Rishikesh - The Ganges and the Ashrams

Laura on the boat going across the Ganges, in front of a ghat.

Our next, and final stop in India was a smaller town, called Rishikesh. It lies up near the Himalayas, where the Ganges begins. Rishikesh is a very holy city, with a few temples, and hundreds of ashram/meditation centers. It has a footnote in history as the place where George brought the rest of the Beatles, where they stayed at an ashram and wrote a ton of songs. We decided that since it was supposed to be so laid back and relaxing, it would be a cool place to go.

The night we left Jaipur, it was thunder storming, which we had a really good view of from the rooftop restaurant of our hotel. We went to the train station early, just in case, but upon arrival found we had plenty of time left, since the train was running about 40 minutes late. We found a nice clean spot to put down our bags and sit to wait (no easy task in India, where most public surfaces are dirty, and covered with people). We were sharing a bench with a young girl and her father, who were sleeping. When our train finally arrived, we started getting our things together, and the little girl woke up. There seemed to be some sort of liquid all around her. We thought for a minute it was condensation from our water bottles, but realized that the girl had wet the bench! She almost toppled onto the ground in her amazement of being woken up, surrounded in liquid, but thanks to quick hands, Laura reached out and saved her. Had it not been for Laura, she would have really busted her head on the concrete. Meanwhile, her family slept through the whole thing!

Our train left Jaipur at 11 PM, and we had a small cabin with two beds and a curtain. It was sleeper bunks though, and since the train ride was about 12 hours long, we had a bit of time before we needed to get off. So we took two Benadryls each, and slept great through the whole night, waking only about 10 minutes before we needed to leave the train. It was at this point we started seeing people walking around in orange clothes, but didn’t think too much of it.

We then had to hop on a new train to get to Rishikesh, and the only transportation available for this leg were trains offering only 3rd class seating, with no AC. Tickets cost us 8 cents each. Apparently all the buses were stopped, and the roads were closed because of a large, month-long, pilgrimage festival for the god Shiva. Tens of thousands of pilgrims dressed in orange were trying to pack themselves into the town of Rishikesh, and nearby Haridwar. So, because of this, we had to take the 3rd class train. This was interesting, because we saw how the average Indian travels around. It was not quite comfortable, but not as bad as one would imagine.

When we arrived in Rishikesh, it was pandemonium. There were orange pilgrims everywhere and it was rainy. They all had been bathing in the Ganges, and many were sleeping in self built shantytowns. Our hotel was on the other side of the Ganges river from where we arrived, which was only able to be crossed by a footbridge, or a small boat. Because of the throngs of people, crossing access was limited and funneled through one opening, for crowd control, which was a 30 minute walk away. We had to take a taxi from the train station towards the river, then had to walk a ways after the taxi was no longer allowed to continue, all the while surrounded by hundreds of Indians wearing orange. This was not exactly the calm backwater of a meditation center we were expecting. After lugging our stuff around and walking for a bit, we finally coaxed a policeman to let us down to the boat dock, so we could get across.

We really got a good look at Rishikesh from the boat. There were temples and Ghats (stair temples that lead into the Ganges) all along the river banks, filled with pilgrims bathing, collecting water, and praying. From our understanding, the pilgrims would fill small bottles with river water, then hike 3.5 miles up a hill, to give the water as an offering at a temple. Then they walk down and do it again.

Our Ashram was a nice looking place, with statues of the Hindu gods all around. There were only a few westerners staying there, and there was no yoga classes, which was unfortunate because we were expecting to do lots of yoga. The food was free, but watered down, and unflavorful. Outside, the pilgrims filled the one street through town, and were joined by a few cows and dogs. At this point, we really didn’t enjoy wandering amok between pilgrims who had been bathing in the river as well as the rain and the muddy streets and so we spent most of our time in Rishikesh in our Ashram, the nearby internet cafe, and a small Italian restaurant that quickly became our favorite. We thought the Italian place was clean and nice, till one time, after serving our food we saw them bring out a mouse in a cage that they had apparently trapped in the kitchen. Oh boy...

We did venture out a few times, for shopping and to check out the Ghats. Apparently, most of the pilgrims were from smaller towns, and some had never seen a Caucasian before. Most of the pilgrims were quite amazed by our skin colors and facial features. One example, Laura stepped out of the internet cafe to get a breath of fresh air, and within two minutes, she had a semicircle of about 50 people around her, just staring and taking pictures. This type of thing happened to us a more than a few times in Rishikesh. Its a bit shocking for us, because America, much less Los Angeles, is such a diverse place.

Three days later, we left on another 3rd class train. We left almost three hours before our connection. The 50 minute trip took nearly 2.5 hours, yuck. We did make some friends on the local train and had some good conversation. One funny story: Our Indian friends couldn't believe that we, as well as most Americans, married for love, and not an arranged marriage. It seemed to be a bit of an unbelievable concept for them.

We then made it to the next platform, for our long train, which would take us to Delhi, where we were going to catch a flight to Bangkok. On the platform while we were waiting to for our train, we spotted a British couple, who were being swarmed by groups of Indians. The girl was sobbing because they wouldn’t leave them alone, so we grabbed the attention of the curious Indians to distract them, and let the Brits make their getaway. We did our good deed that day and were rewarded by being surrounded by about 100 locals, wanting to take our picture and shake our hands.

When our train arrived at the station, we got no help while trying to find our train car and seats, though, and ended up just hopping on a random car in a random seat. It just so happened that we were across the aisle from our reserved seats, go figure! We were on an express train, in 1st class seating. This train was really nice, and we were fed after each stop. Sometimes, it was soup, other times it was curry or lentils, other times, we had tea and cookies. Finally, we were served butter pecan ice cream. That was a good ride. I think we were fed a total of 5 times! However, the train was late getting into Delhi. We had a plane to catch and no time to spare. We paid a guy $15 US to take us from the train station to the airport in a hurry. He covered an hour long ride in about a half hour and it was definitely the wildest car ride of our whole trip. We were impressed…and scared. We made the check in for our flight by 3 minutes. I think it was the best $15 we ever spent. We were then on our way to Bangkok, Thailand, where new adventures awaited us.