Hippy Town

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So as I was saying... Rishikesh. I didn't really plan on coming here (though to be fair, I didn't really plan on anything) but I wanted to get out of Delhi and Rishikesh, with it's chilled reputation and location a mere night train away, seemed an obvious choice. It's calmer and cooler than Delhi. I like it. I spent most of my first day here asleep because I just hadn't managed it on the night train (not the train's fault, think I'm still just getting over jetlag and the total ruination of my body clock after Glastonbury). Followed this with a bit of shopping to try and rectify my total packing failure (new camera but no memory card, no towel, no shoes other than mum's flipflops, bikini top but no bottoms, only three pairs of knickers...). Yes, I packed in a rush, as I've already explained this wasn't the best planned trip ever. Because I had hardly any clothes with me and my shopping options in Delhi were severely limited by the strike, I had to make the journey to Riskikesh in a fetching pink Salwar Kameez purchased from a shop near the train station. Yeah, white girls in ethnic clothing! Tragic, but in this case necessary.

So probably the most photographed sight in Rishikesh is the 'pedestrian' foot bridge spanning the Ganges. To cross it is to run a gauntlet of speeding motorbikes, meandering cows, furious thieving monkeys and Indian tourists who want to take my photograph. Once when I was stopped in the middle of it, standing up on tip toes leaning over the railing with my camera, a motorbike actually ran over the back of my flipflop.

Because Rishikesh is pretty popular with Indian families on holiday, the photo taking has reached new levels of silliness. Now people keep giving me their babies and small children to hold for photographs, which is hilarious because they inevitably start screaming inconsolably, proving that kids the world over hate me and I deserved that C in Paediatrics.

I haven't really done much in Rishikesh aside from watch and wander. I'm just enjoying being in India, soaking up the general craziness. I've also been playing around with my new camera, which I bought just a couple of days before I left and have absolutely no idea how to use. Oh yes and I tried a little yoga, because since I'm here it'd be rude not to. This is fun as much for novelty value as anything else, since the classes (1.5 hrs, 150 rupees!) take place outside on the grass of a lovely roof garden with views down the hill to the Ganges. I'd tried Yoga once before back home in Leeds and did not exactly take to it. I went to the Yoga Centre in Meanwood near where I live... everything was going fine until at the end of the session they made us lie down in the dark and instructed us to 'meditate on this piece of music', then proceeded to play an acoustic ukulele version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow. Needless to say I audibly snorted with laughter and had to get up and leave because I was ruining everyone else's contemplation. Also back in Leeds my teacher was some extremely stern and serious woman in her 60s who just loved to demonstrate how she could still get both legs behind her head. But anyway, I'm really enjoying it here. For some reason what seemed daft back in Yorkshire feels quite acceptable here (local culture, you see). No ukuleles in evidence though, thankfully.

I had thought Riskikesh would be sickeningly new age and hippy, but worryingly it doesn't seem to bother me that much. I rather like it. Though I have had to carefully avoid getting into any debates about the merits of alternative versus modern medicine, lest I alienate the entire backpacker community here. On my first day I dragged myself out of bed for breakfast and got chatting to an absolutely ancient American guy who, by way of greeting, called me 'sister' and told me he hopes I 'suffer no wants or desires'. I said actually I quite want some pancakes and a nice glass of Chai. He just smiled tolerantly, perhaps sensing my unenlightened spiritual state. Aside from him though everyone else I've met has been quite tolerable and very interesting to chat to. I enjoy the totally random element of traveling alone. Sharing peanut cookies on the banks of the Ganges with an American aid worker, some stray dogs and a sacred cow, then dinner in a glorified treehouse with an Israeli actor and a German psychoanalyst. Other notable characters include an Indian UN peacekeeping soldier who has worked in various parts of Africa... he was quite strongly opinionated about medical aid agencies and told me that if I want to volunteer I should go with Red Cross because MSF are a bit up themselves. He didn't use that exact terminology per se, but it's the impression I got. Told him I'd bear it in mind.

So like I was saying before I got wildly sidetracked, there's not much to do in Rishikesh unless you want to study various things (yoga, meditation, ayuvedic massage or something). Yesterday I went for a walk to a waterfall, which started when some random Aussie guy I walked past in the street told me there was one just down the road. This was a total lie (it was about two hours away) but it was a nice walk and a lovely waterfall totally in the middle of nowhere, when we eventually found it after some misadventure. You could climb up the various levels and get behind the curtains of water where everything is all rainbowy and crawl into the weird caves where the water comes right out of the rock. Felt amazing to soak myself in cold water in that heat, though couldn't help imagining that I was in a shampoo advert. We had the good sense to hitch a lift back instead of walking but I still managed to give myself mild sunstroke and spend the rest of the day lying down.

So since I'm behind on this blog ALREADY, imagine this all happening a week ago. I'm now back in Rishi, but since then I've been up to the mountains and done some other stuff. More on that later!

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Photos

Banks of the Ganges
Chillin with the sacred cows.

Waterfall
10 points if you can spot me in this pic.

Spiral stairs
Randomly abandoned in the middle of the street, looked like a seashell to me.

Comments

[scottandanny]

Funny blog, though upset you weren't more disturbed by all the hippy-dippy nonsence, as it would have been more grit to your caustic millstone! I was not a fan of the place, seemed to be almost entirely ran to give inappropriate spiritual succour to a bunch of fake western fakirs and troubled gapyearers. Haridwar, which is closeish, I found more enjoyable.

[Muthukumar]

Hi..... It was nice to read u r blog. Nicely narrated u r travel experience that also as a foreigner point of view. All teh best....

[Mark]

i spent a few days in Rishikesh and one day in Haridwar during the Khumbamela in April ~ what a crush of humanity that was ~ i found the locals in Rishikesh to be just as friendly, if not more so, than in the rest of the northern tier of India however ~ and i found the spiritual seekers there to be non-intrusive ~ i did find though that the wandering sadhus in Rishi to be in the 'tourist business' ~ but not at all in a threatening way ~ India is great if every traveller does as does you and i........... relax and let India buffett you along in her own unique way ~ you'll get much more out of her and it will serve you well ~

[Mark]

i spent a few days in Rishikesh and one day in Haridwar during the Khumbamela in April ~ what a crush of humanity that was ~ i found the locals in Rishikesh to be just as friendly, if not more so, than in the rest of the northern tier of India however ~ and i found the spiritual seekers there to be non-intrusive ~ i did find though that the wandering sadhus in Rishi to be in the 'tourist business' ~ but not at all in a threatening way ~ India is great if every traveller does as does you and i........... relax and let India buffett you along in her own unique way ~ you'll get much more out of her and it will serve you well ~

[Sharing the Journey]

Becareful ...
of all those motorbikes.

[Jenniferious]

I love motorbikes!! If anyone is going to damage me on a motorbike it will be myself. Possible repeat of Thailand last summer (which never got blogged about cause I'd given up by that point). Still have a scar on my leg!