North Indian Odyssey

Hello all,

I am an American on a yearlong world trip and am thrilled to say I just purchased my flight from Egypt to India. I have allotted around two months for my travels there.

My flight gets into Delhi on April 26th, 2009. It's going to be massively hot in the majority of the country so I am only looking to explore the cooler northern regions of India. These are the parts of the country I am most interested in, anyway.

My interests:

World religions (Dharamsala?)
Tea (Darjeeling?)
Beautiful places to relax in and soak up (Ladakh?)
Culture (Anywhere)
Music (Anywhere)
Taking courses (Language courses especially)
Meditation?
Yoga?
Etc. etc.

Let me know if you can recommend some cities to me. I would also like to incorporate some "must-see" sights (i.e., Taj Mahal + Gold Temple, etc.) into my "itinerary"

My other question: can anyone vouch for the 10-year unlimited entry visa to India? Can I get this from the Indian consulate in Cairo?

In India culture is everywhere.

However, for Hindu Culture, Varanasi and Pushkar are highly recommended. However, both of these will be hellishly hot in April-June.

For meditation/yoga you may choose between Mysore/Rishikesh. Since you will be in north, Rishikesh is recommended.