Ed and Nicky's world tour: Finding oursleves in Haridwar and Rishikesh

Haridwar is a very holy city for the Hindus, so went from Sikh to Hindu overnight. 1st thing in the morning off the night train, I got chased by a very scary macaque monkey for my bag of bananas which I promptly threw across the platform much to the amusement of the locals. I have not taken any photos of monkeys as I do not want to attract any attention from them but I found this picture below online. I cannot believe we spent so much time wanting to see monkeys in South America only to be confronted with them in the street everyday here. I am really quite frightened of them too as they are evil urban monkeys.

Anyway, we were intent on staying in Rishikesh and doing some yoga there. This is where the Beatles came to stay with the Maharishi when Ringo famously arrived with a suitcase full of baked beans and was quoted as saying it was just like Butlins. How right he was. For a holy place, where the Ganges first spills out from the mountains onto the plains, it's bloody dirty! The river itself is still clean at this point but the locals think nothing of chucking their rubbish all over the banks. Fairly standard practise here in India, but you would think that they would have more respect for a sacred place. Second problem is the westerners there. Here's a little story to enlighten you. When we arrived and checked into our "ashram" (very loosely used word to describe a place of learning be it yoga/meditation etc etc) there was some kid dressed as a Hare Krishna sat on the internet there. Ed stifled his laughter and we made our way up to a nice German bakery for breakfast. I had a little stroll round the area and came back to find the Hare Krishna kid sitting opposite Ed, who was blatantly ignoring him. I nearly wet myself! So of course I had to make conversation. He was Belgian and had just spent 2 weeks in a Hare Krishna centre in Vrindavan and had obviously "found" himself while there but it had been "very hard" for him to be there. I nodded and said nothing. He asked to read our guidebook and then told me how he didn't like them as they gave you a pre-conception of a place. Hmmmmmm. He then had to go off and find an ATM, presumably so he could pay his huge internet bills as that is all seemed to do all day long.

This set a pattern for our annoyance with Rishikesh. The people that were there were the problem. It seemed impossible to do a yoga class without chanting Shanti Om and being lectured on how yoga was exercise for the mind not the body. Just not our cup of tea and full of fraudsters that had jumped on the spiritual tourism bandwagon. The saving grace was the mountain view and the reasonably fresh air. After 3 days of yoga ( no chanting I promise) we were happy to leave to see Haridwar.

Haridwar was an intense but much nicer experience. Probably because all of the idiots are in Rishikesh and so the people there really are Indian pilgrims. We only had 1 evening there and went to see the puja ( prayer or worship) on the ghats at the sacred Ganges. The locals float flowers with candles down the fast flowing section of the river as an offering. There are plenty of people going round asking you to make a puja or aarti which is also like a prayer. Given we are not Hindu we felt kind of weird but I gave in and did aarti. You drop some coins on a plate with a candle on it, wave your hands over the candle and then the man holding the plate anoints you on your forehead with a bhindi spot. Mine was too liquid and started running down my nose. I still had the remnants 2 days later and was getting a lot of strange smiles from the locals. I felt like an idiot!

I have turned into one of those t*ats. Om Shanti! Shanti Om....

This was the worst room we have had so far. The toilet didn't know whether it was Asian or western and Ed got confused on what stance to take.

Puja in Haridwar

A spiritual awakening in Rishikesh?

Boating, I even have my nautical stripes on for the occasion. I was certainly not getting in one of the dodgy old boats we saw parked up at the side of the Ganges

A wedding party outside our hotel in Haridwar. Very loud until very late, so we slept in and woke up with just 10 mins to get up and out to the station

The groom on his horse with a pink turban. I have threatened Ed with this since.

A Chotiwallah that scared the life out of me.
I still do not really understand what they are but this was a real man sat like this. I know a Wallah is a salesman.