Sherry is sick.

Sherry and many others on our trip have been suffering from a mysterious stomach illness that causes endless trips to the bathroom and rather small appetites. Due to her fluctuating health, Sherry did not participate in our visit to the Stupa, Dune Society speakers, and Yamunotri Temple.

Mussourie & Jaypee Residency Manor

Mussourie is a pleasant town located in the lower portion of the Himalayas. It is only 20+ kilometers from Dehradun but takes a good hour and a half to reach due to the winding roads.

Our first stop was the Lal Bahadur Shastry National Academy of Administration where the most important civil servants in the Indian government come for training each year. The site was amazing with a very nice library and breathtaking views of the Himalayas. The gentleman showing us around, Dave-Soma, was not too bad looking either.

Next we were given some free time to walk around Mussourie. We walked from the Gandhi Chowk to the Kulri Bazaar on a lovely pedestrian only walkway. Along the way were tons of shops with clothing, sweets, and the opportunity to wear local clothing and take pictures. Becky couldn’t help herself and paid 40 rupees ($1) to try on some local attire and take some random pictures with this guy who insisted on being in her pictures. Along the way, we watched a little boy get briefly chased by a monkey as Sherry screamed and took off running. Hilary and Sherry also took a fabulous picture next to the larger than life picture of a lion. By the time we reached the group, we had enjoyed this very pleasant town and were ready for bed.

Bollywood

When in India, there is no shortage of Bollywood films to watch on the big screen. One evening Sherry, Hilary, Krys, Constance, Amanda, and Becky ventured to the Krishna Palace to watch Race. The feature song of the film, Touch me Touch me, is everyone’s caller tune thanks to Vodafone (the Indian cell phone company). We were curious to see what this song had to do with two brothers trying to kill each other for their family fortune. The movie was a cross between Matlock, MTV, and Days of Our Lives. It was rather ridiculous and entertaining. We were not disappointed with the rather inappropriate, confusing lyrics of Touch me, Touch me. The movie ticket cost 55 Rupees ($1.25) and included a sticky seat in the balcony that reclined. I guess the chatty family next to us was just part of the Indian Cinema experience.

Rishikesh & Haridwar Continued

We had no idea of what to expect in Haridwar. We were told that the night ceremony is amazing. So we reluctantly followed our guide to the Har-Ki-Pairi (The Footstep of God) Ghat. Unfortunately, no one told us that Haridwar is one of the most sacred cities in Hinduism where people come to wash away their sins in the Ganges River. Therefore, our first impressions were rather fierce and confusing. People were everywhere. This child was trying to sell you milk to pour into the river while another was trying to reach your forehead to put some paint on it. Another guy was trying to explain the ganga aarti (river worship ceremony) for a nice price. The sheer amount of people was indescribable. People were bathing, others were waiting for the ceremony to start, and others were trying to reach the Har-Ki-Pairi. This was the crowded India we had been expecting.

Several of us bought an organic basket of flowers to place in the river for the river ceremony. Every night people flock here to leave an offering to the Goddess Ganga. (Every river in India is considered a goddess).

As the sun set, the bells rang and the prayers began.. Then huge flames were lit and everyone lit their puja (offering- for us, it was the basket of flowers with a candle) and places them in the river. There must have been hundred of flowers in the river. It was mesmerizing. Several of us also poured a little milk in the Ganges River and washed our feet in the river in order to wash away our sins. Becky hopes it worked!

The final event of the night cannot be ignored. Before venturing back to Dehradun on the dark, rather dangerous roads of India, we stopped to use the bathroom. Just about every girl on the bus got out and lined up at the facility. Some kids behind the gas station kept yelling something at us. No one understood them. One child grabbed his older relative who told us that we were using the men’s bathroom. Our guide had misled us yet again… oh well… Only Krys had actually used the men’s bathroom. The rest of us ventured to the women’s toilets on the other side of the gas station.

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.