Rishikesh
After the stress and strain of having to deal with irish and indian bureaucracy (please note that very difficult word to spell) I took off for the yoga capital off the world, Rishikesh in the state of Uttaranchal. Rishikesh is at the foot of the himalayas and those charlie bird fans amongst you should already know that it is also one of the first major towns on the holiest river off the lot, the ganges (pronounced ganga) and is therefore a pretty big Hindu pilgrimage site. It is 7 hours on a bus outside of dehli which isn’t that big of a distance in indian terms so it fit the bill for by bid to escape the bad vibes and the oppressive heat that was in dehli.
The bus ride there was the usual butt numbing experience though I don’t really mind them at this stage, you tend to switch off and retreat into your own little world breaking out every now and again to answer the same old questions ‘ what is your country?’, ‘where?’ ‘Holland?’ ‘Iceland?’ ‘Ah the UK!!’ then its ‘What is your job?’, ‘What is your salary?’ ‘You have job in India?’ ‘ You are on Holiday for 6 months?????’ ‘What is the number for irish embassey – I get visa, I get job in your country!!’.
I travelled last friday – good friday in christian countries, Happy Holi in India. The festival of colour which they celebrate mostly in the north to mark the end of winter (they don’t do winter in the sunny south!). The tradition on this holi day is to splash the country and everyone in it with water or colour – preferably both. This pretty much gives young and old alike license to run around drenching anyone they see with coloured powder and garden hoses. I only learnt about this late late late in the day – I did see some people covered in colour but I didn’t realise the extent of the festival until I got off the bus in Rishikesh. Normally when you get off the bus you negotiate with the waiting throng of taxi men for the fare to get to the hotel of your choice – this takes a minute or two, you must always retain the threat that you can walk away at any minute. This option was not available to me this time because as soon as I got off the bus this little lad from a rooftop across the street had his fathers garden hose aimed right at me and lets just say he had a prodigious aim. Drenched, 110% saturation at least I climbed into the back of a cab belonging to a sniggering taxi man.
I stayed at the green hotel across the river ganges. The hotel took a bit of finding, the streets were busy with tourists and local people here on holiday for the weekend, also a long weekend here. The other side of the river is connected via two pedestrian only bridges (guarded by hoardes of hungry monkeys, they are also very often blocked by beasts of the bovine nature!!). First impressions of the Ganges? Its surprisingly beautiful, I was kinda expecting the dirty, filthy sewer like stream that you hear about from various sources. I guess as this is a point where it emerges from the biggest mountain range on earth that it is relatively clean. I still wasn’t tempted to take a dip. When it gets up as far as Varanasi it is meant to be pretty rancid, one factoid from the guidebook tells us that the international limit of faecal bacterial matter in water for it to be considered safe is 500 parts per 100ml – the ganges there has 1.5 million, Holy crap!!!
The first night there was good fun, the locals were going loco. They had a big soundsystem and dancing stage set up for Holi. The music was mostly hindi – some of it isn’t half bad, alot of it is pretty dire, but its lively enough to have a bit of craic. I was flummoxed after the days journey so I sat down and watched the locals strut their stuff. It was the usual case of 2 or 3 groups of men throwing some fantastic shapes with some girls dancing their own way out around the extemities, I don’t blame anyone for not jumping in. It resembled a rugby ruck at times and they do take a very relaxed approach at refereeing the breakdown – the new zealand back row would be in their element here. The prize for the most surreal moment must go to the time when they stopped the music and asked all the foreigners to get up on the dancefloor – up stepped a good few brave soldiers. The music started again, that international standard, an anthem no less – ‘The Vengaboys are coming’ – by the banks of the ganges. Not what I expected, hilarious though.
Rishikesh quietened down something serious after holi, most of the indian people staying there went back home on the sunday leaving the more sedate yoga crowd. I had a great time wandering from cafe to cafe drinking chai and reading some books. Every now and again I would ask one of the new agers about their courses or just life in general. One girl was doing a course on ‘Absolute Space’ – She asked me my opinion and wasn’t too amused when I defined it as the gap between my two ears. Oh well.
It sure was hot in rishikesh – temps where in the late 30s during daylight. When the sun went down though a surprisingly strong breeze came down from the mountains, it served as a nice release from the heat. All in all I had a good time in rishikesh, I planned ahead my trip (which was time wasted as you will soon find out) and had a really relaxing and lazy time. I would recommend it to anyone who fancied a break from dehli for a couple of days, I know if I ever get into yoga I will kick myself for not signing up at one of the ashrams for a course in it as it is one of the massive draws off the place – maybe next time though. Besides I wouldn’t have been able to cope with the 6 o’clock starts.
I headed back to dehli thursday morning, back into the running circus that is the FRRO. More on that to come…..
I have uploaded the latest batch of photos here ,
Ciao,
Phil
Tags: Dehli, frro, holi, India, India, rishikesh
Phil Gill
You and Yoga??????? That has to be the funniest thing you have written yet!! :0)