Travel Day: Mussorie to Dehradun (WII)

After Mussorie, another nightmare of a day traveling. I took an overpriced car to the ashram, where they dropped me off at the wrong place after about 30 minute of driving around looking for it. So they just abandoned me with all my stuff at the bottom of a Incan pyramid-esque staircase. I walked all the way up with my huge backpack, only to find it was not the ashram, but a school. Finally, Swati sent someone to find me, and we walked over to the ashram, and she gave me something to settle my stomach (first serious stomach pains). It was lemonade with pepper basically, but it did the trick. She was a very calming influence, and I liked her very much. Perhaps someday I will return to study Iyengar yoga in full. Then I took the bus the rest of the way into town, which was surprisingly both the cheapest and simplest leg of the trip. People were hanging off the outside, yelling the whole time. It was great! I had a pretty sweet seat up front, with my stuff, since I got on outside of the city.

I went to Café Coffee Day, and regrouped. Read Eat Pray Love, had some caffeine. Then got a rickshaw driver to bring me to the ISBT in Dehradun, so I could see about getting a bus ticket to Chandigarh. They told me to come back the day I was traveling, so I capitulated, slightly annoyed that I had made the trip for nothing. I offered a rickshaw driver half of what they first suggested to get to the Wildlife Institute, and one guy agreed at once. The others immediately undersold him, but I agreed to go with the guy that first met my price because I read that it’s incredibly rude not to.

I got to the WII, and got my stored bag from them. I went through all my stuff, which incidentally was filled with Wildlife, and I had to kill much of it. Not the stuff, the wildlife.

I went to the computer lab and chilled out because my computer had died while I was at LBS in Musoorie. Mostly checked personal emails. Then when I came back, Alex said he’d be back in about 2 hours, so I finished up my book, and waited for him, meditating. He came back, and we had a great time catching up before we went over to the party in the old hostel (where most of the Indian students live—we are put up in New Hostel, which is bigger and nicer, but not as social). I got to see Jenny and Molly again, and everyone else (Sahas, Asif, are the only names I remember now).