(December 26) We arrived at the Himalayan Hideaway after a gruelling 8 hour ride from Delhi only to find out that we are now basically camping! It was a bit of a shock. We have been staying in rather high-end hotels. The HH team met us at the road and we got to see our rooms. The view is spectacular! We overlook the Ganges river and the sound of the wind in the trees and the river running over rocks is relaxing. However, they do not have central heating in India and it was 10 degrees when we arrived. The good news was that they had heaters in the room and warm blankets on the bed. We also brought our winter gear so we are fine. It was just a bit of a shock about how rustic it is.

Today we went on a 2.5 hour hike in the Himalayan foothills. We started on one side of the river, walked across a suspension path bridge to the other side. The bridge was very high up and bounced as we walked on it. It is the only bridge for a long way that doesn’t get washed out during monsoon season.

We started walking on the well-worn path. The path was paved with stones many years ago because of the need for the villagers living in the mountains to get to and from the river.  As we started our walk a woman carrying a bundle on her head passed us. She was on her way to work or from the store, we do not know. However, her presence affirmed for us that this is a working roadway, not just a holiday hiking path.

The hike took us through a village high on the river bank. We got to witness people working in the fields and connect with several children who thought we were rather interesting. These folks work hard! Everything is done manually and with old style tools. We saw the elementary school the kids went to. It was simple; just one main room and six side rooms. They have no power, heat, windows, or desks. There is an outdoor outhouse and a small outside kitchen. The kids go to this school until they are twelve and then they need to go to a school on the other side of the valley.

Today we crossed the Ganges in two ways. We walked across the suspension bridge to start our hike and we took a local ferry boat ride back. The boatman was phenomenal. The Ganges is a fast flowing river and it has strong currents. The boatman knew his bend in the river very well. He had two oars that he launched himself into the current with, but then he used the current to land up exactly where he wanted to be. It was a fast crossing. No life jackets of course.

We enjoyed all the birds we saw on our hike. Eric is a big bird watcher so we are all learning a lot about birds. We also got to see a number of monkeys. There were two basic types. The first one likes to hang out where people live and see if they can scrounge scraps or steal food. Our hotel has a sign that says to lock your door when you aren’t in the room so the monkey’s don’t get in. We also saw some monkeys that are happy to eat leaves and fruit and avoid people. They were interesting. We saw monkeys up close at the Ashram (a yoga place as our guide described it). They were all over the temple area and the stairs into the site.

The food here has been stupendous! The cook is from Nepal and our lunch today including traditional local and Nepalesian food. We have been lucky to be the only guests here at the moment and the chef has been kind enough to cook what we want. We asked for local cuisine and have been very happy. The sauces are not spicy and there are many gluten free options for Eric. Today they made him millet-based chapatti so that he could sop up all the good sauces too. 

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. 

Merry Christmas everyone!

We had a relaxing evening at our hotel. Karen & I played scrabble by the pool while Dale went swimming. The pools here are solar heated and a little chilly for my liking. I am also avoiding swimming because my legs are entirely bitten by mosquitoes or something nasty. I got bit on our second day here and had a very negative reaction to the bites. They are really itchy. the mosquitoes here are very little and don’t make that familiar buzzing sound to warn you that they are around. We may also have been bitten by sand fleas – no way to know. We found that an Ayurveda cream made of Neem and Aloe Vera was the only thing that would help. We saw the Neem tree at Ellora and learned that it is used in many different medicines and, in addition to skin related concerns; it is also used to purify your blood if you drink some. I am happy to have found it.The big tree is the Neem tree.

The smaller tree is the Acacia tree that is very common here. Our niece Haley’s middle name is Acacia so we took this picture in her honour.

the three looms produce three different products. the orange one at the top is the simplest, the bottom one is the most complex. The middle one is the cheapest because  only the panel you see is woven, the rest of the sari is plain. The bottom one is complex because the pattern keeps being repeated in the border and the actual sari itself.

the same pattern is produced in 3 different levels of detail.

These pilgrims were walking from Aurangabad to somewhere about 200 km up the road. We noticed them on the way up and on the way back. They just walk and chant. They were all happy and friendly when we stopped to take pictures. they covered about 35 km in the day. they don’t take any supplies with them and rely upon others to take care of them – and it works.

We had a very early start today. We were on our way to the Mumbai airport at 4 am for our 6:30 flight. We arrived in Aurangabad (Aurangzeb’s city) at 8:30 am and our guide picked us up and transported us to our hotel – a virtual palace of a place. After dropping our gear, we were off on our two hour drive to the Ajanta Caves. We were initially concerned about being anything but comatose after such an early start, but the caves were fascinating. They were more appropriately called carved mountains than caves because the Buddhist monks living there between 2AD and 6 BC carved the temples and monasteries out of solid rock, creating the caves. Our guide was brilliant. He has been guiding people through the monument for the past 42 years! He knew everything about the caves and was still passionate about making sure we understood the significance of the caves.

Our travels to and from the UNESCO World heritage site were delayed a couple of seconds because we had to wait for ox carts to move off the road. It is staggering to note that people still use ox carts, live in huts and walk miles for water. This is the reality for many of the people living in and around Arangabad. The poverty here is obvious. However, for many of the people we encountered, it was “just life” and they were accepting of how life was. We saw migrant worker “villages” filled with tarp-tents. A whole family would live in the tent while picking whatever was being harvested. The crops around here included sorgum, sugar cane, lentils, wheat, ginger, fruit, castor, red chilli peppers and cotton. They use oxen to transport their goods to and from the field.

We ended our day at a weaving school. The weavers there use three different types of looms. The first loom they showed us was based on 2000-year-old traditions of tapestry with silk threads. It takes one weaver over two years to make one Sari using this technique. The people of the Aurangabad area are some of the originators of loom weaving in the world and the school is trying to preserve the traditional weaving techniques. The second loom technique they showed us was mechanized but on a 600 year old style of loom. An early computer helped speed up the weaving process. The third loom was only 300-year-old technology. It used a punch-card system that resembled the computers of the 1980’s. The two looms would automatically pick up specific warp threads so the shuttle could weave the pattern. We ended up buying a whole swack of goods and enjoyed the whole process.

Our afternoon was spent on a city tour. We first stopped at a laundry where men do all the work! They have concrete tubs and piped in water that is then used to wash hotel linens, restaurant cloths and people’s clothes. The men beat the cloths against the cement after letting them soak in soapy water. Then they rinse them and hang them to dry. We then stopped briefly at the University of Mumbai to look at the exterior of these beautiful buildings. The train station was close by. 1700 trains go through the Mumbai train station every day. Each train is designed to carry 1007 people but they typically fit 4500 people on the trains. The cars are segregated by gender so that women are squished with women and men are squished with men.

Harry Potter Anyone? 

The Train Station of Mumbai

Now for a relaxing evening with Meenal’s brother and his family and life is good. Our last stop of the afternoon was a museum built to honour Ghandi. He stayed in the house where the museum was located every time he was in Mumbai. Ghandi also started some of his most important campaigns from this house. It was interesting!