The road to Rishikesh from Delhi was a rough one. We started out at 8:00 to beat the morning rush. However, it was not that simple. The riots protesting the sexual abuse of women prompted by the sexual assault of a woman and the physical assault of her boyfriend while they were on a city bus were happening very near our hotel. The police blocked the most direct way out of town. Therefore, we had to go around town and it slowed us down. We also had to stop so our driver could change a flat tire. It was a rough road. The entire journey took 8 hours. The most interesting thing was that we got to go through many villages in many different regions on the way. The many different forms of transportation we encountered stunned us. We were passed regularly by motorcycles, mopeds, donkey carts, carts pulled by horses, ox carts, bicycles, bicycle powered rickshaws (i.e., tricycles that pull passengers, Tuk Tuk (i.e., three-wheeled motoped cabs), buses, armoured personnel carriers, cars, trucks, people pulling carts, and people walking with stuff on their heads. There were times when we could see all of these transportation options on the road in front of us at the same time.

 Animals of all shapes and sizes have also come into view on our drives. For example, we have seen, so far, within view of the van while we drive monkeys, goats, chickens, wild pigs, oxen, cats, dogs, elephants, water buffalo and donkeys. The cows are given free reign. They are sometimes homeless, wandering the streets and eating what they can find. Specific families own other cows and we have seen them tied to ropes and kept near homes. The cows are everywhere! As a result, there is a thriving industry in collecting, drying and storing cow dung for heating fuel. People collect cow pies and stack them in specific ways that help airflow around them to dry them out. The pies are then covered with straw and end up looking like huts. They were everywhere we looked in the countryside and in the villages.