Small things that stroke me

- Scooters. There are many motorbikes or scooters on the roads. In itself that isnt a weird thing considering the traffic is so chaotic that such a vehicle is by far the fastest to get anywhere, but the fact that the Indians overload their scooters with people. It is very common to see women sitting behind a male driver, but the women sit with both their legs on one side and all their colourful clothes flying in the wind after them. I have seen whole families all in one scooter, the father driving, a small kid infront of him, the mother back in that female-horse-riding-way with another child on her lap. I have tried to sit like that as well when I met Amit a day and he had a scooter. I was quite afraid cos he was driving very fast and sitting like that is not the safest position on a motorbike. Well, obviously, nothing bad happened.
- Monkeys. In Rishikesh where I am now, they seem as common as cows are everywhere else. Yesterday I saw a money stealing food from a little counter. The food was whiped in plastic, but the monkey seemed so familiar with city life that it even knew how to conquer that obstacle.
- Holy men. Specially in Rishikesh, since this is a kind of hole place, I have seen many of them. Very old men, wearing the charicteristic orange/red clothers. I saw two in trance, their eyes looked blinded and they were shaking and messing things I would never understand. They must have had contact with some higher god, Im sure.
- Men generally. They stare! I know I have mentioned it before, but I find it hard to get use to. Everywhere, they follow me with the eyes and they do not look away if I get contact with them. Rather the opposite. Never have I looked down in the ground so stifly and determined. But I do not feel treathened. Most of them are probably just curious because I am a girl, white, young and alone.
- Food. I like it very much. Here, they dont sign with 'vegetarian food'. They sign with 'non-veg' instead. Most Indians are vegetarians and I dont mind it, my stomach has untill now behaved very nicely. I'd like to keep it that way.
- Ganges river. I tiped my feet into it yesterday. It felt very good, soothing and cooling. It is probably true that there is something holy about that river too.
- Snake tamer. I saw one the other day at my breakfast. I heard a sound of a funny sharp flute with a drone, and saw this also guru-like-looking old man playing on an instrument I havent seen before. First I was only intersted in the instrument, trying to think of my now-seeming-very-distant-music-lessons where I probably came cross the name of this instrument in our world music classes. But suddenly I realized the actual purpose of the music. Infront of him there was a basket with a snake coming up from it! I couldnt believe my eyes, it was so much like an Aladin cartoon. The snake appeared more and more untill it started getting out of the basket and the nearest tourists were suddenly very busy getting out of their chairs and in safe distance. The snake tamer just took the snake and put it back in the basket. He continued playing and after some time he took out a second snake. In the end both snakes were crawling around him, tangleling around his flute, his face and body. Wow... Quite impressive to see. When he was done, he just put them back in. Later, I smiled at him and he waved to me as if we were old relatives.

There are much more, but right now this was all I could think of.
I am still doing good. Meanwhile of seeing all these things, I am relaxing a lot and reading Catch-22 that Pete once recommended in an English class.
Enjoyable day to everyone who is still honouring me with reading my blog :)