked so cute and unique much to the distaste of our hosts.

The day ended with an evening reception at the hotel. All institutions participating in our program were invited and a few leaders showed up. They mainly spoke with our professors while we chatted amongst ourselves. To amuse ourselves, Latha brought down her laptop and we attempted to dance Bollywood style, but fell back on roots of hip-hop and concluded the night with the Cupid Shuffle.

Day 6

We woke fairly early the next morning so that we could get packed and get our luggage on the bus. We had breakfast on the roof of the hotel where we met all of our classmates and our professors. The trip from Delhi to Dehradun took about 4 hours.

We were pleasantly surprised by the Hotel Madhuban. The staff treated us like royalty by placing a red dot on our heads, blessing us, and providing us with sweet lime soda to refresh us after our long day of travel. Everyone was provided with their own room that includes 24 hour access to Bollywood music videos and HBO. Needless to say, we are very happy here. Right now the Bollywood big hits are Om Shanti Om, and Touch Me, Touch Me.

The evening concluded with a full buffet of North Indian cuisine, which was pretty spicy for Sherry, but good.

Now the Class Begins…The lectures are 3 hours a day Monday through Friday and are delivered in classic LBJ style. Professor Eaton lectures for most of that time and fields questions at the same time. On the afternoons we go on field trips to various environmental institutes located in Dehradun. The following entries will highlight the more memorable field trips.

Day 5 Continued

That evening, Deepak, a friend of our friend from LBJ School, Nishesh, picked us up from the hotel and took us to a very nice restaurant that served thali (all you can eat) (What was the name of the type of food??? ). After dinner we walked down the streets of Dehli and stopped for Indian ice cream which was very interesting. At the ice cream shop, Becky was talking to a Sic man who was actually traveling from Sugarland, TX. Sherry told him that she too was from Missouri City and they laughed about how small the world really is. We were all surprised when the young man’s father came up to Sherry and asked was she still excited about coming to India? He told her that he was on her flight from Houston to Newark and that she talked to his wife about being excited about coming to India. Wow! It is indeed a small world!