When in rome, do some yoga???

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Right been putting this one off for ages so just going to do it, arrived Richikesh shattered so after paying for the trek checked into the nearest hotel and slept. Woke up that evening and tried to get my hands on some warm clothes, where we were going, camping at 3200m the night temperatures would be down to minus 5 Celsius so kinda wanted to get some thermals, no joy though, should have had hiking boots as well because we would have hiking through snow, but didn’t get those either, so I was relying on my trusty pumas that served me well through the piles of elephant crap at prayer, but not exactly built for conquering. Did manage to buy a coat made locally in the village that looked decent enough and more importantly I’d wear it again not like most of the stuff in this spiritual hideaway. Back to bed for another marathon sleep, early start the next morning, met the two girls I would be hiking with, Norway and North Sweden, so was guessing they were used to the cold, and I felt very under prepared when I say the amount of stuff they had brought compared to my little back pack.

Anyway there was no turning back, and after a 8 hour drive we arrived at the starting village, Sari, from here it was about a 2km walk up the hillside to camp 1, took about a hour and even though we weren’t that high could defiantly feel the altitude. Set up camp and had dinner. The sun set at about 6 o clock and it got freezing, way to cold to sit outside. I of course hadn’t brought a book with me but lucky Maria had invested in a few magazines so I went to bed reading fashion, style and sex tips in Men’s Health India.

Next morning we had a 5—hour trek to the next camp, the jeep took all of the camping gear on ahead. The scenery was amazing; we trekked along a ridge between two peaks and had incredible views of the snow caped Himalayas. Apart for the odd village women cutting wood and carrying huge bundles of it back home, and a Shepard with his sheep and a few dogs that had to have metal guards round their necks to protect them from the wolves, we didn’t see a soul all day. Arrived at camp at about 3 o clock, it was all set up for us, gathered some wood, directed by our driver who had a fantastic moustache built a massive fire, had dinner and sat around that for the evening, with nothing else to do I spent it carving the walking stick had bee using for the day. Next day was the summit of Chopta, spelling probably not right, left at about 8 am the path up the temple about a hour from the summit was ridiculously well made, sponsored by some temple commission it was better than most of the roads, it is a very popular temple for pilgrims during the summer, we only met one other group of trekkers. At this stage we were into the snow although the path was mostly clear, had got use to the altitude at this stage so went on ahead, after the temple was back to walking on tracks. The view from the top was incredible; to the north the snow hundreds of kilometers of snow covered peaks including Nanda Devi 7816m the second highest peak in India and smaller green foothills to the south. The fourth day we just packed up camp and drove for about 8-9 hours back to Richikesh. I know it was a very luxurious trek we had two cooks a guide and a driver, and we were spoilt with the food I couldn’t have done it on my own especially with the cold, it was the last of the organized treks out of Richikesh for the winter. On the way back we passed a funeral where the bond and wood were being carried down to the Ganges for cremating… rafting on the Ganges tomorrow, mmmh tasty

Rafting was cool, guide was really good but found out halfway down that he only had arrived in Richikesh a week before, had only been down the river 4 times and we were his first time with a group and in a raft. The first rapid, only small he got everyone to stand up on the side of the raft, I was one of the first to fall in, gonna blame it on the face I was up the front! Also let us body surf down some of the rapids. Was really good, only two big rapids though would love to do a long expedition at some stage.

Spent the next few days in Richikesh, the town is a wonderful mix of western tourists, hippies and outdoors people, Indian babbas (holy men on pilgrimages all dressed in orange robes with huge beards, although apparently most of them are just beggars disguised to fool tourists. Or even some of them are criminals again using it as a disguise, I was told of a few murder stories that happened a few years ago) scores of ashrams (spiritual communities) all coming alive with chanting and bell ringing around sunset. As well as the usual mix of cows dogs monkeys and donkeys all who use the pedestrian bride, I got my first cow attack one morning walking down street swung its head at me and hit me in the ass with its horn, luckily I saw him start so had half jumped out of the way and also had a book in my back pocket so that took the most of the hit and he didn’t chase me. The night before I saw a jeep try to reverse down a lane a cow was lying there not moving so he moved slowly to try get it to move the… the cow was more then half under the back bumper but still no sign of moving, they know they are scared. It’s a really nice town and it the yoga capital of the world but it had got much commercialized in the last few years and the amount of building is crazy.

Few days after the rafting the Scandinavians headed off home and I came to Haridwar with Ruth, a girl I met rafting, we went on a half day safari, with a local tour operator, Senjeev, who turned out is a bit of a legend, he adopted a baby elephant 8 years ago that had been abandoned when villagers scared his mother off, the first person to legally do so in 40 years, and plans to release him back in a few years. He also makes nature documentaries for international channels, works for bollywood scouting shoot locations and countless other jobs. We saw a lot of deer wild boar then almost at the end of the trip while in a watch tower say a massive male elephant; we ran and jumped into the jeep to catch up wit him. By the time we got there he had crossed the road and was a good bit away in river drinking, but we watched him for a while until he disappeared off into the elephant grass, again it was amazing to see an animal like that wild in its own environment. Afterwards we went to see Yogi the adopted elephant, he was lovely really friendly and curious. And he eats almost 300 kg a day.

That evening went to Har-Ki-Pauri, a scared ghat created in the 1st centenary be, where every day pilgrims dip in the Ganges of place flower s and floating candles in it, one man stopped beside us and threw a large cotton sack into the water, can only guess what it was, made a dull thud when it hit water. Haridwar, meaning gateway of god is one of the 7 holy cities in India and every twelve years Kumbh Mela occurs in the city, a festival where millions of people come from over the world the next one is in 2010 and they are expecting 30 million people, can’t even imagine what that gonna be like.

Ruth headed off two days ago and I started a 10 yoga course in a local ashram but dropped out yesterday, wasn’t cut out for ashram living was like being in church from 5am till 8pm but the people were really nice. I’ve a train booked to Kolkata on the 20th but want to get there earlier now all the earlier trains are full so might fly from Delhi, really don’t know what to do. Was looking forward to the 35 hour train journey (which was only costing 7 euro in sleeper class) but flights are fairly cheap. Apart from that nothing really to tell, I know I’ve left out loads but it would be impossible to tell everything in this, I’ll try not to leave it too long till the next blog probably from Kolkata, just a mater of when
Wes

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Photos

Da Gang
Nanda Devi in the background to the left of the pic

Start of the Ganges
The two rivers mix to make the biggining of this holy river, apparently 400 million people depend it along its lenght untill it enters the sea in kolkata. and most ashes from the country end up in here aswell.

Har-Ki-Pauri, Haridwar
Diaily hundreds of Pilgrims clense themselves in the Ganges at sunset

Comments

[Emilie]

Aww
Awww that efelant's sooo cute!