Travel, Already!! (An Overwrought Plea)

The dome at Hagia Sophia

Here I am, about to tell you about the steep, cobblestone streets of old Istanbul, about the soaring beauty of the Hagia Sophia and the creepy Basilica Cistern. I'm about to describe the lemony chicken lentil soup I had with a glass of butter-colored wine at a corner cafe in the old city. I'm getting ready to talk about how much fun it was to travel with four dear friends from my former life in the book trade. That's before I get into a description of the bucolic retreat I took on an island off the west coast of Ireland. But I am overwhelmed with another concept. So I'm going to run with it.

The experience of travel, like food, like lovemaking, cannot be conveyed with words. We humans have tried and tried, throughout the ages, and thank goodness for that: it's a pleasure to read others' words about all of these things. But seriously, Seriously! You can't understand it until you do it. It's really important to see as much of the world as you can. Yourself, with your own five senses. It makes the experience of living richer and more meaningful; it changes everything. It's that big. You have to travel! You must! Until you venture out of your home territory, you are only half living.

Turkish tulips

Think you can't take the time off? Yes you can. People do it all the time; figure it out. If you really, truly cannot take any time off from your job, then step 1 is to reconsider your job. Your life is ticking away.

Can't afford it? Cancel the cable TV subscription, stop buying crap at the shopping malls, keep driving that old car, find a more affordable place to live, whatever it takes. I met a woman last year who was traveling in India because she was unemployed and it was cheaper to do that than to stay at home.

Just-born lamb with mama sheep on Clare Island

Waiting until the kids are older? Nooooo!! Kids need to see the world too! The families I know who travel with their children are having a blast. Their travel itineraries include kid-friendly stops, of course. But if you're spending time with your children at the park near your house, then why not try it out in Barcelona or Amman or Addis Ababa? I have friends whose 5-year-old declared that "Chicken" is a really great country. (She meant Turkey, of course.)

Scared? Aha! That's the best reason of all. If you're afraid to venture out of your safety zone, that's a sure signal that it's time to put your toes in the water. Fear is a much clearer sign than indifference that you need to be packing your bags, stat.

The Bosphorus Strait, dividing Europe from Asia

Get out and see the world! Do it! I could really give myself a good smack for waiting until age 40 to climb out of my sheltered cave and take a good look around.  

My recent month in Istanbul and then in Ireland got me to thinking, again, about how inadequate words and pictures are at getting to the big truths about life. (Ever notice how travel tends to make one think about life's big truths?)

At a yoga retreat on Clare Island, off the west coast of Ireland, I practiced yoga in a studio with windows facing the sunrise over the sparkling, deep blue Clew Bay. There I decided to experiment with a long-established routine. For years, I have been writing three pages of, well, anything, in a journal every morning. It's a good way to reconnect with my thoughts, my priorities, whatever's going on in my brain. It's great! On Clare Island, though, it occurred to me that I can also do a morning check-in with a thoughtful yoga session. In other words, I could sit on the couch and write about, say, how grateful I am that my husband is coming home tomorrow, and how preoccupied I am about an upcoming deadline. Or I could try some backbends or twists or forward folds, and actually experience the tension, the release, the defensiveness, the gratitude. It's right there in my body. I do a bit of yoga, and it illustrates how words can't touch the place where I am. They can't really touch any place. They can only describe it.

Drying fish near the Black Sea

My husband and I are taking scuba diving lessons. I am learning to breathe underwater using a regulator, and at the surface using a snorkel. We have textbooks, and do classroom lessons as well as practice sessions in the water. This is another example of words being inadequate for the job. It is not possible to learn to scuba dive only by reading the book. You have to gear up and fully submerge yourself, experience the sensations for yourself.

It is not possible to experience the world only by reading about it. You have to see it, smell it, dive fully into it. So go! Go go go right now!

Hiking in a stiff wind on Clare Island, Ireland

Flirting as a Measure of Civilization

An important measure of the level of a nation's civilization is how well its citizens can flirt. Using this yardstick, Spain is very, very civilized. I thought a lot about this during my recent visit to the Basque region of northern Spain. Here, a simple hello involves a kiss on each cheek. Women of all ages carry themselves with ease and pleasurable confidence. I believe this is because they are used to receiving attention from strangers, and they are not afraid of it. Sure, there are some catcalls, but generally it feels good-natured rather than threatening. Like, my friend Michelle and I heard "Hola, fea" as we walked down the street one evening. It's a joke: it means "Hello Ugly." The man grinned and raised his glass as we passed his table at a sidewalk cafe.

I got the impression that men there expect a woman to know how to flirt. It's a social skill. They expect a woman to know what to do with an invitation to dance, a glass of wine, a half-serious proposition. It strikes me that women in Spain are confident enough to take pleasure in these kinds of exchanges without taking them particularly seriously. This is a bit different from my perception of the norm in the United States. There, flirting is often more heavy-handed and fraught with meaning. Women who enjoy making the flirt a two-sided game are seen as easy lays by men, and looked at with fear and suspicion by other women. In my new home of Saudi Arabia, of course, the Mutawah (religious police) would blow a gasket if they witnessed such behavior, and any woman involved would be labeled as a whore. Charming.

It's not fair to compare Spanish attitudes about gender and sexuality to Saudi Arabian; it's just too ridiculous. Talk all you want about the Moorish influence on southern Spain, but the life that is being lived in the shadows of all that gorgeous Islamic architecture is nothing, nothing like life on the ground in Saudi Arabia. In Spain, nudity (on the beach, in art, in advertising) is seen as beautiful, and also as normal and not particularly noteworthy. Sure, sex sells. My impression, though, is that there is a fairly universal recognition in Spain of the human form as a lovely thing, and not something to be snickered at or denigrated. To react at all to a topless woman on the beach, for example, would be the utter height of loutishness.

In the United States, we are considerably more skittish--the human body seems somehow a bit shameful. A beautiful woman in a tiny bathing suit might well get some rude and unwanted attention, including catty remarks by other women. The female body is the ultimate advertising sales tool in the U.S.: it is appealing, and also naughty. An irresistible combination! And a rather schoolboyish attitude.

In Saudi Arabia, Muslim women are expected to cover themselves completely in a long, billowing black robe (even when temperatures top 130 degrees fahrenheit.) Not only is the female body off-limits in art and advertising, but even women's faces are blurred out in posters and print ads. They look like they've been photographed through a foggy window, or else their face is heavily pixellated so as to be unrecognizable. Possibly this could be construed as a way to use the mysterious feminine "mystique" to sell widgets. But it also points to amazingly unsophisticated gender relations. Men are unaccustomed to actually seeing women and interacting with them on the street and in everyday life. So there is this notion that the very sight of bare skin would send a man into a rage of adolescent lust. It's laughable--and pathetic.

All this rumination (and admitted over-generalization) about flirting around the world was pleasantly instigated by a night out with my friend Michelle. I met Michelle at yoga teacher training earlier this year in India, and recently we spent a week traveling together around the northern coast of Spain. A couple of those days were happily whiled away in San Sebastian, the urbane sea resort just south of the French border on the Atlantic coast. That night, we had a gorgeous dinner at a little restaurant in the cobblestoned section of town called Parte Vieja (according to Lonely Planet, Parte Vieja has more bars per square meter than anywhere else on earth). We lingered for three hours over a meal that included cod in a traditional, thickened olive oil sauce called "pil-pil," an arrangement of perfectly steamed fresh vegetables, and a light, naturally fizzy bottle of white wine. We talked about the definition of love, the meaning of marriage (Michelle is a newlywed), and the role of religion in shaping sexuality. You know, normal dinner conversation for a girls' night out!

We were just finishing our desserts (profiteroles for me, and an impossibly moist apple cake for Michelle), when a gentleman from the table across the way approached us. He said that he and his seven friends were out celebrating the fact that one of them had just become a professional golfer. He invited us to join them at their table for a drink. This was a very nice restaurant, and the table of men looked respectable enough. Plus, it was clear that they were already having a riotously good time. Michelle and I accepted his invitation.

We joined the eight men, all from Barcelona, at their table. Before we could sit, every one of them greeted us, all of us craning across the big table full of dishes and glassware for kisses on both cheeks. As we finally took our seats, the ringleader admitted that their friend was not actually a professional golf player and in fact had played the worst game of all of them that day. Our "pro golfer" graciously admitted that this was so, and they continued busting each others' chops, in between asking us about ourselves.

The group had travelled to San Sebastian for a weekend of golfing. They go somewhere to golf every year, and have done so for over ten years. Michelle currently lives in Aranda de Duero, a small town pretty much out in the middle of nowhere, a couple of hours north of Madrid. When the group learned this, one of them teased her about it. He said that next year, if the money is good, they plan to go to Pebble Beach to play golf. If it's not a good money year, they'll go to Aranda de Duero. A couple of them have been to Saudi Arabia on business, and they did not joke about it. The fact that I live there drew the now-familiar sharp inhales and queries about how I manage. 

When the gents learned that Michelle and I are yoga teachers, well, that tipped the merriment right off the scale. I mean, now we all had a great story to tell: we had drinks with eight men! They spent the evening with two American yoga instructors! Sweet! I told them how good yoga can be for golfers, improving focus and concentration and balance. One of them took his shoes off and made a show of flinging a shoe over each shoulder. I told him to stand up so I could teach him the tree posture. So we stood in the middle of the (now otherwise empty) restaurant and did the tree. Except he kept tipping over on purpose. 

Later, they paid their bill and invited us to join them for a drink down the street. We said sure, and all of us headed down the narrow stone alleyway to a little bar that was playing--what was that? Spanish dance hits or something. One of them ordered a round of tequila shots for everyone, and mine was in my hand and then down my throat without a second thought. I don't even like tequila shots! After the one shot, Michelle and I said that we really prefer wine, and then there was no more pressure to drink what we didn't want.

We closed down the bar (though bars in San Sebastian close surprisingly early for Spain: we were out of there by 2 a.m.) Then there was the elaborate two-cheek kissing process to say goodbye to all of them (some of them needed a double set of kisses), and we were on our way. Nobody tried to get us to go back to their hotel with them. Nobody even tried to get our contact information. It was just a fun and sociable night out in San Sebastian. I don't think a night like that would have been as lighthearted and low-pressure in the U.S. And, of course, nothing like it would ever happen in Saudi Arabia.

I know there are a million stories about those treacherous Spanish lotharios, and I'm sure most of them are true! That said, flirting itself is high art in Spain. When a man flirts with me there, I don't feel like he is insulting me or objectifying my body. It just feels like he is saying, "you are beautiful."

There's No Place Like Home

Returning to Saudi Arabia after seven weeks in India was surreal. We flew out of the steamy and decrepit Kolkata International Airport, smelling slightly of mold and sweat, and changed planes in Dubai. During our layover, we did some window shopping in the airport and saw a 24-karat gold cell phone on sale for $30,000. The Dubai airport was immaculate, echoey, modern and freezing cold. I probably wouldn't have even noticed except that, well, I just came from Calcutta.

While I was away in India, our shipment of household goods had arrived in Saudi Arabia. So when Michael and I walked in the front door, I was greeted with all of our familiar things: a house full of the objects we have collected and lived with during our sixteen years of marriage. There was the threadbare red velvet sofa (with some dog hairs still stuck to the front of it. Oh, I miss my dog! He's back in the States living with his best doggie friend.) There was the Art Nouveau china cabinet and the Danish modern dining room set--both second-hand finds from years ago. My ergonomic office chair! And our bed, oh yes. The most comfortable bed I have ever slept on in my whole life, yes, there it was, made up with the blue cotton sheets that are soft from many washings.

It was great to come back to all of this, and air conditioning, and my own kitchen, and the stereo, and the shower with the great water pressure and all the hot water I want. Oh, heaven! Even all these weeks later, I am still grateful for such luxury. Also, I'm still aware that I can live well without it.

Back in this comfortably feathered nest, I can sit and consider my biggest question: what is home?

I am sheltered here. All my stuff is here, and (more importantly) my husband is here. Is this home? Oh no. We live in a comfortable little bubble here, but we will never be able to call Saudi Arabia home. The cultural disconnect is too vast.

So, home does not equal "where your house is." There is a cultural component to it.

What about my hometown of Greenbelt? Most of my family and friends live there. The farmers market I helped to start still thrives on Sunday mornings, and the yoga studio I built still holds classes there. My sister lives there, in our childhood home, down the street from some of my favorite friends. My in-laws live there, too. This friendly, tightly knit safety net awaits me. This is where my roots are. Is this home? It was. It may well be again. But right now we don't have a house there. We don't have a place that belongs to us, so I don't think of it as home.

So, maybe home is where your house is plus where you feel culturally connected. This has possibilities. 

Then there's Santa Barbara. I have been yearning for California's central coast for quite a while now. Maybe home is Santa Barbara, where my husband has family, where I went to college. The city got its hook in me, and I remain hooked. Some places have a pull of their own. They feel like home even even before the real estate has been purchased, before the roots are down.

So what is home? Is home where your house is, plus where you feel culturally connected, plus where you feel some kind of magnetic attraction to the geographical place itself? Hmm....

As I spin out this Sesame Street-style exercise (to the tune of "One of these things is not like the other"), I wonder what I even mean by "home." What am I looking for? This is not such a random exercise in navel-gazing if you consider this: If you know what you mean by "home," then maybe you can create it. Wherever you go. What if "home" is something you can take with you? Yeah, yeah, "home is where the heart is." Or as the Temptations said, "Papa was a rolling stone. Wherever he laid his hat was his home." But what if that is true? 

And here we are, crashing back into yoga again. One of my yoga teachers often said that during a difficult posture, "you can always come back to your breath. Just come back to your breath." This is also good advice during challenging moments of life generally. When I'm angry: come back to my breath. When I'm afraid, or about to say something I shouldn't: come back to my breath. (I need to keep practicing that one!) Just stop whatever it is I'm about to do, and breathe. Actually feel the air filling my lungs, the breath coming and going from my body. Whether I am aware of it or not, my breath keeps cycling through me. My heart keeps beating too, of course, but my breath is something over which I have some control. I can work with it. I can let it work on me. I always carry it with me. My body is the home of my breath. What if my body is my home? Is that enough?

I am a nester. I love fussing with the furniture, choosing paint colors, hanging pictures, finding new pieces to bring into our house that are reminders of places I've been or have shapes or textures that I find beautiful. So it's hard to reconcile the fact that I take such pleasure in feathering the nest, with the notion that home can be as portable as I am.

I also love cooking at home. The smell of good food being prepared in the kitchen is another big signpost pointing the way towards home. Almost every day, I use my grandmother's iron skillet to fry onions, or scramble eggs, or make a batch of cornbread. Three generations of women in my family have used that skillet in their kitchens. That kind of continuity is a deep, important anchor to home.

Next week, I am traveling to Spain to visit a new friend from my yoga teacher training. She should have some insights on this question of home. She is an American from Kansas, who met her Irish husband while teaching English in Korea. They are now living in a village north of Madrid. Where is their home?

I want to find "home" and settle there. And I am becoming ever more aware that in order to do that, I need to push a little more on the boundaries of what's comfortable for me, what's physically and emotionally possible. To figure out how to get back home, I need to keep venturing away from it. The road towards home continues to twist off into the trees. It's a beautiful day for a drive.

Near-Death and New Life Experiences in India

If you do yoga and meditate six days a week, for six weeks, something big will happen to you. Sure, you will become more fit, and will start to relax. But there's more to it. The experience changed my head and my heart in ways that I can't fully explain. 

Yoga and travel are similar in that both of them are difficult to convey in words. They're experiential. I can tell you that after doing all that yoga, I am more aware of possibilities in my life that I never considered before. But what the heck does that mean, if you weren't there and haven't experienced those same physical and emotional sensations yourself? I really don't want to start spewing a bunch of New Age platitudes, but our language falls short of being able to convey what it's like to crack your whole self open and breathe.

At the end of the first week, I wrote this: "I feel lighter, freer, than I have in a long time. I am starting to let go, slightly, slightly. My sweet little room is sunny and a nice cross-breeze is coming through. I am relieved: it is not so difficult to be alone. My body and mind are feeling cleaner, clearer. My life will be different from now on. I am a stronger person, and I am starting to know myself."

In the middle of the second week: "My muscles, my sinews, my bones, my joints ache.... I have a headache, am slightly shivery, and feel drained." 

The third week: "I want to be radiant with love and peace and happiness. This is a choice I can make right now. Love. Peace. Joy. If I show up to my classes, learn the lectures, grow a bit stronger each day in asana classes, then the time will pass, perhaps wisdom will come, and then it will be over and I will decide what to do next. I will not live my life halfway. But part of that is this: yoga takes discipline. Discipline has amazing rewards. I will take this training, this education in the discipline of self, and I will apply it back in my daily life. I will keep cultivating a beautiful future by creating positive intentions. I will keep my focus on the good things I want for myself and for the world, and most of all--most of all--I will let go. I will seek pleasure in every day, including the pleasures that are found in self-discipline. My body, my mind, my soul can relax now. I can let go. I don't need to hold everything together any more. All is well. I am safe."

The sixth week: "I feel as though I am in control of, aware of, inhabiting my whole body in a way I never have before. My hands look stronger; my belly swells slightly with voluptuous, ripe strength. My face is open, my eyes are bright. I am not afraid any more. I can do anything. I can be who I want. Five weeks ago, I was a different person. Five weeks ago, I was unsure of my strength, afraid of learning where my limits are at any given moment. I was wondering if I could handle this, and thinking in terms of what it's already too late for. This week, all of my thought and non-thought, all of this work on my body, mind, emotions, all of this has come together. I am a brighter, stronger force than I ever knew was possible, and my yogic path has really only just started."

All that blissed out yogic strength was necessary on the day that our yoga teacher training class went to the city of Haridwar for the Hindu festival of Kumbh Mela. This is said to be the largest religious festival in the world, and I believe it. We took three oversized auto-rickshaws (the Indian version of mini-vans), six of us in the back of each on thinly upholstered benches, with our heads bumping the riveted metal ceilings when we went over the larger bumps and potholes.

We walked from the taxi stand in Haridwar, a long way through streets and alleyways, shopping districts and campsites set up for the pilgrims who have come to stay for the festival, which lasts for a month. We passed through seemingly endless crowd-control structures, set up like movie ticket lines or bank queues, except they are made of rough branches nailed together like western-style fences.

We arrived at the banks of the Ganges, which at this point are made of red stone or concrete steps. Several of our group bathed in the river on this very auspicious day, while the rest of us set out the picnic lunch. The chef at Shiva Resort had prepared chapatis (flat Indian breads) and a tasty potato curry. He packed the curry in double-layered plastic grocery bags, so it was a squishy, unappetizing presentation, but the food was still warm and it turned out to be very satisfying. I washed my hands afterward at one of the public taps that are so common here, a cement pillar about four feet tall, painted with blue and white stripes, with a small spigot coming out of it. Two Indian guys were standing around the tap, and asked where I was from. "The United States," I said. "USA!" They said. "Thank you!"

It's strange to be stared at in India; it feels very different than in Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, sometimes I feel like I'm supposed to be ashamed of myself, like I'm doing something wrong by even leaving the house. In India, I feel like some kind of beautiful, exotic goddess. 

After lunch, we walked on, following the river, and the crowds increased. We saw a bunch of crusty, sagey-looking dudes who looked more like side-show spectacles than actual wise men. They sat in statue-stillness with dreadlocks piled up on top of their heads and ashes smeared on their faces. Some were staring into the middle distance smoking big joints. They generally were looking for donations, I think. Entire families were sprawled out on blankets, picnic-style, in the middle of the concrete walkway, or arrayed next to dusty trees with their saris and shawls hung up on branches and tied to clotheslines. These people were making themselves at home!

We kept walking, past towering statues of Shiva, alongside policemen mounted on horses, next to the swiftly flowing Ganges, and the crowds kept getting thicker. Finally we got onto one of the many bridges that cross the river. On the bridge, we were pushed to the side to make way for the craziest parade I have ever seen. Ash-caked sadhus, or holy men, strode down the middle of the street. Completely naked, their dark skin was caked with pale grey ash, their long hair and beards matted with it. A couple of marching bands followed them, with glittery uniforms, shiny tubas, the works--but they were just randomly tooting their horns and banging their drums. I heard no actual tunes.

The group of us crossed the bridge, and the road continued on and intersected with another, equally crowded street. The crowd pressed closer, until we were being physically, seriously squeezed on all sides. I would think it couldn't get any tighter, and then another parade entry would appear, and we had to squeeze even closer to allow passage of the float, the dignitary's car, the group of sadhus, whatever. At one point someone tried to get through this melee on a moped. When I felt the front tire start to roll over my foot, I looked the driver right in the eye and shouted, "stop!" He just looked away, but he did not run over my foot. Meanwhile, another student, Sharon, got her ass thoroughly grabbed and was unable to move away from the letch standing behind her. Carrie, who stood in front of Sharon, leaned over Sharon's shoulder, put her face right in front of the greasy yellow-toothed ass-grabber, pointed her finger inches from his nose and said, "No!"

Meanwhile, my friend Kathy and I were holding on to each other and beginning to panic as the whole crowd swayed. If one of us had fallen, we surely would have been trampled to death. The human stream was pushing towards a group of policemen who were, at this late hour, trying to set up a crowd control barricade. They were attempting to push big metal barriers into the crowd, and brandishing their batons for emphasis. We were being pushed closer and closer to them. I kept yelling, "No! No!" and was very near to screaming in panic. Then, suddenly, the crowd eased. I don't know why. We were able to pass, and catch up to the rest of our group, who had watched us get trapped but had been unable to do anything. 

The school director collected us all back together and led us around the corner, down an alley, and to another intersection. Here we watched a more orderly section of parade with yellow, orange and red floats carrying severe, mostly older men: gurus. Some were waving gently, like seasoned politicians; some had on their meditation faces. Honestly, if all you do is meditate, why are you going to agree to be paraded through the insane spectacle of Kumbh Mela? I don't get it. We watched the parade for a while, and then got chai from a street vendor. We sat on the curb with and sipped the hot, milky tea, then handed the empty glasses back to the vendor when we were through. The vendor gave the glasses a quick rinse under the nearby public water tap, and put them right back into service.

Then we walked to the train station, where we learned we would have to wait over two hours for the local train back to Rishikesh. We voted instead to walk back across town to the taxi stand. We walked and walked. The police had blocked off this way, so we had to go that way. We walked on and on in the hot afternoon sun, until we reached another barricade, not far from the taxi stand, and were turned away once again. Roshan was beginning to be discouraged, I could see. He led us over to the grass (okay, the litter-strewn dirt) on one side of the path, and we sat for a rest. Within two minutes, our circle of western faces had drawn a crowd of Indian men, who stood and frankly gaped at us. We waved at them, and they smiled and waved back--and continued to stand there and stare. Finally, they dispersed, and soon after that we continued on, down one road and another, across a bridge and under a big ornamental gate, on and on and on, until at last we reached the taxi stand from the other direction. Roshan bought us all roasted, salted peanuts in newspaper cones from a street vendor. Then we got in our taxis and put-putted back home.

How to Buy a SIM Card in Rishikesh, and Other Useful Information

In Rishikesh in February, it is possible to see your breath in the shivery cold morning, and get bitten by a mosquito in the afternoon. When I first arrived, I wore all of my clothes at once. Yoga pants, then more yoga pants, then sweatpants. Tank top, short sleeved shirt, long sleeved shirt, sweater. Hat. Wool socks. Flip-flops. (That was annoying, the socks/flip flops combination, but shoes always come off when you walk into the yoga hall, so sneakers weren't practical.) In the middle of the day, layers were subtracted, and then as the evening set in, they were piled back on again. In addition, all of us students went into town and bought wool prayer blankets. We used these as shawls to huddle under during chanting and meditation, and also during mealtimes, which were all outside. 

Rishikesh is stretched out along both sides of the Ganges, and two pedestrian bridges span the river. (I say pedestrian, but mopeds and even motorcycles also zoom across constantly, honking the whole time.) My first trip into town was to buy that blanket, and I walked in with two other students. We must have had the saucer-eyed look of new arrivals, because the street merchants and beggars worked us hard.

One panhandler had a startling technique: at a spot where the street narrows and rounds a corner, he stepped towards us with a distressing, loud groan. He thrust his can in front of us as we walked by, and then, after we passed, he stepped back and was silent. Now, seriously, I am not belittling the plight of India's many, many impoverished street people. But I walked by this guy almost every day for over a month, and his routine never varied: step forward, belt out freakish moan, step back, wait for next person. With each passing day, I became a little more hardened to the poverty that is everywhere. It's not possible to do otherwise and still function in India. But every day was a blaring megaphone of a reminder that I have everything, EVERYthing. That reminder stuck with me, week after week, and I am grateful for that.

As we crossed the footbridge, we were accosted by beggar children with little bowls of peanuts. They wanted us to buy the nuts to feed the fish in the river. Crazy! Who ever heard of peanut-eating fish? I looked down into the bluish-grey river, and at first I could only see the sunlight glinting off the water's ripples. Then, suddenly, I saw dozens and dozens of large, beige colored fish wriggling just under the surface, going wild to gobble up the peanuts that people were throwing off the bridge. There were many, many of them, a disconcerting jumble of fish wriggling down there in the water like piles of light brown eels (but they weren't eels). Creepy.

After a few days, I guess I started to look more at home in Rishikesh, because the children stopped crowding around asking for money. The guy on the corner stopped approaching me with his tray of sparkly stick-on bindis. I got better at navigating around the constant crowd in front of the restaurant where a blue-painted man--a live man--sits on a pedestal as still as a statue. I'm not sure who he's supposed to represent. Krishna, maybe? To me, he looks like a cross between Shiva and Buddha, which is indeed a strange cross.

In my journal on day one I wrote this: "On the way to afternoon asana class, there was a cow standing sideways across the alley. I ducked past when she turned her head to the side. I wasn't sure whether it was wise to walk around behind her. Are cows, like horses, likely to kick behind them?" The answer is no. Good thing, too! If you couldn't walk around behind a cow, it would be hard to get much of anywhere in Rishikesh. Cows are all over the place, and the streets and alleyways are often narrow. You do want to be careful, though, not to get peed on by the cow while you're walking behind it. You can tell it's about to happen because the cow gives a little twitch of its tail. Tragically, I speak from experience.

Journal entry, day two: "No hot water for a morning shower. So, cold shower. Sinus headache. Will it dissipate? Yesterday our meditation teacher said, 'The only time you know you have a head is when you have a headache.' Hello, head."

After several days, I bought an Indian SIM card for my cell phone. Here's how I did it. I walked down the hill, stopping to say hello to the guy who sells organic snack bars, incense and toilet paper. He dispensed Hindu philosophy and offered me chai for "hospitality." I passed the Half Moon Cafe with its Tibetan prayer flags fluttering on the rooftop deck, and turned left at the German bakery (which does not actually sell any German-style baked goods, but they do have these meatball-sized chocolate cakey things that are addictive.) I continued down the street past a long line of tables and two-wheeled carts with fruit for sale, and chai, and little sugar pastries that look like flattened donut holes. I turned right and headed down the hill, past the moaning man and the wall where the holy men and wanderers lean and smoke hashish and watch the day pass. At the bottom of the hill, I spotted the red Vodaphone banner over the door of a tiny shop. The shop also sells cigarettes, candy, and single-use packages of laundry soap--just enough for one bucket of wash. The shopkeeper was chatting in the shop across the way. He came in as soon as I approached, having to squeeze past me to get behind the counter, as the shop was hardly larger than my closet.

The process of buying a SIM card is elaborately bureaucratic. I would expect no less; this is India! First, I presented my passport. The man photocopied it on the old machine in the back that is, as it turns out, one of the only copy machines in town. He asked me to sign my name on the copy, and he carefully compared that signature to the one on my passport. Then, he did not know how to open my iPhone, and had to go next door for a safety pin, which is the tool that's needed to open the hatch where the SIM card fits. I opened the phone with the borrowed pin and he installed the little chip. Then, because a photograph must be included with the SIM card application, the shopkeeper sent me down the hill a little further to get my picture taken at the music shop.

So, I walked past the restaurant with the blue man, and the crowd of vendors sitting on the ground offering jewelry, bhindis, peacock feather fans, noisemakers, incense, mala beads, bangles, plastic toys, and Spirograph art. Beyond all this, there's a music shop. I told the guy behind the counter that I needed my picture taken, and he invited me to come in to the back of the shop, where a blue backdrop hangs for this purpose. He snapped a goofy picture of me looking shiny and frazzled. While I was waiting for it to be developed, I browsed the CDs, which are arranged on narrow display ledges, floor to ceiling. I bought a yoga meditation CD for 195 rupees, which is less than $2. Listening to it back home, I discovered that it was not such a wise selection: I can hear the man breathing on the recording, and at one point he has a little bit of a nose whistle. Unfortunate. Anyway, a few minutes later, I collected four color ID pictures and I was on my way back up the hill to the Vodaphone shop.

The shopkeeper attached my new photo to the extensive paperwork, and asked me for more information. This included, among many other things, my father's name, my local address (I have no idea whether the Shiva Resort has an actual street address, but "Shiva Resort" seemed to satisfy), and my landline phone number, which is an American number that rings in Saudi Arabia. How is any of this information useful? Then he asked me to sign my name across the application and the photograph. I gave the man my passport to photocopy once again, because he was not happy with the quality of the first copy he made. He compared the two copies, asked me if I didn't agree that the second copy was clearer. Oh, and it was! I paid for the whole deal, and that's all there was to it.