Path of the Fire: Positive Vibrations...to you and you and you and me!

Hello and peace to all you friends and family out there...sending you positive vibrations through the ether from Rishikesh, India. We've been here about a week... after we finished the bike trip through the Spiti Valley and passed quickly through Shimla and Dehra Dun (2 large cities) on pretty much back to back 10 hour bus rides (total of 20 hours)...how do we keep doing that? We chilled in Dehra Dun for a couple of days which was a nice treat to have a cornucopia of food choices abounding and many other modern conveniences of civilization...like toilet paper,...goodbye dingleberries :) We left Dehra Dun and biked 30 miles on a really nice road, i.e. flat... although the life flashing before your eyes as cars came bearing down on us was still averaging high. Can you get used to having that many near death experiences? ....I'm here to say yes you can but you have to start fresh with each bike journey :) Well we arrived in Rishikesh, a holy city on the banks of the Ganga river where many pilgrims come to worship in the plentiful temples and tourists arrive daily to relax in the peaceful atmosphere or do an Ashram stay. Ashrams are similar to monasteries where there is a lot of silence, contemplation, self discipline, karma yoga and prison like food...no really. You'd be amazed at how not having sweets or salt for 4 or 5 days will sharpen the sense incredibly. You get a metal plate that has 1 section for rice, one section for dahl (lentils), one section for a vegetable (eggplant or potato) and then a whole lotta chapati (really good flat bread). The other night they gave us a teaspoon of salt and I looked over at Donavon and swear he was sitting there, mouth wide open hypnotized with this grin that was like Christmas had just come early. However, I have to admit that one meal when they gave us a quarter piece of Mango, I had to summon all my strength not to eat the peel and all. Hey, but ashram life is incredible really :) There are no other tourist, we get a entire 3rd floor section with balcony overlooking the Ganga to ourselves. We have parakeets flying by as we hang in our hammocks overlooking the jungle below. I've done yoga pretty consistently every day as well as trying to spend at least 30 minutes practicing meditation, Donavon has still been biking outside the ashram daily and we've done a lot of reading and just chillin. We'll most likely stay here for a total of 2 weeks and then try to bike closer to our next destination of Nepal. We're actually only a couple hours away, even though we don't plan on crossing until Sept. 15th ish. We'll I'd love to keep writing but the ashram gates close at 7pm and gulash is at 7:30 after evening prayers...yeah baby!! As well the ashram is ~5 miles from here so we got to boogie. Love all you people out there. Please feel free to send us an email to say hello, and we'll be back in touch soon. A few pictures below just to get those natural positive energy vibrations flowing into your brain. Peace, Will and Donavon ...from India...on bike!