Phew. Okay, today I am dragging a bit, likely due to my third night in a row of not great sleep. Plenty tired, and a decent place to rest, but somehow just lying there wishing I could sleep, for hours. I drifted off before sunrise this morning, but it wasn’t enough. We had a lazy midday around here, lunch prasad around 2pm and then chalo, time for the afternoon outing. We hit a few devotional hotspots; Shri Kund, a very peaceful Vallabhacharya baithak (a seat, or spot where some sort of lila and teachings took place generations ago), then over to Kadam Khandi, a tiny temple spot featuring the image of the Sadhu with his dreadlocks getting stuck in the thorn tree, a peaceful spot in the shade of the Rajasthani hills where Shyamdas and Narayan and a bunch of us had gone several years back en route to Barsana.

From there we cruised over for darshan at the Gokul Chandra Ma temple, then topped it off by heading over to Barsana, the town of Shri Radharani’s birthplace, and hiking up the 242 steps up to the amazing Ladli Radha temple atop the hill there, arriving just in time for evening darshan.

A typically Indian bone-jarring ride on a backwoods bumpy road of skeleton-crushing doom got us home, where half the troupe chose to rock on back to the guest house for an evening of early rest; a few of us stayed here at the temple while evening seva happens, enjoying another evening of no wifi but plenty of good devotional texts to enjoy while we await evening Prasad. I hope I sleep well tonight…