RISHIKESH

What a change of scene! We have been in Rishikesh for 4 days now and it feels like we'll never want to leave.
The journey here went relatively well. We were on a 17 hr overnight train ride on an air conditioned train. The ride passed quickly since most of it we were sleeping. We spent a few hours in Delhi, had lunch and such. Then we were on an uncomfortable but short train ride (4 hours) to Haridwar. We spent one night in a hotel there and walked around, got our first glimpse of the Ganga. The next morning we took a 1 hr bus ride to Rishikesh.
We are staying at a nice hotel which has mainly Indian guests. We have a beautiful view from our balcony of the Ganga and the rest of this town. It's actually a lot bigger than I expected. There is so much to do here. There are many ashrams where they rent out rooms, and everyone here teaches yoga. We've gone to 2 different classes and are still looking to find the right teacher at the right price. But it's all by trial and error with that. Across the road from our hotel there is a music teacher who I spoke to today. I will take a lesson from him and he said I can use his extra practice room whenever I want.
I took Jesse to the passover seder here the other night. It was pretty crazy. Most of the 300 guests were Israeli. The seder was led by Chabad guys who just kind of rambled off the haggadah in Hebrew, participation was very minimal. I tried to explain a few things to Jesse but it was kind of worthless. The food was very dissappointing too. We were sitting with a few other English speakers so that was good for Jesse, even one of them was a non-jewish woman recently married to a Jewish guy. Anyway overall it was just fun to be at an event like that here in India. :)
Yesterday we went to the beach of the Ganga. You wouldn't believe it, but there is sand and sun and everything! We met some people and had a nice time soaking in the sun. The weather here over all is pleasant, hot during the day but cool at night. The air is very dry, especially coming from Bombay's extreme humidity. Our noses and skin are still aclimatizing.
It's nice to have lots of restaurants that serve western and israeli food. we can eat muesli or porridge for breakfast instead of idli (an indian rice patty). and there is falafel and pasta and everything else you could want.
There are lots of tourists here. Most of the guest houses we have tried have been full. Most of the westerners are israeli... and all the indians label me right away as israeli when they see me. i don't know when it happened but i guess over the years i acquired an israeli look... there's a good vibe here though. everyone is here to learn some yoga or something. there is so much to explore. i'm looking forward to more shopping, some hiking, more yoga, taking some hindi lessons, and meeting good people.