We also had a chance to do some birdwatching. We can't remember what all of these pictures show, but we saw kingfishers, peafowl, white-tipped water red stars, crested Himalayan bulbuls, and several others. Beth remembered to bring our binoculars and the students had a fun time running around looking at the different birds.
After breakfast we went on our big hike for the week. We rode on the bus for about 20 minutes to the trailhead and then spent a good bit of time walking up a hill. The camp's naturalist came along with us to point out different things of interest. He pointed out different spiders and their webs, evidence of leopards nearby, catepillar eggs wrapped in leaves, and some edible plants.
At the top of our hike, we had some very nice views of the गंगा (Ganges) valley. This, however, was not the highlight of our trek that day.
Slightly below the highest point on the hike, we came to a roaring waterfall. The last little rise to the falls were a little slippery, so our guides set up a small rope to guide us up.
The students and staff came prepared to the waterfall. We were told to bring sandals, a towel, and a change of clothes. As you can see, everyone had a great time playing in the water. It was quite a cold shower, but it was a lot of fun.
We even got most of the members of our advisor group to stand still long enough for a quick photograph. Dave has his mouth open because he's gasping for air from the cold water. Hopefully he didn't swallow too much in the process.
After we made our way back to camp to shower and dry off, we had some lunch and then got back on the bus. We were off to Rishikesh to attend a traditional aarti ceremony. Rishikesh has two pedestrian suspension bridges. We were dropped off at one of them and walked through town to a temple just past the other. One thing that struck us in Rishikesh was the number of white people that we saw. This is much more of a foreign tourist destination than Mussoorie, so it's understandable. But many of these people looked like they lived and studied in Rishikesh. For those of you that may have been born to late to remember, this was the sight of the ashram of the Maharishi that the Beatles came to visit for a few months. It is now the center of hippie culture in India and a number one stop for those seeking enlightenment, yoga training, and illicit drugs.
We simply came to get some Indian culture. The aarti is a Hindu ritual that involves singing a lot of songs and lighting a lot of fires. We were not given a lot of background information before going, but we did know that they were supposed to light hundreds of lanterns and lay them into the Ganges. We mostly just sat back and watched as different people sang and lit things on fire.
In the end, we left before most of the lanterns were lit in the river. We only saw two, but it was still a great cultural experience for us and the students.
When the ceremony was done, we had to work our way back to the bus. We made it successfully with all 29 students. We drove back to the camp and went to bed for the second night on our comfy, warm cots. Not a bad day at all.
Dave and Beth
No comments:
Post a Comment