Advertisement
Published: January 9th 2008
(Catherine)
We had originally planned to spend Christmas in Delhi but felt a bit 'citied-out' so we decided to re-route to Rishikesh (where - pop fact - the Beatles stayed in 1968 and apparently wrote the 'White Album'!).
Rishikesh is the gateway to treks in the Himalaya so it's surrounded by forested hills which are really picturesque. The Ganges also flows through it (a nice, clean bit that looks good in photos!). There are lots of ashrams, monkeys, yoga centres, temples and, as we discovered after we'd booked our train tickets, an alcohol ban!!! You can imagine our despair at the thought of Christmas Day without a drink!!!
As it was a celebration, we booked into a mid-range hotel (17 pounds a night - a fortune!) which had room service and a TV (woo-hoo!). On the first evening we walked down to the Parmarth riverside temple to watch the ganga aarti celebration. This was a really happy ceremony which involves lots of singing, chanting, lighting of candles and offerings being floated down the river. We came away feeling very serene and headed back to our hotel for a sneaky whisky (we'd bought a bottle in Amritsar so we
Christmas TV
Not a Hospital or Noel Edmonds in sight!could have a festive drink!).
The next day we visited the 13-storey Swarg Niwas temple which has lots of bells on every level that you ring as you walk past. Bizarrely, there were jewellery and textile shops dotted among the Hindu Gods - I've never seen such a display of spiritual commercialism!
Christmas Day itself was very strange. It was hot and sunny and we felt like we were just pretending it was Christmas! The hotel had put an Indian version of a Christmas tree in the lobby but apart from that, it felt like any other day.
We'd heard about a bar 11km away that falls in a kind of no-man's land between Rishikesh and another holy city making it exempt from the alcohol ban - hurrah!! Much to Matt's joy, it also served meat (Rishikesh is strictly vegetarian!). We jumped in a rickshaw and 40 minutes later we were sipping rum and beer surrounded by palm trees and Indian families dressed in hats and coats (this is a cold time of year for them).
We finished the day as we started by ordering room service in our hotel (well, we had to make the
most of it while we could!). All in all, it was the most surreal Christmas ever!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.138s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0562s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Sarah
non-member comment
Snap!
Your Christmas tree looks almost identical to the one at the cottage!! I'll have to send you the photo of it, with Mum posing. It's very funny! Lots of love xxx