Karin: The Kamath family had to leave early this morning. I got up early to say goodbye as I didn’t want their last memory of me to be the green-tinged misery that I was last night. We bid each other farewell and as they headed back to Delhi. Dan and I jumped into a shared auto-rickshaw that was heading back to Laxman Jhula. After a freezing cold ride crammed into the back of this rickshaw with far too many people in it we were relieved to get back to the Hotel Divya and all of its relative comforts.
Dan: When we went to leave the hotel in Haridwar, we were pleasantly surprised to find that the Kamath's had paid for our room - yet another example of their generosity! We gave them heartfelt thanks, and also expressed gratitude for the chance to see another side of India, feeling like we were experiencing it a bit more as Indians ourselves.
I hadn't brought a jacket with me, so I was freezing cold on the ride back to Laxman Jhula, the only relief being that we were relatively war, as we were packed into a 6 person rickshaw with 8 Indian women, who were chattering away to us in Hindi!
When we got to Laxman Jhula, we stopped at the local Westerner's shop to get some cleaning supplies - today was the day we were going to tackle our bathroom.
Although our room and view were lovely, there was a continual pungent smell coming from the bathroom, which we thought might have been because it had never been cleaned properly - so we thought we'd have a go.
I'm not going to cover the rest of the day here, as it's not too exciting - suffice to say that my way of cleaning a bathroom that is covered floor to ceiling in tiles is to close the door, splash chlorine on all available surfaces, and lose myself in the scrubbing.
About the only exciting thing to happen today is when some monekys appeared above our room, and then came down onto the terrace - at first we thought they were cute, but they were monkeys with a purpose: they were here to steal Karin's bag of nuts - and so they advanced menancingly at us, hissing.
And rather than get into a scrap, we decided just to leave the nuts for the monkeys...
Monkeys above our room, about to steal the nuts
Normally the monkeys are rather cute, and look something like this...
Mother monkey and her baby
After a full days cleaning and washing, we fell to bed exhausted.
Being on holiday can be such hard work, you know??!