Cheeky monkey on one of his daily visits!
The view from our balcony. We're still in Rishikesh and getting bendier by the day! We're loving our twice daily yoga clases and fall asleep exhausted every night before 10pm. The yoga and the HEAT are draining. A record was set here the other day with a temperature of 43 degrees. Apparently that's rather high for April. It's May now so the days will only get hotter from here until the rains come.
Because of the heat we don't do much between our morning and afternoon class. Yesterday, however, we did manage to get ourselves down to the river and have a swim in the Ganges. Calm down, i'm sure a lot of you are cringing as you read! Let me ease your worried minds. The Ganges here is actually very clean (from what we can see at least!) and it is cold and refreshing. Nothing here is cold, so when you get the chance to feel coldness envelop your entire body you take it! Just to emphasize just how hot it is i'll let you know what i look like right now. As i type i'm wearing a soaking wet sarong (it's michelle typing) with a wet scarf wrapped around my head (which is bald by the way. i shaved it!!!!) and i'm barely cool. I'll also be bone dry in about 5 minutes and then i'll have to go in for another soak in the shower! There's no humidity here whatsoever which is good. If there was i think it would be a pretty inhospitable place.
On other days we've wandered around the town which spreads out along either side of the Ganges. Being in India is like watching a movie, there's so much action and so much going on. Every where you look you see things that astonish you, repulse you, make you feel happy and make you feel sad. It's like being on a see-saw you see and experience all these different emotions in the matter of one or two minutes. Often when we go out we sit down at a street vendor selling chai and have a glass or two and watch the movie play on. When we're sitting there it's inevitable that people come up to us and want to sit with us and chat or just nod their heads and smile. So we end up buying them a chai as well and we all sit there enoying one of the best parts of India together. We've met some real characters this way!
On most days though, we do nothing. We come back from yoga, eat breakfast and sit on our balcony chatting, reading and puttering. That's not to say it's boring though, far from it. There's a lot of action that takes place on our balcony and it involves cheeky monkeys! There's a fat little guy, orange in colour who waits until you turn your back for a moment then sneaks into your room to steal food or rummages through the outdoor rubbish bins. He's a daily visitor. More rare, however, is the family of Langor monkeys (grey in colour with long tails) that hung out on the balcony for an hour or so a few day ago. There were 3 adults and two babies. One of them so tiny he didn't even have hair yet. (or do they have fur?) They are so incredibly human like in their mannerisms and postures that it's hard to take your eyes off of them. I think they find us pretty interesting as well. I'd give anything to know what goes on iside their little monkey brains!
Well, that's it for today. I'm dry now so it's time to go inside and soak myself again!
Namaste
(that's how you say hi & bye in India)
Because of the heat we don't do much between our morning and afternoon class. Yesterday, however, we did manage to get ourselves down to the river and have a swim in the Ganges. Calm down, i'm sure a lot of you are cringing as you read! Let me ease your worried minds. The Ganges here is actually very clean (from what we can see at least!) and it is cold and refreshing. Nothing here is cold, so when you get the chance to feel coldness envelop your entire body you take it! Just to emphasize just how hot it is i'll let you know what i look like right now. As i type i'm wearing a soaking wet sarong (it's michelle typing) with a wet scarf wrapped around my head (which is bald by the way. i shaved it!!!!) and i'm barely cool. I'll also be bone dry in about 5 minutes and then i'll have to go in for another soak in the shower! There's no humidity here whatsoever which is good. If there was i think it would be a pretty inhospitable place.
On other days we've wandered around the town which spreads out along either side of the Ganges. Being in India is like watching a movie, there's so much action and so much going on. Every where you look you see things that astonish you, repulse you, make you feel happy and make you feel sad. It's like being on a see-saw you see and experience all these different emotions in the matter of one or two minutes. Often when we go out we sit down at a street vendor selling chai and have a glass or two and watch the movie play on. When we're sitting there it's inevitable that people come up to us and want to sit with us and chat or just nod their heads and smile. So we end up buying them a chai as well and we all sit there enoying one of the best parts of India together. We've met some real characters this way!
On most days though, we do nothing. We come back from yoga, eat breakfast and sit on our balcony chatting, reading and puttering. That's not to say it's boring though, far from it. There's a lot of action that takes place on our balcony and it involves cheeky monkeys! There's a fat little guy, orange in colour who waits until you turn your back for a moment then sneaks into your room to steal food or rummages through the outdoor rubbish bins. He's a daily visitor. More rare, however, is the family of Langor monkeys (grey in colour with long tails) that hung out on the balcony for an hour or so a few day ago. There were 3 adults and two babies. One of them so tiny he didn't even have hair yet. (or do they have fur?) They are so incredibly human like in their mannerisms and postures that it's hard to take your eyes off of them. I think they find us pretty interesting as well. I'd give anything to know what goes on iside their little monkey brains!
Well, that's it for today. I'm dry now so it's time to go inside and soak myself again!
Namaste
(that's how you say hi & bye in India)
