Attacking monkeys and overnight trains.

Monkey breaking in. 

Attacking monkeys and overnight trains.

I keep forgetting to mention that every meal we have here is guarded by a man with a slingshot and rocks. Why? Because apparently the monkeys will come and jump off anything (including trees overhead) and take your food.

Sometimes there’s one cute monkey sometimes two, today it was like an armed assault. There were hundreds maybe thousands of monkeys in every tree. One dude with a slingshot seemed a bit of an unlikely defense.

The males are big with “pink butts” as Sierra put it, I reminded her she has one too. The babies are adorable and seem to fall from tree to tree rather than swing.

The only real issue is that they were in our paths and actively trying to break into our room, every once in a while they would push on the doors to be sure you’d locked it properly, once a large male discovered I had not and started in the room off the balcony before I threw a pillow at him and he left the way he’d come. They did not appear to care that they were in our way, so we’ve had to climb through the bushes to get back to the house now and then (we had to do it before to avoid a cow, so we’re good at it). Todd, while sitting on a rock reading, suddenly found rocks ricocheting off the rock around him. For a moment he wondered if the monkeys had weaponized themselves with rocks and then realized there was a man coming up the trail trying to get monkeys away, not realizing Todd was there.

Our exit from Rishikesh was via sleeper train. It left after dark and so after a late nap, and another late nap, we woke everyone enough to start heading up the small mountain to the waiting taxi. Five men helped guide us through the darkness with flashlights as we traversed the hillside from the B&B to the road. We found the welcome face of our old taxi driver who happily strapped our bags again to the roof of his car. While we’ve driven a lot and I’ve pretty much surrendered to the fact that I don’t know how but no one seems to run into each other, but night time driving, holy cow. I could not do it justice if I tried to describe it so I won’t but it’s not for the faint of heart. Somewhere along the ride the driver stopped at some random looking shack. He announced he needed to get a “pen” using the universal symbol for pen and scribbling something in the air. Off he went to the pen store. After a moments pause Todd announced he needs a pencil, how convenient. I watched him go in and make the universal pencil gesture (looks a lot like the one for pen) and by some miracle came out with a pencil.

We made it to the train station. It looked exactly like I imagined a train station in India would look at night. We kinda figured we were in the right place and then waited....aka stopped moving...the universal invitation to take our picture. Most people ask, as did a young man who had upon discussion with Todd apparently just won 2nd place in a yoga competition. After various poses, including one with his foot behind his head, they were replaced by other people wanting to assume his position in the middle of our family for a selfie. He even joked “10 rupees” suggesting we should charge people.

We managed to figure out the train. We had 2 triple bunk beds and honestly it was really comfortable. I think we all slept really well. What felt like hundreds of stops later we were almost there. We had all avoided using the bathroom. 1) It’s a moving train. 2) It’s India. 3) You can smell the bathroom a ways away.

But finally Todd went, then me, Hannah took one look and announced “no way”(she had to give in an hour later, and upon returning to her seat Todd and the other kids applauded her).

Quote of the day was from Austin as the train pulled in:

“I don’t know if I just saw a junk yard or a parking lot.”

We’ve made it to Punjab.