From the banks of the Ganges...

Hello from Rishikesh, along the banks of the Ganges. We left our home away from home this morning with a tear-filled goodbye to the Duggals, the sweetest people ever! We had such a lovely time with them and they made us feel so welcome. We wrapped up our yoga course last night with a wonderful party for Patanjali, complete with Veena and Sitar musicians, several chants and unbelievably amazing food all prepared by Swati. Our student that is a chef in New Orleans also helped - along with many others. The grounds were beautiful - lit up with oil lamps, lights and we spent all day stringing marigold garlands. I'll post photos if I can soon. Sue and I were decked out in our new outfits - almost everyone bought something - we were all beautiful if I do say so myself.

So...Jan, a lovely woman from Australia, slid over to me before our last class and said "as you know, I'm quite an introvert and I've spent the whole course observing people. There are 3 people who have lost 10 years off their faces since they arrived and you are one of them." Wow. I wonder if I looked 57 when I started or if I look 37 now? I hope it's the latter, but I told her I was certainly going to take that to heart as to what that is telling me about home! Sue seems to be miffed that she wasn't mentioned !!

We just arrived in Rishikesh, so will start exploring the town. We're here for a few days and will be celebrating Diwali, a big, big holiday, tomorrow from here. It is the festival of lights. For those of you who are Beatles fans, Rishikesh is where the Beatles lived in the ashram and supposedly wrote the White Album. It appears to be quite the tourist town - lots of yoga, meditation, etc. but also white water rafting and all other kinds of activities as well. So far, quite beautiful. It's just kind of cool being near the Ganges - such a holy river for so many people.

Well, off to explore! I'll hopefully find a place to upload photos - I want to show you our outfits and my 37 year young, stressfree, blissed-out face!

xoxo dmt