Rishikesh adventures

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Well i must say the last few days have been eventful to say the least. Sunday was our day of our usual yoga classes so we spent most of the morning visiting an Ashram in Haridwar, a town about an hour from where we are staying in Ramsjula near Rishikesh. It was interesting to see, but not that interesting as to what actually goes on in there. It is more like a community hall, where people go for free doctor consultations, eat very low priced canteen style meals and practise yoga, as well as lodging there. Anyway the point is that we crossed paths again with some lovely people, had some laughs, took some pictures and then headed back to our little town. Once almost back is when the mission started of actually trying to get back home, as we had to get off the bus about half a km from the town and walk to it as the only road to it was cut off to traffic for some reason. We later found out why.

We strolled down the hill to the centre to try and get over the footbridge, which is normally busy with people crossing as well as motorbikes crossing it, but this day it was just a sea of people. Crowds trying to get over the footbridge. I later found out that this mass of people were the last of those coming from up to 200 and 300km away by foot to take the supposadly holy water from the Ganges up to this temple which sits on the hills above Rishikesh, 14km uphill. These indians have been coming here and doing this for the past month, and Sunday was the last day of it, hence the massive crowds.

Basically the heat from all the people, plus all the smells and lack of space to breath meant that we decided to get out of the crowd, not bother trying to get over THAT footbridge, but to do a D tour and head upriver 2km and cross over at the next bridge. At first the idea was good, not realising how far and how uphill the rest of the trek would be. After alot of sweating and more bottles of water, we finally made it to the next bridge and thankfully to find that it WAS slightly less crowded, so it didn't actually feel you might get crushed and die that day. However, the bridge for some reason was slightly wobbly that day and still getting accross it was a bit stressfull as getting over it did not go as fast as I would have liked. The only thing we were happy about at that moment was the cool breeze that blew accross the river and trying to dry us off.
This little town is a real cute little place on the edge of the river again called Lakshmanjula, and here there was again lots of little shops, food stools, books shops, the famous germany bakery which has an amzing view down the ganes and over the town and temples sitting on its hills. There was a hell of alot of other stuff going on in every little nook and cranny here too. Just too much to mention, but i promise it was another little happening place.
We finally made it back to the yoga retreat after a long walk back down the banks of the river and there we enjoyed ANOTHER cold shower (we're on between 4-6 showers a day!) before having some food and an early night. It felt like we had been on a pilgrimidge ourselves that day!

Yesterday was also another eventful day here. 3hrs of yoga classes in total as every other day, but also a 3 hour trek which we decided to do along with some of the other yoga students staying here at the same place. They suggested we go for a walk up into the hills where they had previously been and had found a cute waterfall. To be honest the idea of having a cold swim was the top of our list and made a change from all the showers we are having, so we agreed to join them and went for it. We did this during the few hours we have to rest or for our own activities each day, between 1-6pm. So we set off at 3pm, first up this mentally steep hill to get up to this road that goes along the back of the town into the mountains. That was a killer to say the least, especially in the heat of the sun beating down on us, the levels of humidity and the fact that we had only just had lunch prior to leaving. I thought my legs would drop off even then, and this was only the beginning! Anyway once we got up to the roadside we could actually feel our legs again and the walk along the flat was pleasant. Then we turned off where the water was trickling down from the mountains. I walked up through the rocks and water as my flip flops just kept falling off and to be honest i could not be bothered getting my trainers soaking wet anyway. To have my feet in the cold water was so refreshing and once we actually reached the top where the natural RAIN SHOWER was, we had reached our mission of the day. This was a little piece of paradise. The water beated down on our heads and back and gave a full massage. Better than any jets that you would get in a spa back in europe. This was amazing, lush, absolutely fabulous, you name it. It was the best thing we could possibly thought of doing. You just had to be there! We thought we had died and gone to heaven under our rainshower in such a perfectly secluded spot in the middle of nature! Oh the beauty of nature. How lucky are we to have such little gems of places on this planet. The thing is, we know they are there, we see them on documentories, but you need to go and actually see them and experience them for yourself to actually appreciate the full beauty of them. And so, for now that is what i wanted to keep you updated with. I will be back with more, but now need to start planning where we will be heading off to on Friday, as Diana only has 2 more weeks travelling with me, so we want to make the most of it. The original plan was to take a 3 day trek up north but we are getting conflicting reports on weather reports, even though we are in the monsoon season and as of yet only had one short down poor one morning. So need to look into it a little more in case we need to change our plan and head in a different direction for now.

The problem is that we feel so happy and attached to this place already, we really do feel at home, and this is thanks to the lovely people who work here, take care of us, feed us lovely ayurvedic vegetarian food and also those who we share our yoga classes with, not to mention also the many lovely people from around the world who are actually studying to be yoga teachers and whom we have befriended over the past days. Some Irish, English, Spanish, Mexican, Russian, Indian, Iranian, Indonesian, American, Japanese to mention just a few. They are all unique people and it is a pleasure to have been lucky to have crossed paths with them, as we all share many things in common, about life in general.
bye for now x

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