So we boarded the ten hour train to
Haridwar with our unreserved tickets, hoping for the best but expecting the
worst. The good thing was that we did manage to find somewhere to sit, although
it was very tightly squeezed, generally with five people sitting on a bench
meant for three, with others sitting on the luggage rack overhead. This is
definitely one thing that never ceases to amaze us- how Indian people seem to
be able to squeeze in to the smallest gaps and how resourceful they are with
space- I guess there isn’t much choice when you live with 1.2 billion people.
If something looks full then it’s really only at half its capacity. Anyway, we
contorted ourselves on the benches with our bags stuffed at our feet, and
settled in as best we could for the next ten hours. The seating also had zero
padding, so after only half an hour and already with numb bums it wasn’t
looking great. At least there was no shortage of people watching. I managed to
befriend a local retired teacher who was travelling with her husband of forty
years who was an arranged marriage, and had some interesting conversations
about the differences between arranged and love marriages and the differences
between India and England in general. It always interests me how people always
romanticise other lifestyles; I was saying how sad it was in England that
families often don’t live with each other and can be on different ends of the
country, and she said she lived with her two sons and their families but she
would prefer it if they lived separately. Also on the train journey on one of
my trips to the toilet I had to walk past a group of children who were obviously
a gang of street children. They were using the flooring around the toilet as a
hangout area and were also carrying around cloths with something that smelled
like white spirit to get high with. Some of them looked as young as seven or
eight. I gave them a packet of biscuits and they all then wanted to shake my
hand and were giggling (mostly from being off their face), but I felt so sad
for them. I’m sure all of those children had been through some horrible times
to end up in that situation, and there probably wasn’t much hope for their
future either. We are so lucky in the western world that we have the government
to support us and this happening to children would be unheard of, but in India
this is quite a common occurrence.
So after the uncomfortable but thought
provoking train journey we finally arrived in Haridwar. We were heading for
Rishikesh which was about one hours drive away, but it was already 9.30pm and
we had both had enough of travelling for the day, so arranged for a night in a
hotel in Haridwar. This hotel, which online had given promises of a hot shower,
free toiletries and breakfast provided, turned out to be in the non touristy
area of Haridwar but with some gesturing we managed to check in for the night
and went straight to sleep.
The next morning we were so ready for the
hot shower and breakfast. I went downstairs armed with a hindi phrasebook to
ask about these amenities, and was met by a dwarf (Luke and Mum- I didn’t get
close enough to smell the mothballs!) who shook his head to breakfast but did
turn on a switch for the hot water. I got back to the room and turned on the
shower, but only ice cold water came out from the shower. The only hot water
that ran was from a tap at about knee height in the bathroom, which I guess was
a shower for the dwarf. After putting my yoga to good practice in order to have
a wash and paying the dwarf for the room on the way out, who was posing on a
sofa in a strangely provocative way, we were ready to complete our journey to
Rishikesh.
We headed out onto the main road and
luckily within a few minutes of walking a largish rickshaw pulled up and asked
us if we wanted to go to Rishikesh. There was already eight people in the
rickshaw but with the Indian mentality we managed to get ourselves and our bags
successfully into it too. After one rickshaw change halfway through due to the
first one breaking down, we were dropped off somewhere in Rishikesh to try and
get our bearings and also to find somewhere to stay. A guide book and online
reviews had all said it was easy to find budget accommodation in Rishikesh, so
we didn’t think it would be too hard to wing it. We had 300 rupees in mind for
our budget, about **3. Unfortunately what we did not realise was that this was
the peak season for this area, so hotels were either full or unwilling to
negotiate a lower price for rooms so the hunt was more difficult. One hotel
fairly tucked out of the way said they did not have any rooms but to try the
next hotel, and pointed across a field. I went across the field in the
direction given, and found myself jumping over a mini stream, climbing up some
rocks and ducking under washing lines, and came across a building which
initially did not seem like a hotel and the only sign was in Hindi. A man
popped out and said he had one room available, and was prepared to take 350
rupees per night and seeing as we were tired and bored of room hunting, we
agreed. The only issue was that the room had a single bed in it, but apparently
a double bed would be able to be put in there in 1-2 hours. Realising that an
Indian 1-2 hours could be about 5-10 hours, we volunteered to help sort it out
instead of waiting, and ended up moving furniture to make our room and carrying
beds and mattresses around the hotel.
After the stressful room hunt, we decided
to explore the area. Rishikesh is a town built around an area of the ganges,
and has both Indian and Foreign tourists visiting. It was made famous for
tourists after the beatles spent time there, and it is also a famous place for
yoga. There are an abundance of cafes and restaurants overlooking the river,
surrounded by mountains. It is also an enforced vegetarian area and alcohol is
banned there too. After having dinner at a rooftop restaurant and listening to
the people on the table next to us discussing their experiences of colonic
irrigation, and finding a yoga class for the next morning, we bought some fruit
and headed back to the hotel, which was about a forty minute walk away.
Unfortunately the fruit was in a plastic bag and I had forgotten that there are
greedy eyes waiting to pounce in this situation. Casually strolling along, I
heard a cry of ‘MONKEY!’ from Jonno and turned around to see a fully grown
monkey charging at me. I whisked the bag away just in time and gave the monkey
my best roar to try and scare it, which thankfully worked. Not that we fully
learned our lesson from this occasion, as a few days later Jonno decided to buy
an ice cream and flaunted it for all of the monkeydom to see and then had to
try and dodge pouncing primates whilst on a very narrow bridge.
We were planning to spend a week in Rishikesh
as we were quite tired of constantly being on the move. I had decided to book
myself in to a week of yoga classes, so every morning I left Jonno to his
beauty/beard growing sleep and took the forty minute walk into town for the
class. The instructor was very nice but brutal, and seemed to take enjoyment in
pushing me further into postures which was fine until one attempt in the second
session where whilst being manipulated into the splits, my hip gave a loud pop
and left me with pain for a week afterwards. Apart from being broken, it was
nice to be able to get back into a routine of doing yoga which is difficult
whilst travelling. Jonno would then meet me after the session and we would go
to a riverside restaurant for the most amazing breakfast of fruit, muesli and
yoghurt, and relax in a pile of cushions for a few hours with a view of the Ganges
and a book. We spent quite a few days with this as our main activity, which was
nice, and also sometimes necessary as the temperature rose to about 36 degrees Celsius
some days.
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| View of the Ganges from a cafe |
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| Best post yoga breakfast |
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| Cake shops are popular here for both humans and cows |
We also booked one day of rafting on the
ganges, which seemed a popular thing to do whilst in Rishikesh. This part of
the river Ganges is higher up than Varanasi, and thankfully before the
chemicals have been pumped into it and the rubbish and corpses have been
deposited in it too. We were taken in a jeep to a high point in the mountains
and armed with a helmet, life jacket and paddle and given instructions on how
to work together to keep the raft moving. It turned out to be good fun as there
were points with rapids, a chance to swim in the ganges and we stopped off at a
set of rocks to jump into the river.
We also were told that near our hotel was a
short walk up to a waterfall, so we decided to investigate. The short walk
turned into a few hours and was not a waterfall as such, but a mountain stream
which was a series of tiny waterfalls. It was a really lovely walk though, and along
the way we were given a mission by a man on a moped that a lady had lost her
socks somewhere up the mountain and could we please look for them. Sadly we
were not successful though, and some poor lady is sockless.
After a few days of this routine and walking
past numerous posters advertising yoga teacher training courses, Jonno brought
up in conversation if that was something I wanted to do. I had been thinking
about it, but didn’t want to desert him for a whole month and leave him being
bored, and also was not sure about the cost of it. Jonno reassured me that as
long as he had somewhere to go with wifi and cheap chai he was quite happy for
a month and that it was cheaper here than anywhere else, and the opportunity to
take that amount of time off may not happen easily when we get back to England.
So we went in search of a course, and found one that was a bit of a walk away
from the town but in a peaceful area, and runs yoga teacher training courses every
month for a reasonable price. So I signed up and paid a deposit, and will be
starting the course on the 15th April. The days are likely to be
pretty intense, the day runs from 7am to 6.45pm, there are yoga sessions
morning and evening, with lessons and lectures in between and I will be tested
to be able to gain the qualification. But by the end of it I should have a
better understanding of yoga and also gain a new skill of being able to teach
it, which is very exciting! We have changed our plans slightly as we were
originally going to catch the flight to Nepal we had to book at Heathrow on the
30th March, and then return to finish the north of India after
Nepal, but we are missing the flight to do north India before the 15th
April, then going from Rishikesh to Nepal after the yoga course.
It was all going well until the last day,
when I started my walk down to my final yoga class of the week. Only 5 minutes
into the walk and my sandals broke and were unwearable, and to go back to the
room would have made me late for the class. So I decided to carry on the
remaining 35 minutes barefoot, managing to dodge all sorts of rubbish and
excrement that were dotted in the streets like an assault course, and having 2
spare minutes before the class to wash my feet in the bathroom. During the
class we could hear the rumble of thunder outside and it started to rain, but
was just a light drizzle so I thought I would be fine for the walk back.
Unfortunately as soon as I started the walk back the sky decided this was a
good time for a downpour, and there was no escape. Every set of stairs became a
waterfall, and every street was a river. The rivers were not just made up of
rainwater, but also had gathered all the rubbish and excrement that I had so
delicately dodged before, to create a nice flowing brown concoction for me to
wade through…in bare feet. When I finally got back to the room I was not a
happy bunny!
Anyway, poo rivers aside, we really enjoyed
our time in Rishikesh, which is lucky because we will be back in a few weeks
for a month!
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