Rishikesh

Today is our third full day in Rishikesh. It's a great little town, but our first impressions were not the best! Basically our train from Delhi was supposed to arrive in Haridwar (the station closest to Rishikesh, but still an hours' drive away) at 8.30pm the other night, but we were delayed for over two hours. When we finally arrived in Haridwar around 10.45, it was dark, freezing, and it took us another half an hour to walk to the bus station, although luckily we caught the Rishikesh bus just as it was leaving the station. Or maybe not so luckily, as the bus ride was um....interesting. The bus driver and conductor were drinking and smoking weed at the wheel with Bollywood music on maximum volume, so the little old bus was careering and skidding all over the road up the mountains, even doing donuts. It was harrowing to say the least, but thank god we got to Rishikesh without incident. From there, we had to get a rickshaw up to the mountain where our guest house was. There was just one problem...when we got there (about midnight), reception was closed! As was the reception of every other guesthouse we could find in the vicinity. By this time we were exhausted and both of us had splitting headaches - all we wanted to do was sleep, but it seemed that we were going to have to camp out on the verandah of the guesthouse's reception until the morning.

Then, luckily, I noticed that the padlock on one of the room's doors was open and hanging on the outside door handle. We walked in; the room was empty. We were freezing and tired, and here was a bed (albeit an illegal one!)...so we dumped our bags on the floor and lay down on the bed to sleep until we could check in the next morning. Okay, so it wasn't the best sleep in the world (one pillow and one blanket between two people when it's about five degrees will do that!) but it was better than camping on the verandah, and we saved one night's accommodation! At seven the next morning, we woke up, went downstairs, pretended we'd just arrived and checked in to another room! It's quite a nice one too for $7 a night for the two of us, although at the moment it's festooned with our laundry.

I love Rishikesh because it's completely different to anywhere else we've been in India. It's famous for being a hippie retreat/sacred Hindu place, and the town is perched on a mountain overlooking the Ganges, which from above looks surprisingly clear. We've seen a few people swimming in it, but I'm passing on that one - I see what goes down the drains here! Phil thinks that India has made me a germophobe and that I'm getting obsessive about dirt and germs, and I can see her point - but this just isn't any dirt, it's Indian dirt, which means the black stuff on my feet at the end of the day is more likely faeces than soil. Ew! Maybe I should just embrace it though...

How else to describe Rishikesh? There is a temple or an ashram on every corner, there is weed on the wind, it's mountain-air cold in the early morning and evening but pleasantly warm during the day. Yogis and gurus in gold and red robes roam in the streets, every shop sells tie-dyed and felt clothes, there are countless cafes where you can sit barefoot and cross-legged and drink organic herbal tea and avocado smoothies (which actually taste okay) on cushions overlooking the Ganges. At sunrise and sunset you can hear chanting coming from the ashrams over the river, and signs everywhere advertise palm reading, ayurvedic treatments and astrology classes. Although it's so chilled out here, Phil and I actually feel a bit out of place at times because we don't have dreadlocks and our clothes aren't hippie enough...although we have embraced ali baba (aka poocatcher!) pants! Most Westerners here are here for extended periods doing intensive yoga courses and staying in ashrams for at least a month, so I suppose it's obvious that we're only here for a few days.

As a result, there are some interesting types of people here, and we've found that it's really easy to get chatting to strangers in cafes and restaurants because everyone is so open. Brad, for example, a guy we've run into a few times over the last couple of days, is an ex-roofer and hypnotherapist (now that's a strange career combination for you!) from QLD who is on some kind of spiritual journey and seems to be hanging around Rishikesh for an unspecified amount of time, apparently writing a book on 'holographic kinetics'. And then we met an English girl yesterday who is a yoga devotee, fasts for two days a week and told us that she is here because she was 'called here by the music on the wind'. Right. As I said, the people are 'interesting'! But like Phil says, so much of the pleasure of travel is meeting different types of people, listening to their stories and hence learning more about yourself and your own life choices.

One of the great things about here is that there is BROWN CRUSTY BREAD and ACTUAL COFFEE. Yay! Brown bread and coffee, how I have missed you so! On the downside, there are lots of monkeys about. Monkeys are scary!

Anyway I had best be off. We are going to go and have lunch, then do a yoga class at 5pm (when in Rome etc). We'll also need an early night tonight because we're setting off disgustingly early tomorrow morning (4.30am) for Agra. That's right, we're off to the Taj Mahal!

Love,

Eve