Rishikesh Part II: The Adveutures, People and Places

We spent time silently sitting by the river observing varied rituals. Some people dunked themselves into the water once, others up to three, four, seven plus times. Some would spend what seemed like forever just being in the water--deep cleansing--for others it was a quick in and out. Some gathered water into little jars and massive jugs--portable holiness--while others gave the river floating, flower-filled, leaf-bowls and little tea light candles. For such a conservative country it was interesting to see men striped down to their boxers and some older women standing, dripping wet and topless chattering on with friends. Of course, it seemed that young women were the ones required to be the most modest, all of the ones we saw walked into the river completely clothed. Despite the sparse and clinging clothing, no one stared. The focus was inward and reflective.

We sat and observed Rishikesh, we also walked and observed Rishikesh. Ironically, however, much of Rishikesh ended up observing us. We weren't blantant foreigners like the blondies we saw, but little things gave us away. Yvette's fair skin, my gages and lack of "normal" jewelry, and then of course when we opened our mouths and spewd perfect English and pathetic Hindi. During our mini walk-abouts we were frequently stopped by Indians and politely asked if we wouldn't mind taking a picture with them. You got used to being a walking attraction. I mean it is only fair, we snap pictures of them, so they are just making it a fir exchange.
We met the folks above on a walk to another part of town. The man in red, whose name I believe was Ranja Baba (or something close to that) approached us, knowing we were foreigners and struck up a conversation. Amazingly he guessed right off that I was not Indian, but "Irani"! Wow. I was pretty stunned. When Yvette mentioned that her family is from Mexico he began speaking a bit of Spanish and Italian. He mentioned that he had lot of friends from around the world. He seemed to be the side roads of Rishikesh's unofficial ambassador. He invited us to sit for chai, which the handsome young man (again I cannot recall his name) behind us made. As we were sitting the boy's family came by and this adorable little niece was quickly placed on our laps for pictures.

We soon bid our friends farewell and continued on walking. Eventually after sauntering through the neighborhood of Laxman Jula, we realized we were on the path toward the two famed waterfalls of Rishikesh. So we kept walking. The walk soon became a climb up a windy mountain road. Half way there we were told that we should have taken a cab from the bottom of the main road to the beginning of the actual hike to the waterfalls. Oh well. We made it this far might as well push on. And push on we did. We encountered a pack of big, grey monkey's who were eye out bag that held drinks in it. Lucky a man on a motorcycle came by and drove next to us scaring the monkeys off until we had passed. Another much appreciated act of kindness.

Soon we made it to the leaf, covered hike to the waterfalls and the waterfalls themselves. Absolutely stunning.


Beyond that we...

Found the best chai place in town, the lavender-coloured "Office" (an unfitting name I know). And there made friends with two little girls who silently shared their cookies with us, their extremely well educated mother who chose to stay home and take care of he daughters and a social Portuguese-Indian.

Fed cows who knew you had extra rotis (little tiny pita like bread) to give away.

Witnessed the "arti" festival. An evening ritual gathering on a lovely ghat.

Did yoga at a beautiful, well-kept ashram with amazing gardens that we, fittingly, accidentally stumbled upon. The yoga was free, held outside and privately guided by a casual, but tough instructor. After the session we were offered various drinks and fresh watermelon for breakfast. We were shown around the ashram, got to see the cows that the feed, and meet their Guru-ji. If we had had more time, the instructor offered to take us to the abandon ashram where the Beatles stayed, but unfortunately we found this magical place only hours before we had to head back to Haridaw and from there home.

And of course, we cleansed ourselves in the river.

It was an experience that would be difficult to put into words, so I apologize for the lacking attempt. There was such a startling cold when first stepping in, but the river was accepting and warmed quickly. The moments under the water seemed to last forever. It was like being in a humming, all-enveloping cocoon, where you did not feel the wet, tugging or cold, instead just comfort and warmth. It felt like you existed quietly, calmly in that moment and nowhere else.



After our initial dips, we befriended the girls to the left of me you see there and together the four us dunked into the river, holding hands and counting "Ram, ram 1; ram, ram 2; ram, ram 3..."
It was amazing.


Finally there was the trip home. Definitely much less inspiring than our time there. Briefly it went like this:

Walk to rick shaw. Get over charged for a short ride to the bus station. Wait at bus station (aka dirt lot) for bus. Bus arrives, but you are not allowed on. Finally allowed on. Bus does not go. Lean out window. See men working under bus. Curse at broken bus. Buy ice cream being sold through the windows by little boy. Ice cream falls on to lap. Curse ice cream and realize you hate ice cream. Hour later bus finally goes. Attempt to sleep away the annoyance, heat and runny nose that has been here most of the trip. Wake and ask Yvette if we are almost there. Nope. Bus turned around, then took detour. The long mountain road way. Get bloody nose. Get blood all over black scarf. Have concerned fellow bus riders pour water on your head to stop the bleeding, which is fine. Then have concerned fellow bus riders pour water on to your white head scarf, which is not fine, but done out of kindness. Finally arrive in Haridwar. Eat lunch at seemingly nice Hotel restaurant. Receive poor service even though you are the only ones there. Use disgusting bathrooms. Finally end up waiting on the train platform. Get dirt swept at you by inconsiderate sweeper man. Finally, finally get on train. Train is A/C. Your hair is wet.
A/C+wet head=sick.

I had a one day fever and one day of upset stomach and weakness, but I am all better now.
A subtle, and profound adventure.

Rishikesh Part I: First Impressions

Rishikesh was a grand adventure. We found peace, made friends, became tourist attractions, ran in the rain, endured long hours of traveling and got sick.

We were up early and off to the train station. I hoped that the station wouldn't be as crowded that early in the morning...my hopes were trampled under the feet of hundreds of people. Whats more is that we had a scare when we were told at the broken metal detector our tickets were wait listed, not confirmed. I freaked. We ran up to the tourist office, as the man at the detector suggested, but of course it was closed. At the last minute, a man, who must have taken pity on our panicked state, offered to take us across the street to place were we could get our tickets confirmed. We rushed over and an employee calmly with confirmed our tickets. Another mad rush we made it to platform 15 and on to our train.
Typical India.
Get told one thing, find out it is another, get told another thing, find out it is something else all together, start to hyperventilate and then at the last minute get saved by someone calmly shaking their head at your foreign anxiety.

The train was good. We navigated some seating confusion and finally were able to plop down and relax for the 5 hour trip. The Indian country side is green. Just green and lush. We saw corn, mango groves, lychee trees, villagers out in the fields, water ponds, walking along the tracks. We had A/C, tea time, the Indian train equivalent of airplane food, a sweet older man to chat with and the view.

We arrived in Haridwar. Haridwar is another embodiment of the stereotypical India--hot, chaotic, crowded. In addition Haridwar, on this particular day, was muddy. Fantastic. My white swishy foreigner pants had mud up to my calves. There was more transportation madness to be found here. At the bus station (for we had to take a bus from Haridwar to Rishikesh)--which was more of a muddy lot with one small entrance that vehicles people poured in and out of some sort of bus osmosis. We ran toward several buses asking the faces poking out the windows "Rishikesh?!" Most of the replies were "Nayhe". Finally, after chasing who knows how many buses and accidentally boarding the wrong bus, some one kindly pointed out the the right bus, which was just about to passes through the semi-permeable membrane of an the entrance/exit. We clamored aboard and were immediately offered seats. Sigh of relief. Stage two of to-Rishikesh odyssey complete.



An hour later we were dropped off in Rishikesh, hopped a rick shaw and made our way to the High Bank area, up away from the center of town. This part of Riskikesh had an aura that induced a calm and spiritual mood. Tree covered mountains cradled the town which seemed to be drawn in place last minute as a outline of the Ganges. Here the Holy River commands your attention. It roared like a living thing stretching itself through landscape. Down the middle a strong current dragged rafters along and along the banks the river calmed a bit as it lapped the ghats where the reverent gathered to cleanse themselves in the healing waters.

They say that India is a place saturated in spirituality. To be honest, it was in Rishikesh that I first felt this notion to be true, more than just a facade. The air was heavy with something other than the humidity. I don't have a word better than 'spirituality', so I hope that will suffice. I am sure this aura had to do with the proximity of nature; trees, mountains, water, wandering cows are automatic spirituality points in my animist-oriented book. Whatever the cause it was a good feeling. A release valve to the New Delhi pressure that had built up under our skin.

Rishikesh is best described through images, so I'll leave it to that.

Leaf bowls filled with flowers and incense to offer to the river.

Mad skills.

An elaborate temple shot from the rick shaw.

Thirsty cow.

Banana rick shaw!

A street near our hostel.

Giant Lord Shiva.

On Climbing and Saris

A Lovely Wednesday, in two parts.

I. Climbing
We left the apartment early and traversed a cool, damp Delhi--remanence of the magnificent lighting and rain storm that had passed though the night before--to IMF.
On the way up the path to the climbing wall we were passed by Gerard on his green and pink, "Mighty One"-esqu (Motorcycles Diaries reference) motorcycle.

We were able to climb for a good hour, the latter half spent on the roof-sheltered lead wall, due to the sprinkling rain that drifted by every now and then. Peacocks and peahens cried. Toads, slugs, and crickets came out to enjoy the cool wet that permeated everything.
A serene and invigorating way to start the day.
Pavan, our tough climbing instructor, and Gerard.


II. Saris
We've been having a sari dilemma, but today that issue was suddenly and abruptly decided.
So I am sure most of you are familiar with the more traditional outfit for Indian women: the Sari. (Google it if you are not). They are quiet lovely. It seems that for middle class women, saris are something to be worn to fancy or formal occasions, weddings, conferences, etc; whereas I have noticed that most older women of any class, and poor women of any age, except very young girls, tend to wear saris as everyday outfits.
We were unsure of whether or not we should buy one. We were caught up in questions like:
1.Will we ever wear it again?
2.Will they be to expensive?
3.Will we even wear it in India?
4.What formal event do we have to attend?

Today the answers came:
1. Why not? Perhaps one of my Indian friends gets married and Yvette and I will go.
2. No, not when a traveling Bengali sales man stops by the office conveniently selling beautiful saris and your Bengali co-work gets you a rockin' deal.
3. Yes.
4. At the Gender and Human Rights Responses to HIV/AIDS conference at the end of June
(I am so intellectually excited for this conference!)

What we bought was the long, single piece of cloth part of the sari, the short blouse and petticoat we can by at many stores and are quite generic. The cloth we got it pure silk. The salesman put a LIGHTER right on the cloth and NOTHING happened! I wish I was brave enough to re-demonstrate this via video. But I am not. You will just have to believe me. The patterns were lovely and all done in Bengali style (although Yvette and I cannot tell the difference between styles).
That is folded over three times. Yeah. Big.

Sorry for not having a picture of me in it. It is pretty complicated to put on, we'll need help doing it. So I'll have pictures of it on after June 27th.

A HUGE thanks to Anita for helping make this decision easy, the shopping painless and the price so awesome.

Paravati Steps In

We had several goals for this weekend, but first and foremost was to secure our train tickets to Rishikesh.

A few backnotes:
We are planning on traveling to Rishikesh from Thursday June 16th to Sunday June 19th (if you are a regular Skype buddy of mine, please be aware that I will not be on during this time, limited email only). Rishikesh is the town where the Beatles hung out and supposedly wrote most of the "White Album". It is also the self proclaimed "Yoga Capital of the World" and is populated with hundreds of ashrams, where one can take a lengthy yoga retreat. It is cradled between green mountains cut by the holy Ganges river. We hear that this far up river the water is fairly pure and clean since it sits above most of the cities that pollute it so.
After spending nearly a month in a crowed, crazy city, it will be nice to escape to the mountains and greenery Rishikesh has to offer.












(picture courtesy of Google)

So Rishikesh=great. Getting there...a whole other issue.

Booking trains is India is terribly complicated for poor little foreigners like ourselves.
Waiting lists (WLs) abound during summer break season, which is now. And often you are WL 120/WL 121. With numbers like that it is highly unlikely that you will acquire a seat. Or are the tikal tickets, which require that you show up to the station two days in advanced very very early and wait in what I am sure is a vicious line.
There are also numerous different types of trains and different cars you can book on said, trains from CC to 1A, 2 tier to 3 tier, sleeper, first class, second class, A/C, non A/C.
Needless to say we were in a bit of a confused tizzy.












(picture courtesy of Google)

Then all of a sudden, Ben, a wonderful and informative past intern, let us in on a little secret.
There is a tourist quota!
Even though all of the trains we were looking at were completely booked, there were still a fair amount of tourist tickets available. Hoorah!
With this information at hand our weekend adventure began.

We headed out to the New Delhi train station on Saturday afternoon, after lunch, then cup of homemade chai and cookies with Laxmi and her auntie.
It was a little bit of a shock, emerging from the sleek, clean, cool and modern metro into the stereotypical India you hear about in the US. It does exist.
We found it. It is the train station, in and of itself. It was the truly hot (somehow 10 degrees hotter than other parts of the city), crowded, smelly (from the open urinals on the street) part of town. The good news is that we, after asking directions numerous times, found the Indian Tourist Bureau Office. The bad news is you need your passport to book these tickets, which we neglected to bring. Defeated and tired from the crowed, smelly heat we retreated back to the metro and headed to the center of the city, Connaught Place. Here we found a much needed Post Office and decided to wander around until is was dinner time.

Connaught Place is a series of circular streets, the inner most surrounds a park and the metro station. The column lined buildings contain very western styled clothing shops (like Adidas and H&M), but there are also a fair share of people set up on the street selling small trinkets, jewelry, statues, cloth, and fruit.

It is among these people that we found our new Indian mom.


She is a sweet woman who sells beautiful statues and jewelry on a carpet in Connaught Place. She was the kindest, least pushy sales person I have met thus far. Her tactic seems to be to win you over kindness. When we told her what were doing here, she called it "God's work". To her were were very sweet girls, she called us daughters and said she would be our Indian mother, since ours were so far away.
Her goods were also stunning.
I've had in mind to buy a statue of a Hindu goddess since I arrived and on her carpet I saw the one who called to me. She was a dark, alluring alloy-cast Paravati; goddess of love and devotion, second wife of Shiva, who was won over when Paravati matched his extraordinary asceticism by going without food, shelter or clothing in the forest until she mastered her physical needs. She called to me with her dark skin and glowing gold face. An aura of serenity surrounded her.


Saturday Paravati stepped into our lives. And Sunday would turn out to be a very productive and uplifting day.
(The orange flower was given to my by a student and yes that green-blue feather is real, I found it on the ground at our apartment complex, awesome, no?)

Sunday morning we ventured out early to make our first day at the climbing wall.
Finally!
Once we arrived we quickly befriended two French climbers.
One, we could tell, from his build and tanned complexion, was an experience climber. Gerard was easily approachable, open and inviting. When we told him that we were from the US, he said that his dream was to climb in the US. I said mine was to climb in France. At that he immediately extended an invitation to come stay and climb with him in southern France if ever I should be there. I was thoroughly delighted. Unfortunately, for us Gerard will be going back to France for vacation (he teaches at a French school here in Delhi) on June 21 and won't be back until the end of August and we will be in Rishikesh from the 16th to 19th, so we won't get to climb with him this weekend, but we hope to see him at the wall him some morning this week. Luckily, though, his climbing partner, Feni, a quiet, yet kind-faced young women, asked if we would be here and climbing in July. We said yes, of course, and agreed to climb together then.

Socializing was great, but we came to climb.
And climb we did. I feel pretty good, I wasn't as out of shape as I would have thought. We climbed for several hours, also getting to know the regular Indian climbing instructors a bit. Also we were fortunate enough to have our monthly passes given to us that first day, usually they ask that you come for two days to a week before they give it out.
Either our mad climbing skills or Paravati must have influenced them.

After we got good and pumped it was time for train station foray take two. Riskshaw, metro, walking. We made it. And after an hour of waiting with passports in hand we did it! We got our confirmed tickets to Rishikesh!











After our success we decided to explore this part of Delhi and ran into the Main bazaar where we wandered, lunched and tried a curious creamy pink drink that is passed out for free on Sundays for some reason. It was good. Tasted like rose water and milk. Yum.

Time to Kill

I get asked quite often what I do in my spare time (the time spent at home, not adventuring), which is anytime after work or the weekends.
So might as well blog to answer the numerous people who ask and to kill some time.
Bang bang.


I read.


















I journal. Not enough.

I blog. Enough.

I draw. Not enough.

I work on making homemade chai.

I take pictures of the home made chai attempts.


















I do school stuff:
researching for papers,
applying for scholarships,
cursing the financial aid office.

I sit in front of the computer, thinking.

I listen to music.

I college. Sometimes.














I read the news online.

I write.

I doodle.

I doodle on letters.

I take pictures of letter doodles.














I take pictures of letter doodles and chai.














I look through pictures I've taken.

I Skype.

I sit and wait around for people to Skype with.

I read and answer emails.

I day dream.

I do laundry.

I tidy up.

I read some more.

I listen to music Youtube.

Bad A**

Tattoos, climbing, face scarves, and....the hoki-poki.
The reasons I have titled this a bad a** post. (It has been edited for G-rated audiences).


There is not too much to report from this week. Work was work. We spent the first half of each day doing office/computer work (which was difficult with all the power outages, and failing of the share-drive), then the second part of the day working with the kids.
They always make my day.

So one day after we had finished a decent amount of studying and working, the one of the girls from the second batch, Varsha, pulled out a strip of colourful, glittery stick-on tattoos, as she showed off the five or six she had running up her slender little arms. All the girls quickly turned on Yvette and I and without waiting for our consent began slapping roes and butterflies on to us.
The tattoos addition to the re-styling of my hair, preformed by 4-5 little Indian cosmetologists at once, made for an very endearing afternoon.
And of course I looked very rough and tumble with my new ink.
















After all the personal adornment was completed, we decided to engage in another too-cool-for-school activity...the hoki-poki. Yes.
And man, do these kids love it. I have never been so hoki-pokied out.


Then comes the weekend where it is always a game of determining how to fill the vast expanse of free time. This particular Saturday the game was easy. I had a mission: find the climbing gym.
We had heard fantastical rumors of a climbing gym operated by the mysterious Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF), which was supposedly located quite close to us on the University of Delhi's south campus.
We ventured out to find it.

When we arrived to the area, which was a very short rickshaw ride from home, we were lucky enough to have two Indian girls kindly show us the appropriate University entrancement, most of which are gated. After hiking up a nice little forested driveway, we came upon the IMF headquarters. The grounds were green, well-kept and beautifully landscaped; as for the the climbing wall, well it was hard to miss.

Lazying around the structure, hoping on a climb here and there, were two Frenchmen, doing so bad a**, pumpy-looking roofed and overhanging climbs; and several young Indians (and one girl, hooray our kind is welcome!). The air was very relaxed, just chill. It seemed as if everyone knew everyone. I would even venture to say that it must be a very close-knit group that hangs around this wall. The people were friendly and asked if we needed help, we mentioned that we were interested in climbing. The gave us forms to fill out and mentioned that monthly passes were only 500 rupees ($12.50), but we were supposed to come and climb for a few days to a week before were could be awarded the coveted monthly pass. We have to prove ourselves as loyal and consistent apparently.

We also wandered into the IMF HQ it self. It was a very spacious, building lined with pictures and descriptions of various climbing exploits.

Quite satisfied with ourselves, the success of our quest and the fact that we would be climbing very soon, we headed back into the depths of New Delhi, done up to protect ourselves from the heat, in the most bad a** of styles of course.

East meets West

Some of my favorite Western bands
(Mumford and Sons, and Laura Marling)
playing with some great Indian artists.
Seems appropriate.