Mass Email - Heading South For the Winter

Namaste all

I know it has been a while since I've written en mass, but the past few weeks have been perhaps the most profound of my life and I've had a hard time articulating my experiences in a single email. So, instead, I'll give a brief synopsis (VERY brief), and will have to fill in the gaps with each of you in person.

We ended up staying in Dharamsala a couple weeks longer than planned, rather than going back to Rishikesh for our trek. The primary reason for this was the fact that, the day we arrived at the trian station, we met 3 guys my age from LA who I could describe as nothing short of soulmates. Raydene and I literally had to jump off the moving train as it began leaving Chakki Bank station, since we almost slept through our stop. This was perhaps one of the funniest things I've ever witnessed, and once we were both safely on the ground we laughed-so-hard-that-we-cried all the way to the main platform of the train station where we stopped, mid laughter, to ask a tall blonde guy if we were at the right stop. The tall blonde guy, Clay, and his 2 travel partners, Eliot and Jesse (twin brothers), told us we were indeed in the right place. The 3 of them are from LA, but just graduated from college and are traveling through India together. It turned out they were doing the same Vipassana meditation course I was, and within 5 minutes the 5 of us were family.
We shared a cab for the 3 hour ride to McLeod Ganj, and ended up posting up in a 5 room guesthouse (which just fit all of us and the owners) on top of a mountain in Dharamkot called The Lotus House. This became the structural "home" that housed our family for the next 3 weeks. We became instantly close with the 2 men running the place, Robin & Vinnie, and all of us cooking dinners every night and sat out on the open-air veranda eating, drinking and enjoying the stars which seemed so close you could grab them.
The guys and I left Raydene and the owners behind for 10 days to do the Vipassana meditation course. To describe the experience in the Dhamma center is absolutely impossible, and a story I'll have to save for face-to-face conversations. It was by far the most challenging thing I've ever done, and it made the 4 of us a million times closer by the 10th day when we were free to leave. We were greeted by Raydene and Vinnie, and the feeling of leaving the center and going somewhere so close to a real home and family was the warmest feeling. What happened between all of us, and the memories we shared in the week and half after Vipassana was something only the 7 of us living up there will ever understand, but I can say that those 17 days were the best days of my life.
We parted ways with very heavy hearts a couple days ago, the boys heading to Rajasthan, and Raydene and I to Manali (farther north). We all plan to meet up in Goa at the end of November to finish up our trip together.
Manali is a beautiful mountain city in the Himalayas, but it is rainy and dreadfully cold here, and the tourist season is over, so all of the shops and restaurants are closed. We arrived very early yesterday morning, and are catching a bus back to Delhi this evening. We've decided we are done with the cold weather in the north, and ready to immerse ourselves in the sweltering heat and chaos of southern India.
We are heading to Delhi, then to Agra (to see the Taj Mahal), then to Rajasthan for a few weeks before heading down to Kerala and Goa. It has been nice to have a rough plan, but to have reason to change the plans has been even more rewarding, and makes us feel like real travelers. :)

My mind is flooded with sentiment for the past few weeks, as well as excitement to get back to the real India and continue our adventures. I'm sorry for the brevity of this email, but I'm sure stories of McLeod will surface throughout my next emails.

I hope everyone is well. I have loved hearing from all of you and hearing about all of the wonderful (and sometimes crazy) things you are all doing. All of you are in my thoughts always.

Be well and keep in touch.

Much love
Cass