India, Day 6

My holiday is beginning to develop a routine now. But this one is good stuff. Ahram breakfast (today was millet cooked with green chilies, dhall seeds, mustard seeds and ginger), yoga from 8 to 1030am, brunch at 11, massage at noon, explore more of Rishikesh, head back for the second yoga session 530 to 8pm, dinner, then the prayers at the ashram shrine.

I also go around tasting coffees at different cafes, and settle for the one that can make it the strongest. I go to one, I sit outside, but as it starts to rain I move inside, end up sharing a table with an eccentric-looking Frenchman. He tells me that he doesn’t know German, in spite of the travel book he’s holding being written in German,. "I know the place, the market, they are talking about, so the language does not manner", he says. I’m in a listening mood today, letting him talk all he wants. He plans to buy an elephant. "What’s a bargain price for an elephant?". "1 lakh" (Rp 100,000 = USD 2,500). There is chocolate fudge around his lips and beard from the cake in front of him. I look at him and decide not to ask him what he plans to do with his elephant.