Leaving McLeod Ganj by overnight bus I met a couple who told me about a seed saving farm in Dera Dun, a city on the way to Rishikesh. So I decided to hop off with them and detour to this famous farm. Vandana Shiva has been working to protect India's biodiversity of grain varieties. She has been fighting against Monsanto and other agrochemical and seed super giants to retain India's heritage and biodiversity of seeds. She promotes Organic farming and has a project called Navdana where farmers can get seeds for free in return to giving seeds to other farmers the following year. In this way she is working to create a network of seed saving across India. If anyone is curious about her and her work I would highly recommend her book "Soil Not Oil."
I spent three days on the farm recovering from some nasty bacterial nastyness that turned my insides into a methane producing factory. I couldn't eat and I had the weirdest smelling burps ever... enough about my digestion. The point is I was very sick, thankfully the American couple that lead me to the farm also had antibiotics with them so I took a three day course and I was healed! While I was sick I read Dr. Shiva's books on her work. I came away from the farm newly inspired to get down and dirty on a farm somewhere here in India.
I'm now in Rishikesh, dubbed the yoga capital of the world. The Beatles came here and wrote most of the "White Album" at an Ashram here back in the day and since then it exploded into a tourist must stop. The Holy Ganges River flows out of the mountains here, and it is beautiful, but currently foggy. I arrived last night and so far I've just done my favorite Indian past time, walking. As in many places walking is much more than walking. It means dodging everything from cows, monkeys and steaming piles of poo. I'm on a mission today to find some yoga courses, since I'm here I might as well!
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