Monkeys, monkeys everywhere (Rishikesh)

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Not a great deal has happened in the last few days in Rishikesh. We've just been taking things easy , resting, eating (what a surprise), reading and doing a bit of walking ( but not much!). We haven't felt the need to do a great deal as you don't need to be doing things in order to feel like you are doing something here. There is always so much going on around you that you can just sit back and take it all in.

Rishikesh is set amongst green, forested mountains. It is the yoga capital of the world and has some very important Hindu temples here. At it's heart is the Gange River - vast and gently flowing - which splits the town. The water is cold and has a beautiful opaque sky blue clay colour. It looks fresh and inviting and tomorrow (our last day here) we are going to test that theory! As the Gange splits the town there are different areas to visit and stay. At one end, Laxmanjhula Bridge arches over the river. The area surrounding it is appropriately called Luxmanjhula - where we are staying - and this is where most people stay. There are wondeful views to be had from the bridge and monkeys bounce and swing along the bars - in some cases grabbing bags and tugging on people's trousers for food. The bridge is only wide enough for two people, so it's quite fun when motorbikes whizz past. The bridge also slightly moves. At the other end of Rishikesh (about 15 mins walk) is Ramjhula Bridge. This is the area where the main temples can be found and the bathing ghats. This is where we are hoping to see the famous candle lighting ceremony tomorrow evening, which takes place on the ghats infront of the temple and a giant statue of Shiva. We have been there about 3 times to try and see the ceremony but we always end up in the wrong place! There are a lot of people begging at Ramjhula Bridge. People who are physically handicapped or just very poor. I think they probably get by ok as so many people pass that way to the temples and give them money...

Our hotel is at the top of the hill and we have a balcony which looks over the ganga - we are so happy with our room. It only costs 3 pounds 50 a night. We have our own bathroom, with a toilet that we flush with a bucket of water and a cold shower wakes us up in the morning and cools us down in the afternoon. We have also done a bit of sneaky sunbathing on the balcony. It is cooler here than anywhere else we have been. We sleep with a banket on our bed now and we have mastered the art of letting it keep us warm whilst not touching it with our skin in case of bed bugs! We snuggle up in our cotton sleeping bags and we sleep very well. We even have a TV with about 50 channels and there's usually a good film on when we fancy it!

We have stopped venturing out in the middle of the day as it gets quite busy with long lines of pilgrims making their way to the temples. The pilgrims tend to be your average Indian and their family. A good percentage are women and this is great because up until Rishikesh we didn't see many women - we're not sure why. So as an Indian town, Rishikesh is quite wealthy beacuse it draws a lot of 'tourists'. There are more westerners here than we've seen in other parts, but mostly it's visited by Indian poeple. A lot of the stalls in the streets are selling clothes, jewelry and religious items. Great big wedges of burning sandlewood and insense fill the streets with their scents. Cows and calves wanders the streets as do a variety of dogs - in all shapes and sizes! I have bought a few packs of biscuits and tried to feed some of them up! One night a couple of dogs just decided to follow us home, hoping for some grub. By the time I had got them some food and I came outside I could see them lolloping off with someone else - hoping for food.

Many of the children here have their eyes 'kohled'. This is to protect them from bad spirits. We have also bought some bindi powder and stamps and have been wearing bindis every day. They represnt you third eye and different colours are for different thngs: Red = dedicated religious follower, Yellow = festival time, Green = earth, animals and environemt, Blue = sky and so on...

We had our first Yoga experience today. When we were trying to hunt down the place where the candle ceremony is held, we stumbled across this yoga room which sits right alongside the river - beautiful. The lesson started at 8am and we were really thrown in at the deep end. I think we were in a room full of yoga teachers! They were really advanced. The warm up move was the most adavnced move I've ever done in Yoga at home! The lesson was both hilarous and knackering. One of the moves was to get into a head stand position and then lift your head off the floor - bonkers. Needless to say Jamila and I sat that one out. Becasue we couldn't do this move, the teacher - who was a young indian guy with bright, kind, doe-like eyes- hung us upside down over his back and swung us back and forth for a few minutes - brilliant! Jamila and I finished the session, shattered and sweaty, but feeling good.

On the same night we found the yoga room, we walked back from Ramjhula to Laxmanjhla at dusk along the river. So beauitiful. We passed white sand beaches and many ashrams and temples. We also saw people setting up for a nights sleep with just a blanket on the grass next to the temples - sometimes with a little fire. Some of the temples are small and plain, others are incredibly grand and colourful. At about 5pm every night, some of the temples have groups of devotees chanting and singing. This goes on for about an hour. It seems that each temple has a different chant. We think that the one next to our hotel is connected somehow to a home for ' Destitutes, Leppors (sp?) and Battered Women'.

The butterflies here are HUGE! They are very pretty and about the size of a small bird in the UK. However, the down side is that the other insects are also equally massive! We had this GIANT cricket hanging outside our room for a few days - it was about 15 cms long.

There are a LOT of religious / holy men here. Men dressed in orange with red bindis and very little to their name. We sat on the ghats and watched the sun go down and one of these men was writing in a little note book and watching the sun set. We also got a henna tattoo, which much to our dismay went bright orange! After about 24hours they turned brown, but not before I tried to remove mine with nailvarnish remover, promptly turnng it blue! BAD IDEA. We have also been able to buy some lovely clothes and also have some made for us. Just accross from our hotel is a clothes / tailor shop. It's run by a Nepali famly who are lovely and we've definitely kept them in business over the last week!

My worst experience here was getting some nasty skin disease! Urgghhh. We think it was impetigo, but as we couldn't find a pharmacy to diagnose it - the one we could find said it was dandruff! - we self diagnosed off the internet. Jamila's aromatherapy training came in useful and we tracked down some tea tree oil which cleared it up in a few days...but I was definitely crusty and gross for some time...mmm...nice.

We are really enjoying the veggie food here. There is a lovely cafe which over looks Laxmanjhula Bridge where we like to sit. It also has a great bookshop next to it where I have exchanged one of my books. However, we are starting to lament the loss of alchohol in our systems. We are looking forward to having a beer in Shimla when we get there on monday!

PS There is still no escape from the beeping of cars, rick shaws and bikes...

I'll be in touch again soon - lots of love Sabina xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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