It's true.
We're still talking about India.
Chapter 3: Rishikesh OR Don’t Eat the Monkeys.
So we arrived at the train station in Delhi and, as we waited for our blue Shatabdi train to begin boarding, we met the sweetest American college student on her way to an internship at a farm. She told us how she had gotten the travel bug early, as her mother spent all of their spare money taking her around the world and once, when she was in high school, her mom even saved up to send her daughter to Spain for a summer to learn the language.
And we just thought, "Wow. What an awesome way to get rid of a teenager."
Anyway, soon after we boarded our train and experienced five hours of rail travel, 74 meal services, our attempt to exit the train in the wrong town and a very sleepy Chinese Rastafarian kid in the seat next to us, all as we watched India zoom by. Backwards.
Something we found mind-boggling on the rail trip was the amount of people we saw out the window. When they tell you how populated India is, apparently they REALLY mean it. We would be chugging along through the middle of NOWHERE and there, in the nothing, would be at least three visible people. At all times. How did they get there? Where are they going? Do they like my outfit?
Our train deposited us in Haridwar and, after a desperate/failed search for the bus stop, we negotiated a taxi to complete the last hour of our journey. And, goodness, that was the most perilous, seat belt-less ride of them all. But the good news is that it was also six hundred degrees that day.
Finally, we arrived, soaked through with sweat and a little nauseated from the ride. Our driver let us out on the Lakshman Mandir side of the enormous walking bridge that looms over the Holy Ganges and we stood for a moment to look out at Rishikesh spread out before us.
It was like a swimming pool of adventure, just waiting for us to put on our orange plastic arm floaties and dive the heck in.
The diving began pretty much right away as we joined the thirty two billion people making their way across the bridge to the Laxman Jhula side of Rishikesh. We could see our chosen hotel, the Jaipur Inn, from our arrival spot and said a little prayer that they would have room for us. We had planned to just bop around unconcerned until we found a place to our liking but, at this point, we were so absurdly over heated and exhausted that if our first choice didn’t have a vacancy, we were prepared to curl up with the cows in the street.
The Jaipur Inn manager took one look at sweaty, swaying Michael and became immediately concerned, and accommodated us right away. We took one look at the manager of the Jaipur Inn and became immediately convinced that he was Ricky Ricardo, and dubbed him as such right away.
Ricky showed us to our room, a beautifully decorated oasis with a balcony that looked out to the bustling street.
...excessively sweat-stained armpits, not included.
We camped out in Rishikesh for about…four days? There’s no way to know for sure, so let’s say it was four days. It was a very full stay and so we are just going to split the best things about this magical town into catagories, in no particular order.
…Except for the first two. Because those are our favorites. And the third thing, too. We LOVE the third thing.
1. Monkeys. In the town of Rishikesh, there are monkeys all over the place and it is such a delight. Pre-trip, as we were researching vaccinations, we discovered that many consider the Rabies vaccine necessary for India because of the monkeys. The horror stories were very graphic and very disturbing. But, being the Cheapy McCheapersons that we are, we decided that we wouldn’t likely be in much contact with rabid monkeys and went without. So you can imagine our paranoia when we had to hang out within just a few inches of these guys our first morning.
not rabid
But we soon loosened up and watching the monkeys from the bakery in the morning became our favorite activity. In fact, one day they were simply gone (it was especially hot, so maybe that’s why?) and it almost ruined our entire day.
Most days, though, these little guys swung about on the bridge wires and considered life from high perches.
see him??
And sometimes took a little break to read the trades.
...his name is "Teen Wolf"
2. Food. Our appetites, thank heavens, returned (albeit very slowly), so that by the last day we were tempted to eat everything. Rishikesh is a vegetarian town (although we saw a place with chicken on the menu and that was confusing. Hopefully that doesn’t end in a pitchfork wielding mob) and we had some truly happy meals.
Each morning began at the German Bakery. Such delicious treats, from sticky rolls to brown bread with delicious yak cheese (who knew?), with such a beautiful view of the town and river.
We had an amazing dish that was either palak or alook paneer at another spot, which looked kind of weird but was completely flavorful and creamy and gone much too soon.
One of our favorite spots was the Ganga Beach Restaurant. Their wood-fired pizzas and savory local dishes were the perfect treat, while watching the rafters bouncing about on the Ganges. Plus, our waiter was a funny, super short teenager that asked if he could live with us in the U.S.
We said yes.
3. Cows. They were walking everywhere, acting as city cleaners as they munched on any organic trash that was tossed in the street.
What can you say about these holy creatures? They were spectacular. And completely worthy of their sacred status.
And, bizarrely enough, treated really poorly by the locals. We saw a man actually go out of his way to approach a cow, rear his arm back and SMACK the side of the poor beast with all of his might. These Poggies were very upset. And it didn’t end there—children threw rocks at them, old ladies threw old fruit AT them (not TO them), people glared at them with general disdain. It was very weird and very unexpected.
You can come and live with us, cows!!
4. Air Conditioning. The great thing about Rishikesh is that it really is very condensed. So if you go during the obscenely hot season like a dope and basically spend the entire day out of doors, you can easily pop into your room for twenty minutes and bathe in artificial air.
It’s possible that Ricky thought we were drug addicts or something, the way we came and went from our room all day long. Oh, Ricky.
5. The Ganges. There is something very surreal and very humbling about just casually standing in the presence of the most significant body of water on Earth.
Every day, all day, crowds of people went down to bathe in the holy river.
okay, so this was a smaller crowd.
We had been pretty harshly warned by our travel nurse the various ways we would become diseased and then die should we choose to venture into the water ourselves. She was fun. Mike took this advice to heart with wide, frightened eyes and added it to his bank of India anxieties.
Then, as we woke up on our last day, he turned to Mary and announced that he would like to put his feet in the river. This from Captain Nervous.
India changes a man.
So, later that day, when we stumbled upon a beach, he went for it. Honestly, he would have submerged them more but, HOLY COW!!*, that was some seriously freezing spiritual water.
Good job, Poggie. Way to evolve.
*(ooooh--I totally get that saying now…)
6. Getting Lost. This happened twice and both times resulted in some pretty sweet surprises.
First we wandered around Swarg Ashram trying to find the remains of the Ashram that the Beatles stayed in (which we didn’t find) and that led us to seeing some spectacular sights and meeting some lovely people.
The second time we were on the hunt for a waterfall just outside of town (which we also didn’t find) and, instead, came upon the holy beach where we dipped our feet and had a very confusing conversation with a holy man who clearly doesn’t understand “Sorry- No Hindi.”
That happened to us a lot. We eventually started speaking in Spanish to see if that would make it any clearer that we were speaking different languages, since English gets kind of mashed into Hindi. It did not. He just kept chatting along.
6-ish. Yoga. This one is only an “ish” because we didn’t actually do any Yoga. That’s right. We were in the Yoga capital of the world and practiced none of it. We did have one scheduled on our last night but, as we began to leave for it, Ricky stopped us to say that he received a call that class had been cancelled.
However, it was nice to be in a place with so much Yoga happening everywhere. We attribute much of the peaceful atmosphere of the town to this. That many people chanting “Om Shanti Om” all day long can only be good for a community, right?
7. The Bridge. We thought we would hate it. It is VERY long and covered in monkeys and cows and beeping motorcycles and six hundred thousand people.
except at 6am, of course.
But if the river is the lifeblood, then that bridge is the pulse of Rishikesh. And so beautiful. When it came time to make one final trek across it, we felt a sizeable pang of regret. And we like to believe that it was sorry to see us go as well.
So we Poggies said goodbye to the bridge and the animals and the tiny waiter and Ricky Ricardo and the freezing cold Ganges and promised to come back one day, when we are older, wiser and less afraid of monkeys.
(p.s. we love you)
Next: Chapter 4: The Nepalese Plague
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