Rishi
Rishikesh was a great post-Delhi break, worthy of its own post. Whereas Daz and Katie left yoga, the Beatles and the Ganges behind and moved on to Missouri, Tom and I ended up spending an extra night (total of 2)
It hadn’t started out great. Having finished up the previous post, we went out for the worst dinner we’ve had since getting to India. The “ice tea” we were served was foul - a murky brown colour and a taste to match. I hypothesised that someone had run down to the Ganges and scooped some up into a glass. The rest of the food was rubbish - and frequently had nothing to do with what was ordered. “Never order the Waldorf Salad!” had warned Tom, quoting Fawlty Towers. I found out why when ‘it’ arrived - the dish I was eventually served, I believe, was a WonTon Soup. Even the amazing location of the restaurant - a platform built over a cliff-face with the Ganges 30m below - couldn’t make up for just how bad the meal was. A beer (Kingfisher) cost as much as a night’s stay for 2 people in our hotel.
The next day (as Daz and Katie went off to Missouri) Tom and I went to take a look at the Beatles’ isolated ashram (spiritual community), the fertile grounds credited with the White Album’s conception. It was abandoned in 1997 and the tropical forest has been rapidly reclaiming it ever since - Tom and I walked right past it at first, and noticed throughout that it was covering the traces of previous tourist visitors faster than they could carve paths through it. For a modest 100 Rupees a half-dressed man - ostensibly a caretaker - opened the rusted and creaking gates to us, and after a half minute’s incomprehensible garble (probably some ground rules, duly disobeyed) we were left to our own devices in the huge hillside complex. The feeling of freedom and and adventure we enjoyed as we clambered around the crumbling, vegetation-strewn ruins is difficult to put into words - but it’s a deep-felt liberation when less than a week ago we were in Britain, where rules are king and all visits are perspex-framed, path-defined and velvet cordon-bound.
It was in this complex that we made our first on-the-road acquaintances - a strange ad-hoc bunch comprising two Israelis traveling the world after compulsory military service; a mute Finn woman, and delicate Swede, and a swarthy - but totally barmy - Iranian university professor. He was familiar with the layout, leading us through dense vegetation to a now hidden auditorium, the dilapidated roof echoing the Israeli’s weak Beatles renditions. We stopped for a smoke and shared backgrounds, musical tastes and racist jokes, and scheduled a meetup at a local cafe that night.
With one of the Israelis acting as our guide, we watched the village’s daily riverside ceremony, a pooja delivered in honour of Shiva (the creator/destroyer of worlds). Dozens of small candles were sent twinkling down the Ganges as locals and pilgrims burned petals in a central pyre. As night fell and the ceremony drew to a close, the clouds rolled in from the Himalayas and opened up, dispersing the pilgrims. Tom and I ran back to the hotel across a vast footbridge over the Ganges, as solid sheets of rain came down and bolts of lightning over the mountains lit up the suspension wires in the night. The power in the hotel was off so my shower was taken in the flashing glow of my strobe bike light - a decent approximation of what we’d just experienced!
Related:
- Namaste!
- Typed from Rishikesh, in the Uttarkhand province, where the hills rise up suddenly from the flat plains of northern india to form the start of the Himalayas. This is the village which George Harrison brought the other Beatles to in order to open their minds (and write the White Album!), though they eventually lost their faith in the spirituality of the place when faced with escalating money demands of their yogi. So it goes. As you can see from the hotel balcony - the environment is reason enough to come here, even if you feel your mind is open enough not to need the zillions of yoga classes on offer here. Rather go rafting, personally. - the view from the balcony today - in stark contrast to our previous residences: - our Delhi hostel - TV, shower and sofa + coffee table! luxury. Except when the electricity cuts out in the middle of the night and you wake up with rivulets of sweat pouring down your every nook & cranny. Fenton has once again left a mystery stain on the bedsheets. Must be a common feature to all his travels. - the sleeper train. Not so bad, actually. Might smother...
- A-nyhao!
- Bad pun, I know. Nihao y'all. It seems we've been enjoying our Chinese leg so much, blogging about it has taken a dramatic back seat - time for a little update. After a long, empty flight (stretched out on rows of seats we had to ourselves) via misty Hong Kong we landed in Beijing just as the sun was setting. The modernity and cleanliness of Beijing airport left us stunned & excited - and heralded the stark contrast between China and India, which we had greatly underestimated. The immediate difference is in wealth - Beijing's streets are awash with pretty women, sparkling Audi's, glittering skyscrapers, highly fashionable clothes shops, hairdressers (ugh) and shopping malls (ugh^2). The 2008 Olympics still echo everywhere - products proudly proclaim their endorsements, posters still line the streets, public transport is efficient and obsessively clean, the mascots are still all over the state-run TV programmes, and security is tight and well-drilled at all the recently renovated tourist spots (in a few cases over-renovated, losing some of the authenticity that's so vital to the enjoyment of a visit to an ancient relic of China's immense cultural baggage - though it does make for nice photos!). There's no...
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- Before we left, despite common warnings of dodgy road behaviour I still wouldn't have expected that three weeks into our trip Indian driving would still shock, amaze, irritate and draw expletives from us - that it still does so ought to impress on you just how shite, mad and totally idiotic it really gets. It would be harsh to criticise road surface quality in a country as large, poor and cattle-infested as India, especially when as a group we've not always been on the major touristic circuits. And yet, after two days riding on Indian roads, it shocks me that nobody is doing anything about loose gravel left lying around on sharp corners after roadworks. I managed to spin out and deck my pissy little scooter (escaping with barely a scratch, thankfully) going out wide on a blind right-hander for precisely that reason. Why take it wide? will ask road veterans. You idiot, if you'd taken a 'racing line' you'd have been fine! they might protest. Why not keep your speed down? all very valid objections in a country where the Highway Code isn't rarer in bookstores than tourist-aimed copies of the Kama Sutra. But in India, corners are viewed...
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