RaveBurbleBlog

The train ride back to Delhi was marvellous. And much to my very facetious satisfaction, Paul woke me up far too early for the trainstop and we had to look out the window for ages until we got to our arrival point. Trivial, I know, but it did feel good not to be the only one overladen with cautiousness first thing in the morning on a train journey. And I got some really good shots with my camera, so I was pleased with that too.

We had a fairly laid-back day. We got back to our room, showered, then laid down again to get over the exhaustion of laying down all night. You only get about 6 - 7 hours sleep while moving over hundreds of miles on a train and your subconscious is always semi-worried about your luggage, shoes and money staying put, so it isn’t the soundest of sleeps no matter which way you look at it. [read on]

The next day I spent languishing in bed, under attack from a misdirected case of Delhi Belly. It somehow lost it’s way and found me in Rishikesh. And this, combined with a day hotter than mid-summer in hell, resulted in a day of great discomfort for me. At least the monkeys had buggered off so I could scuttle back and forward between room and toilet without having to arm myself with anything long and whackworthy. Who’d read about it though - me in an absolutely beautiful and terribly auspicious place and all I can do is look at the ceiling wall fan and the barely-hanging-together toilet door from the inside - not exactly the view I had in mind when I came here. What’s more, to really make it sickening, it was full moon. And not just any full moon - a Blue Moon. Sigh. Oh well, at least we enjoyed the moon last night, rising over the Himalayas, whilst listening to Pink Floyd. Of course, there was the obligatory indian dog barking it’s head off just outside our gateway for ages on end, to add a grounding touch to the scene. It was funny though, ‘cos about every 10 minutes when we’d all lost our auspicious patience with the mangy cur’s chorus, I’d mutter under my breath that someone should throw a rock at that dog. And sure enough, about 3 seconds after I said this each time, a rock would land on a piece of corrugated iron beside it and it would shut up for a short while. Me and somebody out there were obviously in sync.

NOTE: Even in the Western world Rishikesh is auspicious, as the Beatles wrote about 38 of their songs there, including “Obladi, Oblada” (what on earth were they thinking with THAT one??!!). [read on]

After doing a stint in Janpath, to go to the Tibetan Row (shops), we organised storing our luggage in the luggage room down the road, had dinner on the roof and made our way to the Metro. This time the ... [Continue reading this entry]

On the second night in Bharmour we went and watched the Puja (prayers) at the village square. A great cacophony of bells all over the place and even a drum machine outside one of the temples. There are 84 temples ... [Continue reading this entry]

Okay, the bus-up-the-mountain experience. What can I say? It’s steep, rugged and beautiful. After hearing so many scary bus ride stories, I had a great deal of trepidation about this journey. But I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of ... [Continue reading this entry]

We got our tickets for the train, after much tsk tsking from the guy at the station that tells you the train numbers (you know, that performance of fill in a form, go to a desk, get a number, go ... [Continue reading this entry]