Rain rain rain - Rishikesh
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Rishikesh,
Uttarakhand,
India
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Its raining its pouring, its generally......raining alot. Monsoon season is now well and truely in swing throughout the country of India, which has turned out to be massssssssive, i tried to calculate the number of miles id travelled via bus car train rickshaw cycloshaw and kangeroo (ok the last ones a blatent lie) and ended up needing smelling salts and a lie down, ive basically bezzed it round a good third of india (from Mumbai to the himalayan region and back down towards Delhi) in under 7 weeks, im in need of rest!
Rishikesh is the perfect place to do just that, its the place where the beatles came to stay in an ashram (spiritual centre where people do yoga meditation find their "inner selfs" then go back home and go back to their normal ways.....*cough*). Anyway Lennon and co ended up writing the entire white album here so this place must be half decent aye?
Thousands of pilgrims dressed in orange, often wearing little more than rags and the majority of whom wearing no shoes travel hundreds of miles from destinations all over india to reach Rishikesh, which is centred around the river ganges, these pilgrims come here simply to bathe in the river itself, where it is said you cleanse yourself of all the impurities and bad thoughts et al, till you have stripped away all the previous sins of your life to start again.
The majority of the pilgrims here are very approachable and friendly, although a few resort to begging on the roadside, but from all comers as opposed to the usual tactic of seeking out tourists for the moolah! I' ve had plenty of interesting conversations here, there are plenty of friendly people who just want to sit chill and discuss anything and everything.....also dont forget the photos, everyone wants the token tourist in their group snap shot and well it makes their day so im only too happy to oblige.
This is kinda a brief entry but im just about to go and catch an overnight bus back to Delhi! Argh yes the Delhi that i didnt take a shine to the first time round. Well sad to say that Rishikesh is the last stop with regards to my indian adventures and ive been mopping around alot, i cant actually believe im gonna be leaving! but its onto Singapore and then ive got half a year, 6 months, 24 weeks or alot of days to explore the whole of SE asia.
Hopefully Delhi will give me plenty of chance to explore some of the sites i missed out the first time, get plenty of lovely indian food down me, upload a whole plethora of photos and decide where i want to spend my birthday.
Exciting times.
Love xxxx
