Lamakaha?

"Why like this?" Is our new favorite saying. It can be used in all situations - with enormous comic effect. We hear it many times a day, spoken by both our Israeli friends and local Indians who have adopted the phrase...

We use it often enough ourselves here in Rishikesh. Why, for example, is there only one walking bridge that crosses the Ganges, and WHY is it used for pedestrians, cows, monkeys, vegetable carts, and motorcycles when it is only 1.5 meters wide? Anyways...

We have been in Rishikesh for more than a week with no signal of an impending departure. After a few nights in a hotel that made Alice mental, we moved to a satisfactory location and it is unlike that we will leave anytime soon. The first place we stayed did not meet Alice's minimum level of cleanliness to satisfy her minimum requirements for mental well being.

Dave was trying to write this, but he's lost the power of language, so I'll continue.

Everyday we've been in Rishikesh has been essentially the same as the day before. Every morning I get up for yoga, wake Dave up by puttering around; he complains that it's too early and he actually thinks it would be best for him to do yoga in the afternoon, I leave, come back 2 hours later, Dave is still sleeping. When Lord Walraven finally gets out of bed, we eat breakfast, a process that usually involves finding our Israeli friends and sitting for 2-4 hours. By the time breakfast is over, it's generally about 2:30pm, which means we can either read for a little while and go to yoga at 5:00pm, or actually do something and miss yoga. We generally choose to do nothing. Dave goes back to sleep, I wander up and down the one main street looking at the same alibaba pants and wool coats I looked at the day before, until about 4:30pm when I again demand that Dave get out of bed and do something.

Some days however, breakfast doesn't take forever and we actually do something between morning and afternoon yoga. There are several waterfalls around Rishikesh; Dave and I walked to one about 5km away last Friday, before going to Bedhabad (the Jewish center in Rishikesh) with our friends for dinner. Earlier this week, I walked to another waterfall while Dave went bungee jumping. Another day we walked to the ruins of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Ashram, where the Beatles stayed in 1968. Many of the songs on the White Album were written during their stay. Dave went to the beach one day, washed himself in the scared Ganges (I had to mail a parcel- which takes all afternoon, no joke). Yesterday, in eager anticipation, we walked to Ramjhula to see a festival. But there was no festival, or not one we could find anyway.

Dave has recovered sufficiently to tell you about our first few days of yoga with Dilip, our somewhat questionable teacher.

When we arrived in Rishikesh it was part of our plan, in pursuit of our traveling list of objectives, to become yoga masters. We were initially considering staying at an Ashram, but didn't want to seclude ourselves from other travelers (and we also didn't want to wake up at the butt crack of dawn to stretch about). Alice went off and checked out some places, and to a lesser extent I did the same. I found a class advertised to be taught in a style Alice was looking for. I did a class and had a good time so Alice joined me the next day. Despite not wanting to be tied down to one place we managed to sign ourselves up for 8 days of yoga with Dilip - each morning at 8am. Initially it was good. By the time the week was almost up we had about enough of the damp basement under a bakery that served as the studio, and of Dilip's instruction which consisted of sitting on Alice (forcing her to bend further) and once each class having us stand on his legs to demonstrate how flexible we could become if we stayed with him. Dilip was a very nice guy, giving me a lift to the bank machine in the next village over and buying us chai and samosas after each yoga class, but we've sampled other instructors in the evening and found them much more satisfactory for our tastes. Each day Dilip would say "Alice a little fatty, but no problem she has much knowledge", before turning to me to say "you thin, with little knowledge." Dilip was also prone to patting Alice on the cheeks, mid pose, and saying "you make me very happy, you very flexible".

All jokes aside, Alice is turning out to be on her way to yogi-hood. I wouldn't be surprised if she started an Ashram in the woods behind UNBC and gave up the exciting prospects offered by her Masters in Blah Blah Blah... She will become a local legend. "Bad Alice of the Forest" people will whisper in the streets, and children will no longer dare venture forth into the darkness of the woods.

One of our nightly highlights is passing the general store next to the entrance to our hotel. There works a man named "Mr. Boombastic" who only speaks in sentences stolen from Shaggy songs. Everyday we go get a few small necessities and receive a spectacle deserving of an entrance fee. "How are you? Boombastic fantastic? Mr Lova Lova? Everything fantastical bambastical!," he exclaims as we purchase water. "I like quiet restaurant. Fansatical bambastical. Shanti, quiet place...no lova lova problem. Toilet paper! Ahh, fantastic invention! Fantastic bambastic! Mr. Lova Lova."

Another saying that we have picked up from our Israeli friends is the use of the word ugly to describe travelers who are loud, obnoxious representatives of their country. Israelis often call each other "ugly Israelis" when people are being too loud or belligerent. We met an "ugly Canadian" named David, from Comox. Rishikesh is a very holy city and is therefore dry. This guy however chose not to observe the religious decree and managed to get unbearably drunk. We were all sitting with a group of Israelis at their hotel and Noy, an Israeli girl, got the idea to play a trick on David because he was too drunk to realize what was going on. She convinced David that she was Alice - I would feed her bits of information about BC, and her and David would carry on in conversation. David somehow didn't notice that she had a very strong Israeli accent, and didn't even clue in when she would speak very loudly in Hebrew with everyone else present. The Israelis thought this was just the funniest thing and one commented that "she hasn't ever laughed so hard in India."

We do like it here, but we are talking about moving soon. Lola, the one who never laughed so hard, is planning on going to Varanasi in a few days and we may go together. Making travel plans right now is a little tough because it is nearly Diwali - the festival of lights - and many many locals are traveling for the festivities so things are booked up.

Alice added pictures to Facebook, look if you want:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=5110184&l=60330f5534&id=511324453