cont.

Day 15 cont.

After we arrived in the fabulous town called Rishikish, we found ourselves at a lovely complex of guesthouses, one of which is the Swiss Cottage.

We ate dinner at the local restaurant, and, exhausted, went to sleep very early.

Day 16

Yesterday. I'm finally bringing my blog up-to-date.

Woke up early and headed for a Yoga session. Rishikish claims to be the Yoga capital of the World, and Michal and I couldnt pass up an offer on a seriously cheap Yoga session in a seriously serious Yoga city. 8:30 we met with the teacher and some students and headed for a shady park with a bungaloo in which we laid on mats with our shoes off.

The session was 1.5 hours and was perfect. I consider myself in good shape now, since I've been working out and stretching ever since I started physical therapy on my messed up ankle, so the Yoga was not hard on me. We did AAAAAAAAAAAuuuuuummmmmm, and we breeeeaaaathed and we reelaaaaaaaaaaaaxeddd. It was very relaxing for sure.

We reeeelaxed, and we felt the faaaaat, and we tououuuuched ourselves while listening to ravi shankar or one of his wannnnabees. I loved this and I will definitely do it again, maybe tomorrow.

After this I wanted to get the motorcycle problems checked out. First we did a short tour of the city and realized that this is a tourist trap from hell full of Indians on pilgrimage. There is a nice bridge that tons of Indians cross, precariously. And there is a market akin to Delhi's main bazaar. It's worse though because at least Delhi's main bazaar doesnt claim to be a holy destination. The area itself is pretty hot, and the big yoga centers are hot and dirty.

We decided Rishikish is best experienced from the comfort of the Swiss cottage.

In the afternoon we took the bike to a place we heard about from other travelers where a man who calls himself Lucky works on Enfield motorcycles. He has a good reputation, and whats more, is that he speaks Hebrew. Thats right, he's a 100% indian who speaks 100% Hebrew. He literally speaks like an Israeli, with all the slang in the proper places.

I was at the shop for five hours, and left with a new air filter, a cleaned carburator, a new drum brake in the back, a couple lagers (this is the word in hebrew anyway) and a much increased understanding of the mechanics of motorcycles. Lucky is basically a 22 year old who owns a couple shops and has been working on bikes since the age of two, and his three employees are between the ages of 12 and 17. The 12 year old says Sababa all the time, and is the most experienced.

The shop is a gathering spot for israelis and australians and others with enfields, exchanging ideas and stories, drinking chai and sitting for hours waiting for their bike to get fixed. The way things work in India in general is that things take Looooong, very long to get done. Getting the air filter replaced, a job that takes about 10 minutes normally, goes something like one hour to get the part, one hour for it to sit around, one hour to have someone put it in, and one hour to close the lid. The three employees rotate from bike to bike in no particular order using their hands as napkins, lubing with their fingers, using swiss army knife tools for everything, and taking a multitude of breaks and generally forgetting what they were just doing.

After the job was done my bike runs like a totally different machine, though their is a strange sound that it makes that Lucky claims is perfectly normal, but i find annoying. I guess its just the enfield, which is probably the reason it costs one tenth of any normal bike any where else on the planet.

At ten minutes to seven I begged Lucky to let me pay, since I had a massage appointment at seven. Being extremeley ticklish i never got a massage before, and since Michal scheduled one, I figured its now or never.

My massuese (sp?) went to work on my legs first, and I had to bite my teeth to prevent myself from erupting in laughter. He spread hot lather on my body and massaged my whole body. The only weird part was that he rolled my pants down past my buttocks when I laid on my stomach, and massaged my butt. The whole experience was pleasant and very reeeeeelaaaaaaaxing. This whole place is all about reeelaaaaaaxing.

Day 17

Today. no Yoga, my legs are sore from it. Woke up early and went to get a haircut. I ended up getting the mohawk again, even though my parents hate it, but I figure what the heck Im in india and the other travelers all have dreadlocks and mohawks and little strange ponytails so whatever. It makes me look hare krishna or something so its totally fine. And I look good with it anyways.

We then went and bathed in the ganges river in some secluded area with a bunch of indian children who we took pictures with. I accidently dunked my head in the water and I hope I dont get leprosy as I hear they burn lepers and throw their ashes in the ganges river.

We ate and chilled in the afternoon. When we got back to the Swiss Cottage I noticed a couple of sixty year olds working on a giganitc motorcycle. I went over and chatted them up and realized that I was talking to some serious RTW (round the world) bikers from Australia. Turns out they had been riding around the world for the last eleven years!! They visited every country except for 17, and were doing all this on an electraglide harley davidson! These are the people I had been reading about on Horisonsunlimited.com for the past couple years, these are my heros! Anyways we talked to them for an hour and were just amazed by their stories. They said that India has by far the worst traffic and drivers, and said that if I could ride in India I could ride anywhere!

Thats it, tomorrow we're going for Yoga again in the morning, and then we're outa here cuz its just too damned hot. We're heading for the hills again!