Day 7 - Rishikesh

Today I got up at 6.30am with the best intentions. Last night, when dining in Little Italy (the restaurant below the hotel - which serves most excellent pizzas btw) I bumped into a german woman, Christina, who is taking yoga lessons in the yoga room in the next hotelalong. Hurrah. After days of trailing round ashrams and yoga halls only to be told "No yoga madam" - I've finally found a class. And I checked - the yoga teacher, unlike my last one, is not also the owner of the hotel.

So at 8.30, so dashed out of my hotel and into Raj Palace in my somewhat revealing yoga clothing carefully draped with one of my many wraps, and sat down in reception and waited for the other yoga students to come. No one came.
After some minutes the young desk clerk approached apoligetically "No yoga this morning madam". Raaah.
So, instead I spend most of the day reading on the balcony, occassionally interrupted by the Israeli girls sunbathing in their bikinis - more precisely the steady stream of 'workmen' come to check the flowerpots or scare off the monkeys (i.e. goggle at the girls in their scandelous clothing)

This evening I am meeting Christina for the 5.30 yoga class with the fille-gross teacher (think that means he's buff). There are apparently are quite few people who go to the class - it's always good to make new friends!

Update:
Fille-gross (or however you spell it) sadly does not mean buff - it must mean skinny. The young yoga teacher is a human elastic band without an ounce of fat on him, anywhere.
Happily he is a very good (if slightly demanding) teacher, and he excells especially in demonstrations - where he shows a talent of being able to move each muscle individually, and astonishingly flexible ankles (he could probably get into press-up position with feet flat on the floor!).
And the cost of a 2-hr, expert lesson in a 3 person group? (myself, Christina and Alice from Paraguay) It is a mere 50R (about 65p).

Right: Adho Mukha Svasana, also known as downward facing dog - which I had to do about a gazillion times, ouch my poor arms. We also practiced standing up straight for about 20 minutes ("dese arre really de hard postures, yaah, you practice practice")