Blissful Day Off

Sunday was the first day off and I took full advantage of a schedule-free day. It started with breakfast at a nearby cafe with some other students. Then two of the girls and I walked for a few hours and checked out some shops in Lakshman Jhlua (a town nearby). My favourite was a little place called the Bohemian Cafe, which has live music every night.

After the walk, I got my eyebrows threaded (for $1 CAD!) and then got a massage (for $10 CAD!). It is so easy to live like a queen with the prices here. I spent the afternoon at yet another cafe with some students and then in the evening, the school organized an outting to see the Ganga Aarti.

The Ganga Aarti is a devotional ritual performed every night at dusk to honour the goddess of the Ganges River (the most holy river in India). Hundreds of people gather by the Ganges river to chant and offer a small cup of flowers with a candle in it to the goddess. Many people drink the water as they believe it has healing powers (I just read an article about dead bodies found in the river and am trying not to get traveller's diarreah so I did not partake in this part). After the ceremony, young boys go through the crowds with candle holders and everyone cups their hands to take some of the smoke and put it on their foreheads in order to be blessed. Here are some pics from the day!

Some things I have learned about Indian culture:

• They stare at tourists a LOT. And take a lot of pictures. I have had my picture taken by kids, moms, dads, munks and anyone with a camera it seems. They say "Sister, sister, take a picture with my daughter..." and things like that. As long as they don't call me ma'am (which hasn't happened yet) I'll let them take it. It does make me feel like a celebrity though... and I'm not sure if I like the attention.
• Men hold hands. They are not gay, it's just totally normal. Men of all ages do this and walk hand in hand in the streets. I don't really know why but if I find out, I'll let you know.
• They honour cows. I already knew this but I didn't realize that they would be roaming the streets and blocking traffic all the time. The idea is that after a baby stops breast-feeding, they switch to cows milk and so they view cows as a mother figure and treat them sacred.
• Some of them think it's totally fine to cut in front of people when waiting in a line. I have been cut in front of twice at the airport by Indian men and twice while waiting in line for food at the yoga school by Indian women. I know this is not a generalisation (many of them are wonderful) but yeah, it happened 4 times in less than a week!

The first pic is one is of the whole group that went to the Ganga Aarti, the folks on the left side are from the 200 hour course and the folks from the right side are from the 300 hour course. My class (the 300 hour) consists of 13 females and 6 males: 2 Germans, 1 Austrain, 3 Americans, 3 Canadians, 2 Hong Kongers, 1 Singaporean, 1 South African, 1 Mexican, 3 Australian, 1 Kiwi and 1 Brit.