Past two weeks

So the past two weeks have been extremely busy so I haven't had time to update. Last weekend I went with a few friends and our incredible assistant director Cynthia to Haridwar and Rishikesh. Cynthia is amazing, I don't know what we would do without her. She's almost 50 and is definitely the coolest person I'll ever meet, but I don't think I could keep up with her lifestyle. For the past twenty years she's split her time between Nepal, India, and the states. Cynthia knows basically everyone who lives in Haridwar and took us to see her sadhu friends. Sadhus are Hindu ascetics, they wear saffron and have dreadlocks. We watched them perform their evening ceremony to Shiva and their guru which involved a lot of bell ringing and chanting and singing in Sanskrit. We had lunch at their house the following day as well. On the way to their house we ran into a parade to celebrate Ganesh's birthday with a live elephant leading the parade. Haridwar was the first place we've been that felt like we were in real India with beggars and congestion and staring and chaos- I love it.

Rishikesh was full of Israeli backpackers. We went to the Beatle's ashram which is now abandoned and overgrown and took pictures in meditation cave number 9, which is where the majority of the White Album was written. That weekend we travelled on public buses which was an extremely crowded experience.

Last Friday we had our Hindi class final and a farewell dinner, and went back to Delhi on Saturday morning. Yesterday we took a train to Amritsar to visit the Golden Temple, which is where I am right now. It's incredibly beautiful.

I'll write more soon, we're about to go visit the India-Pakistan border at Wagah to see the ceremonial closing of the gate between the two countries.