Morning we we seem to wake up around 4:00-4:30 without any alarm. There are enough people around who wake up at this time. So we don’t have much choice. We usually get ready and wait for tea Prasad (everything that is served is referred to as Prasad ). Which is served at around 6:00 am. We finish tea and start walking. In variably it becomes around 7:00am. Our car and driver get to our lunch and dinner locations before us. Everyone is really curious as to why we are having a car and then walking. Today we started walking at 7:10 am. Our lunch stop was Lepagaon. Before that we stopped for tea couple of times. As we walked we would see the four sadhus. Always together. One of them is 74 years old. His name is Arun Panday.. He is from Vrandavan. He knows little of many languages including Tamil. We had lunch in Lepagaon. The volunteer lead was Mangilal Varma. They all serve with such devotion. They ask you again and again if you want more food. Today we had lemon tea after lunch. It was hot water with lemon and sugar. It felt very refreshing. As we were sitting Mangilal and others were asking us so many questions about where we are from what we do why we are doing the Parikrama. We rested for a while and then started walking. In the afternoon we saw Pandayji tying a strip of cloth around his knee. We stopped and gave him an ace bandage. Baiju showed him how to wrap it. He felt better and was walking briskly. All four Sadhus seem to be nice people. As we were walking near a village we found 3-4 puppies on the dirt road. They came up to us and were smelling us and our sticks. We fed them some sweet biscuits and poured water into a bowl looking lid. We reached our night stay destination Kathora by 4:00pm. This place is loacetes on the Narmada bank. Shree Nanakdasji Ashram. As I was going down to the river, one of the volunteers came and asked if I could make some chapatis for dinner. I said that I would. Sowmya said she will help. I was glad to help out. We came back from washing our feet and doing our prayers at the river bank. I went to the kitchen and started mixing the flour for the Chapatis. There was another Sadhu who was staying in the ashram to help out came and kneaded the flour. It was already dark. We made the chapatis outside on a wood burning stove made with some stones. Another Parikramavasi (Sadhu-Ajay Puri) cooked the thick Parathas as I rolled them. Sowmya made the triangle rolls to start the process. As we were making the Parathas the Sadhu was talking about religion and philosophy. Baiju has recorded some of the talk. Will post once we get back home. We ate and we’re ready to hit the sack.Most ashrams have foam mats covered with cloth for the Yatris to use. As soon as we get to the ashram we pick our spot in the hall and take one of the mats and set our things. It is a good idea to have a thin bedsheet to put on the mat before sleeping. Today we walked 21.6 kms.
