Blogs from Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India, Asia - page 22

Toronto, December 14, 2007 While I was in India, I spent most of my time in Delhi. Last time, in 2005-2006, I took seven trips, and returned to Delhi seven times - a particularly auspicious number as seven capital cities have rise and fallen on the site where today’s modern Indian capital now stands. New Delhi is the eighth. This time, I took only one trip, and that was to Rishikesh for four days (Nov. 12-15). I went primarily to visit my friends and teachers, Chetana and Vishva (Yogi Vishvketu), who just opened their new ashram - Ananda Prakash Yoga Ashram. On the train to Rishikesh, November 12 Dehradun Shatabdi (the express train from Delhi to Haridwar). I’ve been thinking about me and India, and how our relationship has evolved. Here I am in the midst ... read more

The Himalayas! That crowning jewel of a mountain range that rears its lofty peaks like a crown over this incredible country. They push heavenward, the result of intense pressures within the earth as the Indian sub continent drives its way inexorably northward into the Asian continent! Finally, I've met the other trekkers that I knew were somewhere here in Mumbai, hidden amongst the 18,000,000 or so inhabitants! And our little troop of eight, 5 Indians and 3 Americans, is set to head up to Nanda Devi National Park where Nanda Devi, at nearly 26,000 feet of elevation, towers over the pristine landscape. I dream of the adventures - hiking, climbing, braving the late fall weather. Little do I know, the adventure will begin long before we reach the trail head! 5:45 am, we're in line at ... read more

Namaste, The next leg of our trip took us from Goa (Mid West India) to Rishikesh (North East India). This 24 hour "Pailinesque" journey involved 5 forms of transport and was incident filled. Our internal flight from Goa to Delhi had to make an emergency landing at Mumbai due to an elderly passenger having a heart attack. Luckily there was an Israeli doctor who did her best to stabilize the man and with an ambulance ready as we touched down at Mumbai hopefully he was ok. This caused a huge delay as we had to wait for a slot to take off again. Luckily the November edition of Spice inflight magazine offered some ‘Things to do when bored on a plane’. • Ask the stewardess if you can have some tape and when she asks why ... read more

Made it to Rishikesh yesterday morning! I left Mcleodganj on the 5am bus to Amritstar on Thursday morning and got there about 11 am. It was a public bus this time, so the 'real indian' experience!! It wasn't half as bad as I thought it would be actually. Pretty bumpy, (which I expected) but other than that, not too bad. It was quite a good time as I was tired enough to get some sleep in the morning. By the time I came to it was 9ish and then it was only a couple of hours to go! The worst thing was having to put your luggage on the roof....when you only have a rucksack, its amazing how attached you become to it! I like it right as near to me as possible! I chuckled when ... read more

I must say traveling from Varanasi and then to Rishikesh its hard to believe we were on the banks of the same river. In Rishikesh the Mother Ganga is much closer to its source...it is beautiful and clean....and fresh. We took the train to Haridwar which went very smoothly...we met our contact at the train station and began our 90 minute drive up into the hills past Rishikesh to the Himalayan Hideaway. The 90 min drive was made an hour longer by a pretty bad traffic jam. The culprit? A large truck had dropped his axle just feet away from the railroad crossing. Men were gathering about and that axle was being changed right there on the street. After we passed that congested and smog filled mess were were up and away to our retreat at ... read more