This afternoon, we stopped dead in our tracks upon seeing an enormous fruit bat hanging upside-down from some very low powerlines. "So strange to see one like that in the daytime," Heather said, knowing these bats from her time in Ghana. I was thrilled to see one. We walked right below it and realized that its body was touching two wires; electrocuted. Next to this corpse were a set of identical feet, still gripping the wire, but stripped of their body. These powerlines are like a perfect fruit bat trap.
Not 100 yards away from the bat-circuit we came upon a half-dozen bicolor crows, one of which was pulling matter from deep within the eyesocket of a just-dead calf. And immediately around the corner, a dog eating another dog. Gleaming ribs and a strange pinkness peeking out from beneath the mottled brown coat. I made some comment about this spot being death-alley. Then, at a small, open-air cafe (which somehow felt more like an opium den) hidden in wet jungle, Heather came a fraction of an inch from consuming a deep-fried cockroach which was attached to the bottom of her veggie pakora. "Don't make that face," I said, realizing something was wrong with her food. "What would make me make this face?" she said, near retch. "A hair? Nuts?" I guessed. "Worse."
But the rest of Rishikesh is very lovely, really. I swear. We had 2 hours of private yoga this morning for $2.50, the mountains are incredible, the heat is tolerable, the mosquitoes are minimal, there's great food and wonderful people. I'm holding out for a glimpse of the rare gangetic dolphin. Hard to believe dolphins live in this river.
