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Published: September 16th 2006
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Rishikesh
Seen from our hilltop manor afar, a portion of Rishikesh which you can see is split by the Ganges river. Well my time in Delhi lasted a little longer than I originally expected, it seems that getting money in India isn’t as easy as it has been elsewhere. Only the obvious ATM’s work and those are only in the very major cities. I decided to stock up on cash since I still don’t have a credit card because of Arusha and my travelers checks are a long forgotten memory. I can’t say Delhi was the nicest place I’ve visited, the reasons for that are too many to list. From the get-go we arrived through kilometers and kilometers of slums that encroached on the train tracks. Cities built in garbage of garbage and on garbage. I started theorizing on the progress of litter out the train windows, actually being recycled to some degree by the people living on its border to make roofs, rafts, walls and anything else that’s needed. While this made for really interesting sights in my eyes, things unfortunately got a bit more “civilized” and the slums faded into an onslaught of touts.
Jord and I made our way from the old, original Delhi train station to the area around the New Delhi station and after a frustrating
Bag Men
What an episode we had with these guys. They patched and fixed my shoes, daypack, main pack and even sewed on a few flags I needed done. Things were wonderful until they tried to charge us $60 USD. *&%$!! While I don't blame them for trying the average laborer here makes like $3 USD a day, so why would I give these guys anything more than that for 30 minutes of work and limited materials. It was quite the fight but they left with over $2 each and we parted ways. exchange with a certain street tout trying to get us into various hotels (and ended in much cursing on our end) we locked ourselves in our room and got our bearings. Because of my bank issues Jord left the very next day for Dehra Dun and I followed him 24 hours later where we made another rendezvous and then another hasty exit for the town of Rishikesh. The 50 some-odd kilometer ride to Rishikesh lasted 90 minutes in a rough looking excuse for a bus. Rishikesh was a nice change for several reasons, the main being that it’s situated in the foothills of the Himalayas and right beside the holy Ganges River.
Our hotel was nice, but not nice enough, thus after one night there which didn’t make the grade, we moved down the road to a different area and setup shop there. The last few days have been a mix of social boredom and many recreational activities. The people here seem to be mainly from Israel and stick to themselves, there are not a lot of places to congregate and meet people, but that hasn’t stopped Jord and me from doing a rafting trip, hanging out with the
Bus Mates
Let the good times role. snake charmer, doing a yoga session, exploring the river, the market, the Ashrams and the general local area.
The hippies here and India in general are totally out of control. Rishikesh seems to be in a category of its own where free spirits young and old toil with countless new age schemes. Expatriates and others alike seem to flock to Rishikesh in general for various forms of spiritual enlightenment. Although Jord and I decided to avoid ESP courses and other crazy endeavors it certainly doesn’t stop people from trying to make money teaching spiritual courses on a varying degree of topics (or anything else for that matter). We wanted to learn telekinesis and fire breathing but couldn’t find any reliable instructors.
The Ashram’s around this area frighten me. We were walking around and saw this procession emerge from one temple-like place where all sorts of strangeness occurred. I’ll leave it at that. We did manage to visit one of the more famous ones where the Beatles hung out for some period of time, long before my time. Jord and I debated the pro’s and cons of Ringo’s departure, reasons being perhaps his wife wore the pants or that
Our Room
Bottom left room, shorts hanging out to dry. This is my life on the road. I tried as hard as I could last night to remember my own bed, but it did me no good, and that was before I even remembered my bed is in my parents basement storeroom likely covered in dust. he was simply a wimpy b*tch. Jord defended him to end claiming he would have left as well were he Ringo and after tempers flared it’s a surprise we’re still traveling together.
We gave Yoga a shot and it was fun. We were really reluctant since for first timers, being in a secluded forest in India with Yoga masters everywhere was a bit overwhelming. We quickly made a pact whereupon any chance a mishap or general strangeness occurred, we would quickly be hide it all from the outside world brush the whole thing under the rug. It turned out to be quite nice actually, and I felt relaxed and more limber than I’ve ever been (at least since being a kid). Jord and I both pulled the exact same muscles at the exact same time less than 10 minutes into the session but both managed to hide it well. The OM (sp?) chanting and meditation were a bit dodgy; I’m uncertain whether I did any of it right. Jord and I apparently had a LOT of negative energy, since the teacher explained the more you sweat, the more you release, and it wasn’t long before my yoga mat transformed
Day Packs
We found this awesome old woman who does laundry. She managed to wash every last piece of cloth both Jord and I own (except our main large backpacks) for like $5 USD. I just wish I had a "before" shot. Good as new! into a slip and slide where I surprised even myself when I left without injury. I had trouble meditating as well, I had no clue what to do, I tried to do what the teacher said but every time I pictured something he said not to picture that. In fact, looking back I think the guy read minds. It’s all really confusing. At points when I was standing on my head trying to focus, sweat pouring into my nostrils making it impossible to do the breathing mantras (or whatever they were called) I almost panicked (I blame the Malaria medication) but managed to calm down enough to finish the position and pretend that everything was O.K. We followed every one of the Yoga masters rules, no drinking water for 10 minutes after, no shaking hands or eating for 30 minutes and no showering for 45 minutes. While we did leave the session a tad disappointed that we couldn’t kill people with some makeshift internal energy weapons, if nothing else we had a great sleep.
Rafting down the Ganges River was really fun, the rapids were really wimpy but we had no other options and for me, since it was
Yoga
Strage things happened in this room... my first white water rafting experience, good I guess? For $7 USD a two hour excursion was very reasonable, and even if it amounted to simply an exciting view of the valley and city it turned out to be really great. Our plan now is to head further north and do some hiking in the Himalayas near the India and China (Tibet) border. I bought a new sweater the other day and I’m excited about getting somewhere less hot and humid (life’s rough, I know).
For now though, it seems we’re forced to face-off with the constant incoming stream of moths, mosquitoes and frogs that constantly attempt to invade our room while we desperately try and catch up on our journals. We feel very strange here without any tie-dyed clothing, beads or hemp, and thus feel its time to move on!
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