Wash your hands often.

Brush your teeth with bottled water.

Bring hand sanitizer (lots).

Don’t touch the dogs.

Don’t touch the cows.

Don’t touch the goats.

I got a gentle toe wiggle at 6:30 this morning from my roommate. “It’s time,” she said, “you’re not still going are you?”

I listened to the rain. 14 straight hours of monsoon at that point, and it had also rained (hard) two nights before. I got up and looked out the door, a feeling of defeat washing over me. The rain was not fathomable. It was still a downpour. I laid back down in bed, my plans of meeting another Canadian girl to go with her to the missionary where she volunteered for the morning were dashed, as were my hopes to maybe bike to a temple town outside Varanasi, Sarnath, later in the afternoon. I felt like a caged housecat. I went back to bed.

It’s been a month without my own wheels and I can’t take it anymore.

Getting a bike here has been easy. Mention the idea to Ashish (we live on his family’s rooftop), he brings by old bikes for me to try out, or goes to check them out himself, because if I go with him, “they give no indian price.”