Heading to the Hills

Over labor day we got the notion to head out of Delhi to get some fresh air. So, we went North to Dehra Dun at the foothills of the Himalayas.

The tour book talked about all the biking that was available down there. Nobody who actually lived there was sure about what we were talking about, but finally we found a nice spot in a forest research institute. Isaac the rickshaw-wallah saddled up and took his brothers around while Merinda and I ran behind.

To keep ourselves busy in the hours spent in the car, we started counting things.

• Wild Monkeys: 57
  

So the drive can be very interesting to say the least. It's like one big game of chicken. At one point we got stuck in a little muddy town in traffic for the good part of an hour. Much to the chagrin of the driver, we got out and walked around in the mud for a while to streach our legs. The reason for the jam?

There was a roundabout up a ways. The convention in a roundabout is to yield to the people going around. Of course here, the convention is not followed and the practice is to cut off the people circling around while entering the roundabout. You can imagine that if everybody is cutting off the people already in the circle that it is possible to get into a deadlock situation where it is impossible for anybody to move and the roundabout stops functioning. At that point everybody starts getting out and shouting at each other to direct traffic.

I didn't think to take a picture of that (because that sort of thing is just so common here that you get used to it.), but I did take a picture of a truck we followed behind:
It's hard to read but it says "Bio Hazard - Keep Away". Imagine this thing insanely careening down the road (like everybody else does) except as you can see from the shot below as we were finally passing it....

...the door kept flapping open! Didn't see any bio-hazardous material spilling out onto the road, probably because it had already fallen out, who knows.

This is why going to India is way more exciting than a trip to Disneyland. You just can't make stuff like this up.

On our way back we stopped on the Ganges River at Haridwar: This is one of those places where people bathe themselves in the water as a ritual to wash away one's sins.

Lots of pilgrims come from all over India. All in all we counted on our trip:

• Orange Pilgrims: 69 (we didn't get a good picture of one, but they're usually dressed in bright orange and have dredlocks. I often think hippies must have gotten some of their ideas from India's religious folk)
• Ladies with stuff on their heads: 37 (usually bundles of grass like the one in Isaac's bike picture above)
  

These ladies have holy water from the river Ganges that they are taking home. We considered taking some with us as well, but weren't too sure what to do with it.

• Stray Cattle: 232!!
  

We all took a little wade in the Ganges, but the folks there were insistent that we get in all the way. None of these well-meaning strangers spoke a word of English, so we got lots of pantomimes of pointing to the baby and making baptizing motion. this woman in pink next to me in the photo wanted me to take a drink of the water from this cup she offered and I think was trying to tell me that if I baptized myself and Graham in the water then my milk supply would increase. If only I'd found this place sooner before I weaned the little tike a year ago. . .


Some nice priest came and dotted our foreheads....



Other things we counted during our drive (when we were awake):

• Horses: 23
  
• Donkeys: 11
  

Finally, this is everybody sacked out on the way home!