Hannah: Rishikesh, Utrrakhand

Our guesthouse

Festivities

Some of the gang

Angel trying to purify himself in the Holy Ganga

Finally arrived in Rishikesh about a week ago. I wanted to come here in 2001 - but I got denghy fever in Dehradun and never made it.

It's a touristy place on the bank of the River Ganges, famous for meditation and yoga. It's full of wierd and wonderful characters - Indian and foreign, some of whom wander around dressed as babas or sadhus, barefoot with dreadlocks and lunghis. The real ones are people who have left everything to devote themselves to meditation - and smoking charras usually and alot of Indians treat them with respect and give them food or money. There's also quite a few fake foreign ones who dress like that just to be cool.

Alot of people come here to do meditation retreats of about ten days or more, where you get up at 5am and spend eight hours a day sitting in the lotus position, meditating. I think the fact that you are not allowed to speak for the entire time you're there, put me and Angel off straight away! ;)

Rishikesh was probably made more famous by the Beatles who lived here for a while and wrote the White Album here. We went to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Asram, where they stayed and it was half derelict (shut down by the government but some old guy lives there and sneaks people in for 50 rupees.) We met someone who lived here at the time said that John Lennon lived in hut 9 and that's where he wrote most of the songs. If you're reading this and you're over 60, you probably know far more about it than we do.

Apparently an English Sadhu, friend of the guy we met, tried to go and see them at the ashram but wasn't allowed in, but a couple of days later, he was walking along the bank of the Ganges late at night with a friend and they heard music and saw a campfire. When they went over, it was all four of them with Mia Farrow and her sister and their spiritual guru. This guy told us that John and another one had taken acid and they gave them some but their guru disapproved so to keep it quiet. He also said that Mia's sister had taken Lsd and had a bad trip and refused to come out of her hut for two days. John sang to her 'Prudence, won't you come out and play'... And she came out and hugged him. Nice stories huh? True or fabricated...still nice.

Our guesthouse is an old ashram and all the rooms face into the courtyard in the centre. We've met loads of people - it's a good place to hang out. We spent alot of time chilling by the Ganges as well. There are little beaches dotted along the bank in Rishikiesh and they're usually desserted. We're also addicted to museli fruit and yoghurt breakfast but they're so big that I can't eat anything else till dinner. We found our new favourite place - Pyramid Cafe at the of a hill AND has wifi! It only serves organic home-produced food and it's amazing! All veggie- no meat at all here- but not missing it yet!

There was a big festival over the weekend for Indian new year, so the town was full of Indian tourists, fireworks, music, people throwing coloured powder etc.

Would've liked to stay longer in Rishikesh- really comfortable here and met some great people - especially our mad old Swedish hippy friend - who is a bit deaf and so just talks all the time so he doesn't have to try and hear. He's regailed us with hilarious stories - he's spent most of his life here and hates Sweden beacuse he says people never smile there. He's been back only once in 15 years and he lasted 3 days!

.... Next stop Sikkim! X