Hopping Hills and Hopping Mad

After getting thoroughly fatigued by Delhi's polluted air and crowded conditions in the tourist ghetto, we were fortunate enough to spend two days with our friends, the Shins, in south Delhi. With their characteristic munificence, they fed us three well-balanced meals a day and we enjoyed playing with their kids, four-year old Ji-Min who speaks perfect English and her little brother who has hair that stands straight up as if by static electricity and has just learned to walk in the few months since we saw him last. We took the train to Kathogdam and then had a nausea-inducing jeep ride up to Almora to find the bike right where Esin and Uli said it would be. After resting for two days in the hamlet of Kasar Devi, once bright shiny morning we were loading all our luggage onto the bike to start moving across the state of Uttaranchal when we got into the first full-fledged fight of our travels of eight months. The proprietors of our guesthouse changed the price of our room from 100 to 150 rupees, which wouldn't have been a big problem if we had rationally discussed the misunderstanding and they had conceeded that the senile elderly father had made a mistake. But they refused to take any money from us, called us cheaters, and Ingrid lost her temper. After screaming her best in hindi, we went down the hill to Almora and found some police, who listened to Ingrid's excited, grammatically tragic version of the story and were very happy to tell us not to worry about it. Long story short, we didn't pay for our two nights stay and proceeded on to Gwaldam. We have hopped from one town to the next over the past four days in the foothills of the Himalayas and have finally ended up back in the hot plains in the city of Dehra Dun, where we are attempting to conglomerate all our supplies for the trip up to the high mountains following our Vipassana. With only the help of some tarp, a pair of bandannas, and an extra mechanics outfit, we are attempting the next metamorphosis of our identities. As Dignan says in the film "Bottle Rocket:" "On the run from Johnny Law; ain't no trip to Cleveland." Adios.