From Mangos to Monsoon

Best Mangos Ever 

The Himalayas

Spa Life is Exhausting

Monsoon or Rain?

Blissed out after 90 minute massage

Tali Plate of local foods

We woke up and had coffee in our room while we decided what to wear, we both decided on white pajamas for the day. Every other guest at the spa was also wearing white pajamas. Actually the white pajamas are given to you, as a spa outfit to wear. We sort of felt like we were in some sort of a cult movie, with everyone dressed in white.

At the breakfast buffet, the monkeywalla walked around carrying a stick to scare off the monkeys. It must have worked because no monkeys came and bothered us. He doesn’t actually hit the monkeys but scares them by tapping his stick. At breakfast we had fresh mangos. They were exceptional sweet and delicious with a creamy texture – we loved them!

We then were faced with the dilemma, which ruins many spa visits: how to fill the time until our massage? Faced with this problem, we opted for a walk around the property and saw peacocks, bamboo, flowers on the grounds.  Gazing down the valley, we saw Rishikesh and the swollen Ganges; surrounding all are the jungle clad peaks of the lower Himalayas.  Showing admiral spa discipline we skipped lunch and headed to the pool, to relax from our short walk and build up strength for the upcoming massage. Cathy remembered a book we had read long ago by Paul Theroux: Elephanta Suite. As we both remembered it, one of the 3 short stories in it was a thinly disguised parody of a Spa much like this one: Ananda in the Himalayas. I quickly download a copy to my Kindle App from Amazon (resort has wifi everywhere). I read parts of the short story to Cathy. It was this Ananda he was writing about. He nailed it.

It then started to rain and I resumed reading in a covered area by the pool. It rained heavily for about 30 minutes straight down. The rain stopped, and spa life returned to normal. I had experienced my first monsoon rain.

Click for a short not very dramatic movie of our monsoon.

We spent the afternoon getting our massage and reading. My masseuse asked me what I thought of Ananada. I said "Not very spiritual - seems to me a lot of rich people getting pampered". She laughed and continued rubbing. Time to dress for dinner: that’s easy – wear your little white spa outfit. We arrived early having built up thirst for some wine. We called the chef over and rather than order off the menu, he decided to make a special dinner for us of local ingredients. The locavor movement has evidently spread to India. Fish wrapped in a local leaf and steamed, a great soup, lamb kabobs, potatoes, rice with mustard seed it was a great feast.

There was a young (well almost everyone is young to us) very attractive woman sitting next to us, all dressed in white. We started to talk to her and she had a vaguely European accent. We asked where she was from and she told us she was Russian from Moscow here at Ananda by her self on vacation. She works in the tech industry. We spent a long time talking to her about Putin, The Ukraine, The US led sanctions on Russia, the middle east, Gay rights in Russia, etc. This was to Cathy and I the highlight of the day (the massage is a close second). We love hearing other perspectives of the world then those we are exposed to in the States. Her take on the all of these issues were very different from what we take as the truth in the west. From “we will never know who shot down the Malaysian plane”, to the sanctions imposed upon Russia by the west won’t work and only harm the innocent workers, to why is America obsessed about Gay Rights more than what is happening in Syria, the free wheeling discussion moved along. It was most interesting. In the back of my mind I was quietly thinking and dismissing the thought that this beautiful young single Russian woman was really a KGB spy. Maybe I have read too many thrillers and spy stories. After a second bottle of Rose (we saved some for tomorrow), we headed back to our separate rooms. What would James Bond done?