Cheeky Monkey...... (Dec 5)

Now Brad is having some seriously crazy dreams at night - something about being lost in the middle of no where at a cattle ranch equipped with a fully modern, computerized travel desk. Maybe he's seen one too many cows?

We have to move rooms again? Well, they want us to anyway. They got our geyser fixed and they want us to move back to our original room but it's a pain to keep moving so we opted to stay where we were.

We walked north, up the road a bit, in search of Shanti Kunj. It is supposed to be very close to where we are staying and is supposed to have yoga. We walked a bit and couldn't find it. As we walked back, we saw a sign for it in English on the side of the road. It ended up being directly across from the ashram we were staying in and we'd walked by it every day and not even realized it. Argh!

We wandered in and started looking around when we were approached by one of the residents (and when I say "we" ... I mean Brad). He was a nice fellow who told us (Brad) all about the complex. There are over 1000 residents living here - its really quite big. He showed us one of the temples that had a complete scale model of the Himalayan mountain range in it where you could sit, amphitheatre style, and contemplate its vastness (I guess). The daily schedule was jam packed with the wake up call being at 3:30 am (4 am in the winter). There was lots of meditation and lectures and pujas but it didn't seem to have any drop in yoga classes.

Haridwar is known to be pretty hard core when it comes to yoga and you generally have to commit to a period of time and follow their strict guidelines so it wasn't too surprising. At one point it felt like we were being recruited into a cult of "The Light Divine". I'm sure they are good people with good intentions (how can world peace be a bad intention?) but it seemed odd from a Western point of view.

We finished our tour and headed toward town. We took yet another road we hadn't been on yet and passed the Sivananda Ashram. For those not familiar, this is a pretty big name in yoga with branches all over the world. I'm not sure what we expected to see - maybe a nice serene place with gardens, etc... Instead, picture downtown Niagara Falls or even a carnival funhouse. The front facade was a fake rock face with large plaster figures here and there. Some in yoga poses, some curvy women pouring water into the mouths of crocodiles and, on top, one very large, very mean looking god (?) who was about to chop about to whack the head off someone. In some ways I was even reminded of the Rainforest Cafe and was waiting for the regular interval when they all started moving like some weird yoga animatronic nightmare. We didn't go in... it was too strange.

(**With my missing book... some things may get missed and some things may get repeated - you're just going to have to go with me on this. I'll explain the missing book in time...)

We stopped to check some email and then headed to the Mansa Devi Temple to use the tickets that had been so kindly given to us. The alley way leading to the cable car is a gauntlet of small shops selling souvenirs and children selling bags of prasad to leave as offerings at the temple. There is a steep 1.5 km path you can take to the temple or you can take the cable lift. The lift looks like some ancient ski lift (and likely is).

We climb into our car and start up. There are quite a few monkeys frolicking around on the path and it does look very steep in some parts. As we rise, we are treated to a beautiful view of the city and the river below. As we exit the lift, it becomes evident that this too is a giant tourist destination. There are barriers set up for huge queues of pilgrims and shops packed into every spare nook and cranny.

Haridwar has a celebration every few years that brings in over 10 million pilgrims so I guess it gets pretty busy here! We move out to the path, away from the shops, to enjoy the view. I was standing quietly, looking at the flowers while Brad had gone around a wall to get some photos. I heard a noise and looked up in time to see a monkey speeding off with a bag of prasad stolen from one of the vendors. Those cheeky devils move pretty darn fast! Enough photos and our fill of the view, we took the car back down.

We've come to the realization that religion is really big business! Haridwar pretty much runs entirely on tourism - hotels, shops, temples, ashrams - there's really no industry here except what caters to the pilgrims. Bodh Gaya as well likely wouldn't exist if it weren't for the Bodha Tree. Of course, you could probably say the same thing about Vegas or Niagara Falls... or even Gananoque!