India: Rishikesh

Rishikesh 07/04-14/04

From Haridwar we made our way to Rishikesh, a city beautifully set either side of the Ganges and famous for being the yoga capital of the world! The Beatles actually stayed in an ashram in Rishikesh for a few months and wrote the majority of the White Album there. On our first day looking around we decided to find this ashram and have a look at it. It is actually not in use anymore and the whole building is in ruins, you even had to scramble through a hugely overgrown garden just to get there. We think they’re missing a trick, as someone could make loads exploiting the connection to the Beatles. We also had a long walk up and down the Ganges and ate dinner in a restaurant overlooking the river at sunset. We had expected the Ganges to be really dirty but to our amazement, probably because we are so close to its source in the Himalayas, it is really clean with a beautiful green-blue colour. Only 20km downstream in Haridwar, it was distinctly more brown!

The Beatles' Ashram

We decided to stay a week in Rishikesh so that we could try out some of the various courses on offer. We hunted around for a Yoga school and Nina went for an early morning 2 hour Yoga class before meeting me for breakfast. She managed to go into ‘the bridge’ which she had never done before so she really enjoyed it! As I’m not the most flexible or spiritual person around, I decided to do a 6-hour massage course instead. My teacher said that he would teach me how to do a full Ayurvedic neck, shoulders, arms and back massage. In order to practice I needed a live model so Nina volunteered and lay down to endure the 6 hour lesson/massage. My teacher said he was impressed with my skills and Nina seemed to agree although the consistent pressure her back and arms took meant she ached for days!

The next day we went white water rafting down the Ganges! We chose a 3 hour trip with what turned out to be a great company. Our guide was really friendly and had loads of different games up his sleeve for when we were out on the raft. We drove about 18km upstream and then took the raft all the way back down into Rishikesh, on the way going through about 5 different sets of rapids! At the beginning he made us all jump in and float down alongside the boat. The water was freezing but so nice and refreshing in the heat and it was so clean! We had some safety kayakers following us the whole way who kept trying to sneak up on us and pull us in. At one point, we all sat in the back of the raft and pulled it up until it capsized! We both agreed it was one of the best things we’ve done so far in India and, although my flip-flops broke, I managed to hold on to my all-important glasses! 

Capsizing the boat!

We ended the week with a few walks around Rishikesh and admired the view of the Ganges from higher up. We also walked to a small local waterfall about 3 km out of town. We had to buy a strange ticket in order to climb the mountain and see the waterfall, he took our contact number and wrote my name as 'Adved' from 'Ingland'. We're now heading to Delhi for a couple of days before taking a sleeper train to Kolkata where we will meet my Dad and travel with him for our last two weeks in India!

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