I’m going to change things up a bit, which may happen a few times as I figure out just how I want to write this blog o mine. The thought of keeping a chronological account of my adventures bores me to tears and it’s why I haven’t really written much as of late. You know, I do lots and lots of yoga. My life is about experiences that make stories, I like to tell stories, so I may as well write them! So that’s what I’m going to do… as I feel the urge to tell a story of one of my adventures, I’ll document, post and all will be grand. There is no particular order to things but then again, why should there be? This is my blog! So here we gooooo!
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Just out my window adjacent to my bed, I can gaze out and see just on the other side of our building one of the foothills of the Himalayas and perched on the side is Trayambakeshwar Temple. It’s a 13 story Hindu temple that, per the wikitravel page, is supposed to have a different deity on each floor and I’ve been dying to check it out. Now when I say “dying to check it out” I don’t mean I’d go so far as to wander into the scorching dermis penetrating rays of the Indian summer sun. I may have become one w/ my sweating but I certainly will take every shady, sitting under a ceiling fan moment I can get so I maybe only need 3 showers in a day, versus 4+. Yes, I really do shower that often. Lucky for my seattle ass, the monsooning has arrived and the days have gotten about ten degrees cooler and one fine, cloudy, humid day, Ali and I decided to head up to the temple and see what glory sit just beyond our ashram. I see Ali getting all prepared with her hefty walking shoes and she exclaims, “ok, I’m ready for our hike!” I look at her like she’s nuts, which is not an uncommon look I shoot her direction. “Hike?? What are you talking about? It’s like a 5 minute walk down the street,” I question. “Do you see that up there? That’s where we’re going and it’s UP a hill so damn right that’s a hike!”
I immediately think about my mom and her avid hiking adventures. She took my sisters on one and I was waiting for some glorious summit at the top of some mountain but after about an hour, I don’t think we ascended more than 5 feet, in fact, I think we DESCENDED and my adrenaline junky ass whined, “mom, this isn’t a hike! This is a walk! Just because we’re surrounded by trees and the ground isn’t paved, doesn’t mean we’re hiking.” I’m a bit of a brat, but then again, I don’t even think I really hike. I went on a hike w/ the NPTI peeps last year up Mailbox Peak, which is the most difficult hike in the Washington State Trail Association book, unless you want to count Camp Muir (I had to go to the ER after that climb – that you dehydration) and summiting Mt. Rainier, and Adria and I practically made it a race to the top. Actually, when we made it to the top, ate our lunch, sat and looked into the abyss of clouds, knowing there was some glorious view of the plateau below us, froze and made our way back down, as we passed our other friends we exclaimed, “We want to do this again… but for TIME!” Fucking lactic acid endurance athletes we are.
That all explains the look of pure ridiculousness I shoot at Ali. We exit through our courtyard and walk down the street and she’s still moaning about the impending climb, granted she has good reason because of past issues w/ her lungs and such BUT, we do get to a break in the road where it turns to gravel and there is a wee bit of a climb. I turn to her and say, “ok, I guess we are kinda hiking.” As we walk a few meters and round a corner there is a family sitting in their cinderblock house, with its roof covered in plastic, held down by more bricks, cooking up something delicious over an open fire pit. Their clothes, newly soaked from the rain, hanging to dry and they really look to be enjoying themselves. We discreetly snap a few pics and turn to head up the hill some more and low and behold, THERE is the temple! “WTF, that was it?! It’s THAT close?!” I ask. 
We figure out where the entrance is and walk up the most unsafe, lopsided, crumbling, randomly designed stairs I’ve ever seen, ring the bell, take off our shoes, walk in and obviously look like we know not a thing of what to do because we’re looking around lost and aimless. The adorable old man working greets us, says few words, blesses us, give us a bindi and away all 3 of us go. I want to take pics of the entry ways of the stairs because the colors and the light are just brilliant but he keeps shooing us to head up the stairs so away we went. We get to the 1st floor and lil old man says, “see, Shiva!” wait for it wai…. “ok, go” and he shoos us again. Next floor, “see, Shiva and the snake!” wait for it wa…. “ok go!” This man is on a mission to get us to the top as quickly as possible and Ali is starting to huff and puff. We get to the next floor and it has a square of bells and a few more deities and the view is absolutely breath taking! You can see Rishikesh, all of Ram Jhula and Laxsman Jhula, the Ganga and to the back of us, more the hillside as clouds drift through the trees. We of course want to stop and take pictures, lil old cute man wants us to keep going so up and up and up we go. More colorful statues of deities, more hurrying us to the next until we get to the top. He blesses us again, we eat a sweet treat and then we just sit. Ali doesn’t know what to do with herself and says, “ok so this was nice let’s go.” The old man stops her and says, “you know shanti, yes? Shanti? SHANTI?” Shanti means “peace” in Sanskrit. I look at Ali and mumble, “simmer your shit woman and relax a little! PEACE! What else do we have to do right now?” So we sit and stare at each other a little bit, take a few pictures and I’m picking up the antsy vibe from the lady to my right so we get up to leave the little room that has another colorful three-dimensional wall hanging of Shiva’s wedding and the little man who just wanted us to chill a moment. More pictures are taken, the views are taken in and it was really lovely until… dirty man.I’ve been warned about the disgusting behavior of some, obviously not all, of the men in India. Right now, we’re approaching the biggest religious festival in Rishikesh so there is a rather large influx of visitors to the holy city. We’re rounding the bottom floor that provides a view and some revolting man goes to stick his hand out and grab Ali’s waist. Mind you, Ali is a cop in Fort Collins, she’s buff as shit and while has the most adorable dimples and smile ever, she can also give you a death stare. She’s also had 5 years of Krav Maga training along with whatever hand-to-hand fighting the force puts her through. She is NOT to be fucked with. He misses her waist and grabs part of her bag and she keeps walking and tells me about what just happened. From that point forward, the mood changed, his ugly face was mean muggin us and per the recommendation of other female travelers we’re with, we mean mug him right back. At this point she’s telling me about her fighting training and I’m remembering a conversation I had w/ the woman I briefly dated upon returning from Africa, Smokin Hot Mariah, who while was smoking hot was also socially retarded, and I told her I wanted to learn Krav Maga and she gave me a look of complete disapproval and did the whole, “violence isn’t going to work, people are genuinely nice.” I didn’t pass up learning because of her, it was more the fact I really only had 2 months and what the hell would I pick up in that short amount of time. BUT, never listen to anyone who has never traveled outside the US. If I need to kill a bitch or at least show a bitch I have the potential to kill them if I’m put in a place of threat, I want to be able to do just that!
It’s uncomfortable, we leave and mean mugs are exchanged as we make a wide turn around him back down the stairs. We head out a different way and as we are coming down the hill and Ali is showing me a few Krav moves and explaining some various positions she says, “oh shit, they’re coming down the stairs.” Ugly fuck has 2 friends with him and I lose focus on what she’s saying completely and start to freak out. She’s talking some more about stuff and still demonstrating and out of the corner of my eye I see them pick up their speed a bit when we do. “I have a feeling you may be giving a live demonstration soon, Ali.” We pickup our pace more and ahead of us are two younger guys, probably in their early 20’s, who talked with us a bit at the temple. We yell for them to wait up and start small chit chat to take us the rest of the way to our place. I’ve already mapped out in my head a route we could go where the assholes wouldn’t know where we were staying, in the event it was needed. We turn the corner to the main road and we lost them. Phew! Back to our little ashram yoga bubble for the rest of the day!
Later that night, after our blissful yoga practice with Manoj, I learned how to break a person’s arm and hip thrust someone off me if they tried to pin me to the ground… oh yeah, and break someone’s neck. J
Oh India…
Xxxo
Dirty
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