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2003-09-02 - Mahendranagar (Day 140)

I am awoken at 5am by the horrible pounding of the rain on the roof of the hotel and get up to hear the rain just pouring down. I can tell I am not going anywhere today so I kill the alarm and sleep in. When I awoke, it was still pouring and going downstairs, I see the river next to the hotel is within a foot of overflowing its banks. The house next to the hotel has water up to the cement base of the hotel and a jeep and van that were parked near the hotel have water above the dashboards. People are huddled everywhere under trees in restaurants to wait out the rain, which continues unabated until after noon.

In the afternoon I wade out into the streets and with the streets primarily dirt and stone, the way was wet going to say the least. Shopkeepers were using brooms to push the water out of the shops and into the ditches that were still running high but had gone down a bit since morning.

I pass an afternoon of instant messaging with friends and family - the next generation will not understand why this ability to talk to friends all over the world in real time is so amazing and new, but after ten years of preaching that this will happen with technology am still amazed to be in the border between two middle of nowhere places and talk to people in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the United States all at the same moment in real time for less then a dollar an hour! Amazing!

On the way back to the hotel I find that two Israelis have taken the room next to me - they stopped as they saw my bike parked in front of the hotel - and have done almost the same trip I have minus the month in Himachal Pradesh. While I've had experiences that haven't been overly positive with Israelis on this trip I figure the best thing I can do is put an honest effort on traveling with them, form my opinion from first hand knowledge and I decide to join them on the way to on of the national parks nearby - I'm sure there is more to come on this story.

And the last little bit of fun for the day is that I turned on the T.V. to find that Maoist guerillas had broken the ceasefire in long going hostilities this week and attacked and killed several police and Army officials. In addition, the town I am in made national news having more then 100 houses in "flooded in the torrential rains Monday {last} night"! Well doesn't this seem like I'm coming to where the action is yet again!

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