August Update

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Hello!


Here’s my August news update from India then. Staying in Dharemsala, where I came back in July, I ended up attending a meditation course. I wanted to relax a bit after coming through Kashmir and doing some pretty intensive traveling. The course turned out to be really intense, you start your day at 4AM it lasted 10 days and it was completely silent. No distractions your not allowed books or music etc,. nothing to focus on except your meditation course. The technique is called Vipassana meditation and it basically takes the breathing techniques from Buddhist meditation and gives it a really scientific basis keeping it free from any religious sects. So you use the technique to examine your own breathing and then your own sensations (www.dhamma.org). Anyway the experience was really good, especially remaining silent for the whole course. I had the chance to think about so much stuff. Mainly two things,. : (1) summing up my trip where I’ve been all the different experiences and what to do with my remaining time in India. (2) I thought so much about home and all the things I’m looking forward to, I was mentally planning out what I’d on the first day back, then the first week, all the folk to catch up with. After a few days it’s amazing how quiet your mind becomes, all sorts of nostalgic memories get a chance to come to the surface.
Below is a photo of the grounds of the centre, I spent most of my free time there, walking around the grounds with a song stuck in my head and looking out for wildlife. The monkeys were really tame and it was great watching them swing through the trees and scavenge for food.



I left Dharemsala on the 15th, I checked outside the guesthouse and noticed it was pretty busy - loads of Indian tourists about, I presumed it was because it was Saturday. After walking a bit the roads were completely jammed, people everywhere, I spotted a backpacker so I asked him what the deal was. He told me it was the Indian Independence Day! If I’d known how much hassle getting to Rishikesh would be I’d have gone back to the guesthouse. I’d already walked 2km by this point and the taxi rank was just ahead so I just continued on. At the bus station the bus to Pathankot (where I’d catch the train) was 45 min late so I took another bus to Kangra and from there got a bus to Pathankot. By the time I got to the train station it was half 6, my train wasn’t due to depart till half 8 but I would have liked to have gotten there early to be sure of a sleeper. As I feared though the Sleeper was all booked out so I had to go ‘general class’ as the ticket lady called it which is a fancy way of saying second class. It cost 103 rupees which is about £1.35 - crazy! The 13 hour train journey was pretty tough for the first 6/7 hours I was crammed in near the door, pretty uncomfortable. As more people got on and off I got pretty close to the seats and ended up sitting on top of the ridge dividing the opposite facing seats. I chatted to some Sikh guys who were heading to Rishikesh aswell. One of the guys was sitting opposite me so I took a photo of him just to get some idea of the chaos as I prob won’t be travelling second class again if I can help it! There are people sleeping in the luggage racks, theres people sitting on every bit of available floor space, you can just see a guy climbing down with his back turned. He was sitting crouched on top of the open train door!
We were just coming into a station when I took the photo so there’s a lot of movement, but I chose that time deliberately so as not to attract to much attention that I had a camera. I didn’t feel unsafe but it’s always better to be discreet, in these sort of situations.Anyways that was my experience on a second class Indian train, I don’t regret it, it was an interesting experience good to have done but next time I’ll make sure I’m on sleeper.





Rishikesh is a nice town, built on the banks of the Ganges as it emerges from the mountains, thus it’s considered a very holy city in India. It’s popularity was helped by the Beatles when they came here to get some yoga lessons back in the 60s. After a few days of relaxing on the banks of the Ganges, I planned my trip to the source of the Ganges. The trip lasted a week but the trek itself only took 3 days it was getting there that swallowed my time, the buses are so slow. It’s 250km between here (Rishikesh) and Gangotri but the journey is so long I decided to do it in 2 stages a 7/8 hour journey to Utterkashi where I picked up my permit for the National Park. Then the following day to go the last 100km took 6 hours! The views are spectacular though which makes up for it. Gangotri is as far as the road goes, the village was full of Hindu pilgrims who visit the temple - cited as the spiritual source of the Ganges and others like myself who trek the 20 odd km to the Goumukh glacier where the Ganges emerges.
The weather was fantastic, no rain and lots of sunshine. The first day I set off early and I reached my destination Bhojbasa by lunchtime. I ended up staying in an Ashram (it’s mainly for Hindu pilgrims but they offer some basic accommodation and food for tourists).I met some Spanish guys at the Ashram who were really cool, so the next morning we set off for the glacier which was only 4km from Bhojbasa. The Goumukh glacier from where the Ganges emerges is a massive 23kmlong and 4km wide. I spent a few hours scrambling about the till covered glacier and had a great time


On the way back to Rishikesh we (myself and the Spanish guys) stopped at a tiny little village called Gangnani, which had some sulfurous hot springs. The temperature was perfect and there were no other tourists, it was nice and relaxing after the trek.







I spent a couple of days in Rishikesh, with the Spanish guys who were all going in separate ways. I managed to get to an internet connection for the first time in over a week, and got some new music downloaded which is the only way to get you through some of these bus journeys (btw if anyone has some new music recommendations I’d be grateful - I’m pretty out of touch over here). Myself and Diego then headed off North again into the mountains, spending all day on a bus from 6AM to 5PM we stayed the night in Joshimath and then continued the rest of the journey to Govindghat the following morning. From there we trekked 13km to Ghangaria which we used as a base to visit the Valley of flowers which was discovered in 1931 by a British mountaineer, and was awarded UNESCO world heritage status a few years ago. It is only really worth visiting for a few months out of the year when the valley is in bloom, right place right time for me. I hadn’t heard about the valley till Diego told me about it in Rishikesh, and it was a cool experience. The alpine meadow sits at around 3400M and the first thing you notice when you walk through it is the strong fresh smell of the flowers. When we were walking back to Ghangaria an Indian television crew stopped us and asked me if I’d give an interview for them. They asked all sorts of questions about my experience here. Just another one of those random things that happens in India.
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Most of the people staying in Ghangaria are Sikh’s who are on a pilgrimage to Hemkund, a lake which sits at 4200M and can be reached by a very steep 6km path from Ghangaria. Me and Diego made the trek the following morning. The path was incredibly steep, climbing 1200M in just 6km. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t great and it was really misty up on top.
The Gurudwara at the top had a huge pot of amazing rice pudding which they dished out to everyone. I spoke to loads and loads of people,. Nearly always the same questions,. Which country? Are you married? And what’s your profession? I managed to get down the 6km in an hour (see the photo of all the folk heading down in the rain) so I decided just to trek the rest of the 13km back to Govindghat. This turned out to be a good decision as this just happened to be one of the biggest events in the Sikh calendar and they were having fireworks and all sorts of other stuff back at Govindghat. There was sword fighting with a huge circle of people gathered. Just lots of random entertaining things, like for example a guy knelt with a coconut ontop of his head while someone raised a stick of bamboo and brought it down full force smashing the coconut! Whilst I was watching the festivities, I got chatting to an Indian guy, or rather he quizzed me on all sorts of stuff. I must have met his approval because he asked if I wanted to go for a chai (cup of tea) with him and meet his family. So I followed him to this wee place where he introduced his family and made special note of his daughter and made sure I sat next to her. It was all very strange and I couldn’t help thinking I was being sized up as a potential marriage partner! I drained my chai and excused myself claiming the need for an early night.




Anyways I’m safe and well and still having a great time here. Thanks again for reading, I’ve tried to add in a few photos to make it a wee bit more interesting.

Ok well take care and let me know how your doing!



Andy,

P.s. all the photos are stored here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/57899353@N00/

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