I was in Dehradun the other week. I think its a far better city than Delhi. The main place is Polton Bazaar, which is next to the big clock tower. Its a proper Indian bazaar which sells all sorts of stuff like whistles and filthy clothes. You can usually see a cloud of pink candyfloss floating above the crowd, before you find out its attached to a stick and there's a man trying to sell it. The beggars there are even more desperate, and quite violent at times, which is really sad to see. There's also a chicken street which sells nothing but eggs, so its got shop after shop of hens in cages laying. I don't spend much time there though because its so smelly.

I was Paltan bazaar, shopping, looking around, when we saw fireworks up ahead. We went over to find out it was a big Hindu festival parade. There were men with big tubas and people dressed up as Gods on big carnival floats, and people throwing pink chalk everywhere. Several little boys tried to "pink" us. We tried to run, but we couldn't hide, and eventually we resigned to our fate of being absolutely covered in pink. We were then grabbed, somehow, and (I don't even remember how I got there) were suddenly in the middle of a Hindu parade, dancing with Indian men. They were loving it. So I was shaking hands with all these pink Hindu revellers, while dancing Indian style. Then a cameraman started filming us. I got separated from the girls I was with, but went back to find one dancing with an oxe, the other with a skeleton.

Next day at Toral's house we did Yoga. It wasn't spiritual, it was horrible. And it gave me back pain.

So we had fun in Dehradun, but I was really glad to get back to my quiet monastery.