Haridwar

Friday 1^st May 2015

Last night there was a huge storm with lightening that lit up our room every few minute (and at times every few seconds) the rain pounded down on the roof and battered the windows the thunder rumbled loud and deep only matched in volume by the generator that kicked in every time the power went off (which was often) and the wind shook the building and whistled through the gaps around the AC unit.

As such we didn’t really sleep much not helped by the sunrise that came right through the flimsy curtains and hit me in the face while I tried to sleep.

We dozed until late and when we finally headed to breakfast still felt groggy with sleep. Mark wasn’t feeling on top of the world so after eating we went back up to the room where he went back to bed.

I spent most of the day catching up on writing and doing some reading and generally not doing much.

After weeks of joking about ordering room service we did eating dinner in front of a movie and generally not doing much all evening.

Saturday 2^nd May 2015

Mark was still ill today so we had a slow morning after breakfast I sorted through my things (it’s amazing how much mess we make in such a short period of time) then chilled out reading waiting for the heat of the day to cool down so we could venture out.

About 3pm we headed off on foot to the Mansi Devi temple it was a bit of a mission to figure out what was going on as nothing was in English but in the end we got there and had tickets for the cable car up to the temple transport tickets to the Chandra Devi temple and tickets for the cable car there.

Not intentionally we had bought some sort of deluxe ticket that meant we didn’t have to wait in line and so were queue jumped to the front. We rode up with two Indian woman who both clutched the sides of the cable car so tightly I thought they might bend it!

It only took a few minutes to get up to the temple where we left our shoes in the shoe stall (later when we collected them I paid the dude 5 rupees and his grin was so wide it looked like it was going to split his face open)

The temple was very military with lines everywhere and blessings forced upon us (after each one they demanded 100 rupees each! I paid 10 rupees the first time and after that ignored their call for money) we wondered about and took a look at the view then got the cable car back down.

At the bottom we were shepherded into a minivan and driven the short distance to Chandra Devi temple along the way we got our first glimpse of the mighty Ganga this far north as we crossed over on a bridge it was spectacular a mighty flowing river and it looked pretty clean to boot!

At the temple we went inside but this time there was no express lane and we had to wait for ages for the cable car for reasons unknown when in line for anything Indian people seem to feel the need to press as close to you as possible and if you leave even a fraction of space in front of you they continuously point out that you can move  forward as it was at least 35 degrees I was not in the mood to be pressed up against anyone so held my ground as solidly as I could!

Eventually we got in the cable car this one was longer taking five minutes to reach the top. The view was spectacular (as long as you didn’t look down at all the rubbish that had been thrown from the cable car)

We got to the top where there were two temples it was just as military here but not as money grubbing as we didn’t get asked for a donation once. We didn’t stay too long as we wanted to get back to the river in time to see the evening arti.

We had to wait for quite a while for the mini bus back to fill up but eventually we were on our way. We got dropped off in town rather than go all the way back to the first temple and from here it was a bit of a walk to where the arti was held.

By the time we got there it had started and we were too late to get decent spots so we stayed up above it all and watched from a distance rather than going down onto the ghat. We had a pretty good view and stuck around as the sun went down. It was like a party atmosphere which hundreds of devotees swimming in the river as he bells rang and the prayers were said.

We then headed back towards the guesthouse where we got some dinner the food took ages but was worth it and we went to bed feeling pretty stuffed.

Sunday 3^rd May 2015

Check out wasn’t until 12pm and knowing we wouldn’t be able to check in anywhere too early in Rishikesh we had a slow morning getting packed up and finally checking out.

We walked down the road to the bus station and got straight on a bus bound for Rishikesh. Luckily there was space at the front for our bags and that we got seats. The drive took about an hour and was pretty unexciting. There was lots of traffic and horns blared the entire journey.

We arrived at the bus station in Rishikesh and were immediately swarmed by touts trying to get us to go with them in their rickshaws. We checked out maps and headed in the direction we wanted to go. We crossed a bridge and re-checked the map, we were going the way we wanted to but it was further than we thought and the sun was baring down on us. We walked until we got back to the main road where eventually we got a rickshaw to take us the rest of the way.

We got on just in time as we were at the bottom of a hill although the amount of traffic made slow progress at least we weren’t trudging up with all our gear on our backs!

Once at the top we started looking for a guesthouse we hadn’t been searching long when a girl approached us and told us about the place she was staying out. Although it’s a bit out of the way up a hill (good exercise) it’s clean and cool and has a flat roof to chill out and most of all its quiet with only four rooms and cheap!

We checked in and headed out to get food we hadn’t eaten all day and were in need of sustenance. We found a cheap Indian place with Wi-Fi and tucked in while we checked emails and what not.

Back at the guesthouse I did some laundry as almost everything I owned was filthy having not done any washing since leaving Pokhara.it took me a while but was nice as I just sat out on the roof in the sun doing it.

When everything was clean I had a long hot shower and felt properly clean for the first time in ages didn’t have any clean knickers or a bra so had to go commando in the most mismatched outfit possible to dinner. We went to a hippyish café which had an entire vegan section much to my delight!

The restaurant had an amazing view of the Ganges (although by the time we got there it was pretty much dark so we couldn’t see much) after eating we took a walk down to the river to see one of the suspension bridges but it was very dark by this stage and not very well lit so we didn’t stick around long.

The walk back to the guesthouse didn’t take too long but we did get chased by several very angry dogs. When we arrived at the accommodation there was no power so we went about in the dark until bedtime.