A plunge into the Ganges

---

---

Rishikesh, another holy place in India. Here the Ganges comes down out of the mountains. It’s fairly full of silt as particles suspended in the water, so it’s not limpid, but it’s clean and very cold. No brass monkeys in sight anywhere and with good reason. Snowmelt mixed with glacier water. Reminded me of swimming in Lake Superior.

What’s key to remember here is not the cold. In Goa I was swimming in the sea all the time. Until Rishikesh, I have not been able to immerse myself fully in water anywhere. I get showers, which sort of make me clean. But India is a dirty place and riding a motorcycle makes you even dirtier than you might normally be. Here I never feel 100% clean unless I soak myself in water. So after a shower I feel about 95% clean, a state that changes rapidly. Within minutes post-shower I feel I’m down to about 70% clean. So here I could get fully underwater, although it was so cold I couldn’t really stay there. A dilemma: dirt or cold. I chose as much cold as I could stand and got rid of pretty much all the dirt.

I hung out here for a few days. Lots of pilgrims begging for alms in the streets, but they have their begging spot and stick to it. They just hold their hand out and really don’t harass you at all. Begging lite, you might call it. They all wear orange coloured clothing, some fairly new and bright, others old, sun-faded, the colour of orange sherbet. And they all have a tiffin, or lunch pail, that serves an incredible variety of purposes from collecting money to holding food to serving as a pail for bathing under a spigot. They’re not the only ones to have these. Tiffins are ubiquitous here and generally serve as lunch pails. I think the pilgrims simply make more variable use of them than most.

As this is one of India’s major yoga centres, I did a couple of days of this to see what it’s like. I wouldn’t call it strenuous, but it’s exercise and I felt good afterward, mostly the result of endorphins.

---

Photos

Belinda and Sean.
We hung out for a couple of hours at the waterfall at Rishikesh, luxuriating in the quiet, clean surroundings.

Temples at Rishikesh.
Because of an inheritance dispute, the temple on the left is now a shopping mall.

Ganges at Rishikesh
You can bathe here in the glacial water and the sand on the riverside beach is almost as fine as icing sugar.