"Don't Worry, No Hurry"

And finally, a post about Rishikesh!

This past Friday afternoon, 7 of us started our journey to the Himalayan town via non-ac sleeper train (this sounds bad, but in fact was pretty spacious and comfortable by comparison, you just wait and see) and about 6 hours later arrived in the small town of Haridwar, about a 45 minute auto-rickshaw away from the ultimate destination, Rishikesh. Naturally, like all of India we caught an auto for double the price (even after haggling, being white is a real disadvantage sometimes) and after only 10 minutes, we found out our auto driver really had no idea where he was going. Why do all of these drivers claim to know where they are?! Luckily, Emily was in ridiculously good contact with Seema Ji (we’d talked to her so many times we were now on a first name basis), the woman who owned the hotel where we stayed, and she helped guide the auto to our weekend home (side note: staying at this place cost me $12 a night.. you should all be jealous). This is one reason we had such a good weekend: We arrived to the hotel to find our rooms fully furnished, dinner waiting, and the owners of the hotel ready to help with any trip planning we wanted. Oh, and also the most refreshing breeze you could ever imagine -- (I love mountain air!!). It was so nice after worrying about every second of trip planning to have people ready to take over that responsibly. With the help of Seema Ji and her husband, our group decided to go big or go home: we scheduled a guided trek for the next morning, starting bright and early at 6 AM.

Saturday morning rolled around and the strikingly early 5:30 alarm went off, and our group assembled downstairs ready to take on the day of hiking. I don’t really think we knew exactly what we were getting into, but we all packed into an SUV to drive to the top of the nearest foothills, where we were planning to first visit a temple and then trek all the way back down from there. Like any mountain drive, the curves were sharp, roads were windy, but the views were spectacular. Being up at 6:30 to watch the sun come up over mountains is exactly why I came to Rishikesh, and the drive was totally worth it. We also passed by a series of pretty hysterical road signs, such as “License to drive, not fly”, “Speed Kills, not Thrills”, and “Driving is Risky, when drinking Whisky”. My favorite, and also the title of this post was “Don’t Worry, no Hurry”. Maybe the roads were a little safer because of the signs? I’d like to think so.

Before leaving, we spotted a man in cargo shorts, a red button up shirt, and a very bright yellow scarf. Interesting, could it be a new guest at 6 AM? No no, that just happened to be our guide for the day. The group was a bit skeptical when he had a morning cig before we started our trek up to the temple (around 300 steep steps up), but he turned out to be a very good guide. Although for some reason he thought it was funny to continuously make lion noises… other than that, yellow scarf man was a complete success. Our hike (which I originally thought was 7 km) turned out to be a 12 km trek alllll the way back down to our hotel. For those unfamiliar with the miles to km conversion, that’s about 7.5 miles. Whatttup exercise! Our hike was complete with stunning mountain views, tours of people farming land, and most importantly a stop off to a small waterfall to cool off and go for a swim. All-in-all, great day! We got back to the hotel in time for some afternoon tea and a much needed nap, and later that night we trekked over to the actual town of Rishikesh to go to the Ganga Aarti. The trek involved crossing one of the famous suspension bridges of Rishikesh, which was overrun with monkeys. I wish I was exaggerating, but the monkeys in this town may have outnumbered the dogs. And they were not friendly monkeys… we were warned at the beginning of the semester to not play around with them, and now I understand why. As I crossed the bridge I passed by a little girl crying because they were literally EVERYWHERE, no escape from monkeys. Luckily we all made it out alive and right on time to the aarti.

The aarti is a Hindu religious ceremony honoring the river every night, where songs are sung, offerings are given, and special flames are burned and the smoke is taken. Once again I am terrible at explaining these things, so please, click my link. It was a beautiful ceremony though! The children studying the Vedas at the Ashram performed the actual ceremony, and torches were lit as the sun set over the river and the deity was lit up for everyone to see. We ended our evening with a much needed dinner out over the river, and an early night to bed.

Sunday morning we slept in (much needed) and started our day with a session of yoga. Because, who goes to Rishikesh without doing a little yoga? For some reason I fanaticized that my time in India might make me more flexible… nope. I don’t think the yogi was impressed with my lack of flexibility, telling our group multiple times to keep practicing the poses at home in our free time. It was so relaxing to get some good stretches in though, even if I couldn’t bend my body in half (yes, this man bent literally in half, and then lifted himself on his arms). We left Rishikesh feeling relaxed and rejuvenated, ready to take on the many challenges of Delhi.. I was unaware the challenges would start with the trip home.

Now from the beginning we had planned to take the bus home, on suggestion from our program advisors because there was very limited (if any) space on the trains back to Delhi. It’s about 350 km to Rishikesh, so I would guess the drive to be about 5 hours, wouldn’t you? Turns out the local bus for 1) has absolutely no form of planning or pre-ordering of tickets; 2) No AC (not surprising); and 3) Is completely packed. Luckily we were travelling with the handy Sagarika, whose Hindi skills are far superior and helped us get onto a bus, where we were definitely the ONLY non-locals travelling. It started out as an alright trip, but after about 2 hours of not being able to adequately fit into the seat (being over 5’6’’ here is tough) I could tell it was going to be a loooong ride. About 8 HOURS later, after stop-and-go traffic, waves of dust, cramped quarters and a serious lack of personal space, we finally arrived back in Delhi, and managed to catch an auto home only to have him first push another auto with his foot to the nearest gas station before driving us back to Sukdhev Vihar. So it was a long journey. Our host parents late night dinnertime is finally proving to be an advantage though, as when we got home they had waited to eat and were ready to hear all about the epic journey to and from Rishikesh. It’s so nice to have a home away from home!

Wow, epic post, sorry about that. Aside from my fun filled weekend (or maybe because of my fun filled weekend?) I've spend the majority of this week battling some not-so-fun Indian illnesses. I'll spare the details. All I have to say: Thank God for antibiotics, and my very caring Hindi teachers.