Sick and tired in Rishikesh
Trip Start
Sep 29, 2010
1
122
147
Trip End
Dec 23, 2011
Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Arriving in Haridwar from Agra we had to walk around to find the main bus station where we could catch a bus up to Rishikesh. Nobody seemed to be able to point us in the right direction, and we ended up watching several full buses zip by us on their way out. We were doing our best to stay out of the sun while waiting, which was positively baking. We were hanging out with three twenty-something Indian guys who were hilarious (they nicknamed themselves the 3 Idiots after the Bollywood movie I previously described - they were all engineering students). They were up here from Delhi, trying to find some white-water rafting for a day or two. Having all just failed their engineering exams, they were putting off the eventuality of telling their parents their results and enjoying a few days away from home - no matter when they told their family they would be livid, so why not take a mini-vacation before dropping the bomb on them, eh? We ended up all sharing a taxi up to Rishikesh, having had enough of waiting for a bus with space. We had a great time joking around with our Indian friends on the way up, and were amazed that once they learned there was no river rafting because of the height of the river, they simply turned around to go back to Haridwar and catch a bus back to Delhi. And I am told by one of them that it was full domestic verbal fury when they eventually informed their dear parents of their latest academic achievements.
Emily and I splurged for a nicer-than-usual place up on a quiet hill, an enormous room in a quiet and peaceful guest house. Our next several days were spent either in bed there, or at the garden restaurant across the street which overlooked the Ganges river valley below and the mountains in behind. We both felt awful - we alternated between being the sicker of the two, one day my spending the whole day in bed, one day Emily doing so. Both of us lost our appetite, even though we were sometimes violently hungry at meals (especially yours truly, to no surprise). Tea and banana-honey porridge in the mornings became the usual, and we started eating Western food regularly. One night that I was feeling a bit better, I was excited to dig into some risotto that I'd seen on the menu - oh to have some rich cheesy risotto! It arrived covered in a thick layer of melted cheese and looked amazing. I couldn't have been more dissappointed when I dug in and found that it was essentially a giant bowl of vegetable wild rice underneath the wonderful-looking layer of cheese. It was a huge letdown - Emily ordered some mashed potatoes and those had more of a risotto consistency than what I ordered (and were darn good to boot). I managed about half of my bowl before I'd had enough, and resolved to get the mashed potatoes instead the next day.
Before we left, we managed a half-day of walking around the area of town called Swarg Ashram. Various ghats line the Ganges (which was quite a torrential rush of water) and in the evening around sunset we intended to check out a river ceremony similar to the one we saw in Varanasi. Until then, we crossed a pedestrian bridge over into town to walk around. We walked along the river road in the direction of the Lakshman Jhula area, passing lots of small ashrams along the way. There was a small set of stairs which led to a tiny beach on the side of the Ganges, and having seen a few people head down there we went as well to dip our feet in the river. The water was cold and I was lucky to escape with my flip-flops as my feet got stuck in the mucky river floor. I must have worried a police officer with my efforts to extract myself, because he began yelling at all of us to get away from the river and back up to the path - even an old Indian sadhu. It made sense - the river was moving very fast away from shore, and if anything had happened we would have been at its mercy. Still, we were able to get our little toe dip, and accepted the slap on the wrist from the officer graciously.
As the sun set, we headed towards Parmarth Niketan Ashram where the main river ceremony was to take place. We arrived about 15 minutes ahead of time if not more, and already there was little space to sit or even stand. We found a spot off to the side where we had a view of a huge Shiva statue at the back of what we thought was a stage where the ceremony would be taking place. We were wrong, as the ceremony was no more than some chanting and light drumming taking place in the middle of the main crowd to our left - we could barely see anything of it. Through the course of the ceremony, handheld altars with burning flames were passed around the crowd, and you didn't want to be in the way when someone wanted to make sure they got to touch it. I was worried that one Indian man was going to squash Emily in his attempt to reach for it. When the ceremony was over, the crowd dispersed and in the dark we made our way back across the bridge towards home.
The next day we headed back to Haridwar to catch a bus up to Chandigarh, continuing our way up towards the very Northwest of India, and hoping that soon we would start feeling better.
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Pictures: https://picasaweb.google.com/104298928385861281834/Rishikesh?authkey=Gv1sRgCNXIntqPoMvNdQ
Comments
I should send you a jug of ginger ale, universal cure-all :) Hang in there