What Are the Odds?

The main demographic of travelers in India seems to be young Israelis. They are so prominent, especially in this part of the country, that signs are often in Hindi, English, and Hebrew, and travel agencies bare names like "Shalom Tours." Americans are a rare minority. So a few nights ago in Manali, when faced with the decsion of where to eat dinner I ended up in one very trendy, loud, Israeli restaurant. I always feel bad as a party of one when I have to monopolize an entire table in a busy restaurant, so I was more than happy to share my table when David and Daniel entered. These two middle-aged (they claim to have the combined age of 100) English blokes have found a way to maintain the lifestyle of the debaucherous 20-somethings that they once were by moving permanently to India's hottest party beach, Goa. They left behind their girlfriends for a while to escape the heat with a motorcycle trip up to the mountains. They were eager to share with me such aged wisdom as "Your 40th birthday will be far better than your 21st," "You really must visit Israel," and "Never stay up for three days on pills."

As chance would have it, these fellows were staying in the same hotel as me, and also chose the same restaurant (also Israeli) that I chose for lunch the next day at which point they took it upon themselves to give me a two-hour lesson in the complex rules of backgammon, "The world's greatest game." Though the instruction was no doubt valuable, I soon realized it might last all day and tactfully excused myself. I had a yak to ride, after all.

That morning I had made a very very long hike out to the neighboring town of Vashisht. This little town has views of the Himalayas even more spectacular than Manali's along with a cool old wooden temple. The temple houses some holy hot springs that I was eager to dip my feet in until I realized it was more customary to dip one's whole naked self in. Instead, I hiked back to Manali and played backgammon for two hours.

Though I was still tired from the morning hike, I made the climb up to the Hadimba Temple for a yak ride (the things I do to please Nicole...) I found the yak guy, haggled him down to 30 rupees then mounted the great beast. As I sat awkwardly atop the yak a crowd of teenage boys materialized to laugh and point and take pictures, so I was quick to dismount and return to Manali. When I passed the Israeli lunch restaurant on my way back I noticed that David and Daniel were still sitting playing backgammon almost two hours later.

Tired of overnight bus rides, I opted for an all-day bus ride to get to my next destination, Shimla. I had considered not even coming to Shimla since there's not really that much to do here, and Manali was so great. I was really beginning to regret my decision when the bus ride got progressively worse. It began at 8:30 in the morning and didn't end until about 5:30 in the evening, and in the mean time I never really got to eat and spent most of the time being sweat upon by the large man sitting next to me. The bus also broke down half way through the day, which was not particularly fun. I arrived in Shimla exhausted, starving, and in no mood to be reckoned with and then discovered that since Shimla is built on the side of a hill with tiny pedestrian-only streets I was going to have to walk uphill to my hotel with all of my luggage. As my scowl deepened I made my way up the hill into the town.

As I entered the main part of town I looked up and the first person that I saw coming my direction through the crowds was a young, white, male who looked strikingly like my dear friend Nick from the University. I knew Nick to be on a rafting trip in Rishikesh so I attributed the vision to delirious hallucination until I saw that behind the Nick-looking boy was an Abby-looking girl and a Dan-looking boy. A Shimla MIRACLE!!!! By the time I realized what was happening I was already being strangled in a bear-hug by Nick. There were shrieks, hugs, and shouts of "What are YOU doing here??!"

As it turns out, Nick, Abby, Dan, Hoken, Martha, Laurel, and Andi had all been in Rishikesh on a rafting adventure when they decided on a whim to visit Shimla. And they just happened to come on the same day that I happened to choose and they just happened to be walking down the street at the exact moment that I happened to arrive. But, I mean...India only has like 1.2 Billion people, so it's not that much of a coincidence. They kindly invited me to join them in their crammed hotel room which Nick accurately described as "the set of a 1970's ski-lodge porn movie." It was wonderful to see them and it felt so normal to be hanging out with them that we kept forgetting the incredible circumstances that had brought us together.

In the morning sadly, we had to say goodbye again. They moved on to their next destination and I spent the day wandering cute, colonial Shimla (it looks like Europe. It's totally weird.) Tonight I'm taking yet another overnight bus to Delhi so that tomorrow I can fly back to Hyderabad.