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Published: November 13th 2006
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Saddhu & Sam,Three Rivers Junction, IndiaAfter the overnight train, we stopped into a local hotel used by Intrepid to freshen up & have some breakfast. A three hour bus ride took us to meet the boats we were due to spend the next 24 hours sailing down the Ganges River on. Along the way, we stopped at Nhero's house, where much of India's independence talks & decisions were held with Ghandi. We also stopped at the three rivers meeting point, which is a holy place that fills with thousands of pilgrims every twelve years for big celebrations. Even though it wasn't festival time, there were still plenty of Sadhu's (Holy men), stall holders, pilgrims & people just chilling out. We were scared back on the bus by a handful of young boys chasing us with snakes in baskets. The cheeky buggers come right up to you & shove these snakes in your face; partially to get a reaction & definately to extort money from you before they disappear. We mostly refused to pay them as it sets a precident for future tourists, but they never the less seemed to enjoy sending us scurrying for the safety of the bus.
We arrived at the meeting point,
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Three Rivers Junction, India split into three groups & boarded our slow boats. I was under the impression we were travelling quite a distance & the boats would have motors, but it turned out we'd be relying solely on human power, not horse power. There were two men per boat, one to navigate & steer, the other to row. There was a fourth boat, which was to serve as the kitchen & Hannah assured everybody on numerous occasions that the food was pretty awesome; turns out she was spot on there, it was fantastic.
The sailing was quite relaxing, although I managed to sit in the only spot with blazing, direct sun until dusk, which made the still air feel even hotter. We found a spot just on dark, docked on the riverbank & the boat guys set up camp while we drank Chai & ate biscuits. We were placed on the plateau of a large sand dune in dome tents & ate dinner without any artificial light, as the full moon was bright enough. It was an early end to a long day of hard travel & good food.
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