Still in Rishikesh, attending yoga classes. Although lately the morning sessions have been a no-go to the infamous "bad stomach." Good times rushing to the toilet...

Afternoons have been great though, still feeling improvement in our flexibility, although a few of the poses we definitely are pretty bad at! We've also managed to lose most of our "rice bellies" - from all those tasty all-you-can-eat thalis!
We are thinking of heading north to Dharmasala soon, we have heard/read that the Dalai Lama will be delivering a week's worth of talks there after his birthday on July 6. His official schedule is here. That sounds pretty sweet, and gives us some semblance of an agenda :-)
Otherwise we've just been reading and writing and internetting, although yesterday we wandered all over town running some surprisingly quick (for India) errands. The owner of our favorite restaurant in Varkala, Kerala, runs a 2nd place here in Rishikesh, so we wandered through Lakshmanjula to find it, after going up the hill in a tempo (shared rickshaw) - but of course the place had already closed for the season. We did an about face, and rode a tempo back down the hill all the way into Rishikesh itself (we are staying across the river, in Swarjashram), in search of a pharmacy selling contact lens solution. That was also no trouble, although pricey at 145 Rs. for a small bottle (that's $3.50, how much the large bottles cost in the States). We got a restaurant recommendation from the "pharmacist" - he runs a pharmacy, but whether or not he has any qualifications is certainly questionable. Anyways, Ripsy's, the restaurant he sent us to, was pretty spectacular - our Indian food and chow mein were both very good, they had cold filtered water, and even an ice cream parlor! Hard-knock life, indeed.
Big adventure, huh? Yet just doing that took several hours, plus of course the tempo ride back to the Ramjula bridge (where you cross the Ganges and enter Swarjashram), and the slow-paced crowded walk through the streets. Wandering around India is always fun as long as you don't have somewhere to be - sometimes it can take forever to walk a short distance because the pedestrian traffic so thick!
This net cafe is strict: the sign reads "Internet @ Rs-- 20/ minimum Per Person; Time: "1" sec to "1" hour." So an hour it is, it's time to eat.

Peace
Anderson & Liz