7.9.11. 9:40 A.M. Day 8. Another Day Behind.

We went back after breakfast yesterday. It would be our last day in Rishikesh and we had to get everything done by 3PM. So 10AM was for the jewelry. We went back to the shop, and they gave us chai. They brought out the thinks we were going to buy, but as they were doing that I saw this earring and necklace set on a jewelry manikin neck on a shelf behind the glass cabinets. I didn't notice them the day before but now that I did I just had to make this the set for my mom. I also bought a really pretty ring for my sister, which hopefully fits her finger, but if not I made sure that it fit at least one of mine!

So now with a ring, a set of earrings, an earring/necklace set, and a statue of Lord Hanuman, I spent about $250. Give or take. Not bad. Crazy-shopping Mary dealt some serious damage there spending $510. They wrapped up our stuff and we were out, on our way to our final lecture.

The lecture about massages continued. But after 24 hrs, it is not all that memorable. So I'll leave it at that.

5:45 PM

 Being a day behind in storytelling is very frustrating because so much keeps happening and i want to write it all down right away but i have to catch up first on what happened yesterday. I'm always tempted to skip stories but it's not fair to  you guys at home to only get a half ass attempt, so here i am.

...

We had to leave Rishi at 3 so we only had a little over 2.5 hours to make it to the 17 story temple, get blessed, and make it back. Somehow we managed to do it all. We were on our way back to the ashram with plenty of time to be back by 3, but at 2:04 Mayank calls me and says that he is almost here. We did a double take since he was over an hour early. I told him we weren't back yet and that we needed at least another 40 minutes. He said to take our time. We made it back by 2:30 but Dr. Muthu wasn't in his office and wouldn't be back until 3. And we needed him to hire us a porter because the hike in with all of our luggage was extremely cumbersome. I called Mayank back, gave him the update, and he said, "no worries."

This gave us a chance to catch our breath since we had luckily already packed our gear. 3:00 finally came around so we went down, fully loaded, to see Dr. Muthu about a porter. It took them about 10 minutes to find one and bring him to the center. Another 10 minutes were spent by Dr. Muthu and his boss arguing with the porter. From what I gathered from the bits and pieces of Hindi I could understand, the porter was wanting to overcharge us by a lot. In the end, the porter started walking off with everything we owned. We looked at Dr. Muthu, and he said that we were to only pay him 250 rps. no more. The porter was noticeably angry for awhile as we had to jog to keep up with him. But eventually he seemed to cool down and we were able to follow him. He led us across the bridge and down the long road to where the cars wait and the auto rickshaw drivers swarm.

 When we approached I started looking for Mayank but didn't see him. Mary shut down completely because she got overwhelmed when the drivers surrounded us all asking, "Ride? Ride?" I said no each time, payed the porter the 250 rps. grabbed the bags and walked through. Mary followed mindlessly behind me. We walked through where the a. ricks were parked, and made our way to the car area where we'd been dropped off 6 days before. Still no Mayank. I called him and when he answered, he said that he would be there in 3 minutes. We were asked for a picture by some of the drivers while we waited, after which Mayank  came. We loaded up  and left. I've realized that my favorite time in India is the time spent in a car. Being in a temple doing a pooja makes top two for sure. Mayank and I had a great conversation on the way back to D.Dun. Apparently he didn't know a) that I wasn't Indian b) an anthro student (after which he said he wants to talk sometime) c) I can read/write punjabi d) know a little hindi/punjabi and e) other. It was a pleasant ride, and we found out that he was a fan of country music...Everyone has their flaws. He took us to our home sweet homestay, to the lovely Aunty , and most of all Aunty's cooking. I'd been telling Mary about both Aunty and her cooking and that how even after one night I could be homesick for them. She gave us both a warm welcome and a hefty bowl of what looked to be homemade spaghetti o's. Home.