7/27/05-7/31/05. My stomach slowly but surely got better. Spent most of this week hanging out with Ofer, Ishy (also an Israeli from the course), and his English buddy, Ollie. Also met Barry (AZ) from the course. He is an author, his first book was about Astrology and Psychology. He is now writing his second book based on Astrology with Vipassana. And he is practising hard.
Met Suter (Holland) in the neighborhood. He agrees with me regarding the Goenka course and is now more into practising Zen. Things are really quiet at the Shanti house. Just me and Jonathon left from the old crew. Meditating a little thru this time.
Bombay is flooded and since it is the electronic banking hub of India, an attempt to get money at the Atm is thwarted. We all spend this week killing time: playing chess and backgammon, watching movies and taking day hikes/trips to Mcleod and Bhagsu.
Barry has sold everything and is making India his home. Ollie is going to be in India for two years in total. Ishy is just about finished with his trip and will head back to Israel soon. Ofer leaves for Bangkok 3 days before me to finish his year long trek and return to Israel. I am just starting to look forward to Thailand...

8/1/05-8/3/05
Ofer and I decide to take a 3 day Reiki course. Reiki= Universal Life Force Energy. A natural healing power available to all, if only you now how! Interesting, but like all things requires a lot of hard to come by practice.
On the second day my stomach problem returned! Felt pretty bad , but after the course I did feel better. Day three was a bit better, but not great. That night we were still in Bhagsu and Ofer wanted to meet a girl up the mountain. So with some very vague directions we begin the hike. What a hike is was to be! In the dark I think we forged new trails, mostly in circles. But everything was very quiet up there and we never did find The 3rd Eye Guest house. Instead we wound up making a huge sweaty loop back to Bhagsu only to have to continue on to Dharamcot! Finished the night cooling down at the Trek & Dine.

I slept in the next morning and have more energy today, but things below are even a little more uncertain. Enzo, a German from the old crew, came back today from Varansi and gave me some herbal tablets to try. Hopefully they do some good. Chilled today, watched "I Robot", made use of the toilets, and read "From Heaven Lake" by Vikram Seth. A nice travel book about travel by land thru China, Tibet, Nepal on to India.

Next day and the stomach is still wrecked. I come back from the bathroom and Vinod has set me up with some milk chai. Not the best thing for the gut, but I can't be rude. Sat and talked with Enzo about his status as an artist who is lost at sea. He lives in Berlin with an artist community and he paints a warm picture of artistic cooperation coming together for a greater creatativity. The government actually pays artists for their art. Albeit, not much. I learn that he is now into film and video. In fact, he is lugging around a hopped up dual Pentium PC (w/o monitor) for his video editing. I'd like to see his work, but he doesn't have any to share. Instead we share breakfast at the Chai shop. I stick with salt crackers and a coke for my belly.

Feeling better I one again get to enjoy one of Rita's omlette sandwiches. Wow. Check out the sun. Where did that come from. I take the opportunity to remove my shirt and notify my body that summer is not over. Down in Mcleod a young boy tried to trade a hand made drum for my Casio watch. No can do. But I might go back and buy one. Ran into who else but Ofer in Mcleod so I whooped him at chess a couple of times (to be fair, he beats me often at backgammon). Then a movie double header. "Master and Commander" and the late movie: Star Wars III. Finally an episode worthy of the Star Wars trademark.

Today I woke and met a new/old guest named Enrique (Venezuela). He was here before and had been storing his almost new Honda Motorcycle which oddly won't start after only 5 weeks of sitting. Apparently, a valve is stuck. A push start should take care of that, and later does. After breakfast, Vinod took Enzo and I on a nice hike up to some waterfalls around the northwest ridge. Swollen streams bring the monsoon waters down into clear cool pools.
Incidentily, it's quite remarkable that you can hike for hours, be in the middle of no where and turn a corner to find a chai shop staring you in the face. All over, in the most remote and unlikely places. Today, the chai shop here is unmanned though. Made it back to the house just as the monsoon rain came cascading down again. I was introduced to a couple of Russian Israelis at the Trek&Dine and we watched "Fight Club".

Ofer and I were going to go to Amritsar today, but last night we decided that we didn't feel like getting up @ 3am for the bus. So we are going to go this coming morning. Instead we form a plan to check out the Bhagsu Waterfall. We had to wait untill about 2:30 for the rain to stop and the sun to peak through. We weren't sure which ridges it is between so we had to climb onto a roof over looking the community pool to get our bearings. After a quick hike thru town and into the nearest valley we arrived and climbed up a precarious rock slide to sit and enjoy the views as well as some semi famous Bhagsu Cake. Made it an early night since it was to be an early morning.

We were to meet at 3:30am. I slept thru my alarm and woke @ 3:31am. Threw on some clothes and met Ofer 10 minutes late. Torches alit we walked down in the otherwise pitch black to Mcleod. A taxi driver told us that our bus to Dharamcot wouldn't be coming tonight. Familar with this angle we didn't take him at his word. Instead we waited untill 5am, but the bus never came. Apparently there has been a landslide between Mcleod and Dharamshala and there really won't be a bus today.
We slumber back up the mountain on foot because all the richshaw drivers are asleep, mumble "see ya laters" at the top and return to our respective guest houses. The sky has lightened up quite a bit by this time so I decide to brew some tea and watch the sun rise over the mountain.
After greeting the morning sun I went to bed only to be awoken at 10am by Enrique arguing with Vinod over 30 rupees. 30 Rupees! For crying out loud, I'll give you the 60 cents, just shut up. Anyway, I'm up now so I get out of bed. I decide to brew another cup of tea and wind up finish reading From Heaven Lake. The rest of the day passed easily like all the previous.