A day off at Rishikesh...

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I mentioned to Zakari that we should take advantage of our last day in Derhadun and go check out Rishikesh, which is only about an hour or two drive away. He agreed and I talked to the school who arrainged for a driver right away. I told Sandeep that we're going to Rishikesh and that he needs to come with us. Especially since he wont have anything to do since his students won't be in class. So after some convincing he agreed.

I really enjoyed myself. We insisted that our driver, Raj, join us and he was a lot of fun as well. The whole time we were laughing and joking, Sandeep became our photographer. Which was so funny because all you heard was 'click, click, click'. So I was off the hook and didn't have to always take the pics. 😊 I actually felt like I was a movie star with all the pictures that were taken of me.

Oh! but I'm getting ahead of myself....
From the moment that we first arrived people stopped us wanting to take pictures with Zakari, or me, or both of us. Hey we were a rarity. But we were stopped 4 maybe 5 times while crossing the bridge just to get pictures taken with us. HEY! Maybe I should start charging! LOL

Rishikesh is so calm. That's the first thing that we realized as we walked down the dirt path between the two bridges named, Lakshman Jhula and Ram Jhula, which are the names of two of the Hindu gods who are brothers. The town was built along the Ganges River so there are a lot of pilgrims who come here. I found it pretty cool. There's quite a bit of westerners there taking yoga and meditation courses. It seemed that there was a yoga or massage shop at every turn. Hmmm...cool.

We visited the Trayambakeshwar Temple, which was amazing. We weren't suppose to take pictures while we were in the temple. Well, we listened to a point. As you can see in the picture, there's quite a few floors, thirteen I believe. Instead of walking inside a building you walk around the building and on each floor there are all of the Hindu gods and goddesses. Zakari did the math and figured that there were 99 gods and goddesses in the temple. It was amazing. I remember that Zakari told Sandeep that if he was Hindu that he would only pick one to pray to. Which caused us all to laugh.

We walked down to the bank of the Ganges river and I was surprised to find that it was sandy. I guess I'm just used to seeing rocks along the banks of rivers. I couldn't resist wiggling my toes in the warm sand. We had been going back in forth toying with the idea of actually bathing in the Ganges but decided not to. Hey the water is cold! I will say that I was expecting the river to be more polluted since by the time you see the Ganges in Delhi it is nasty. But here in Rishikesh the water is clear and fast moving. You can actually go white water rafting in the river as well. I didn't do that, it's far to cold.

After gathering our shoes from the front of the temple (yes no shoes allowed inside the temples) we walked through town and came across yes you guessed it! A coffee shop! So we stopped inside, rested, looked at all the pictures, relaxed while enjoying some good coffee, and took more pictures. The coffee shop is on the second floor and when you looked out the huge floor to ceiling windows all you saw were trees. I told Sandeep that I feel like I'm in a tree house. Once refreshed we headed out to continue our exploration of town. We met all kinds of people, some were from Spain, Brittan, and even the 'country of Delhi' which made us smile.

We rode a boat across the river and then drove to a lovely restaurant at a very nice hotel. Mind you all the food here in Rishikesh is vegetarian, but I will say that I would be a happy vegetarian if it was cooked like the food here. I left the restaurant full. After lunch we returned to Derhadun, where we had to pack for our return trip to Delhi and say good bye to everyone at school. I hate saying good bye.

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Photos

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that was a very cute calf

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see sandy beaches

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We took pictures with this man but he didn't believe that we would send them to him so he didn't give us an email or address...oh well his loss

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are you moooooved?

Raj
Our Driver

Sandeep
Mr. GQ

Comments

[Jen]

Looks beautiful! Don't forget to send me a postcard from India:-)

[gypsygirl762]

I will hit a post once I'm back in Delhi and find the postcard that i picked up for you. :)