On Saturday afternoon I left Delhi by train for the holy city of Haridwar: like Varanasi, sitting on the bank of the Ganges. Arriving after dark and having eaten a curry on the train, I checked into my hotel and hit the streets for a bit of a wander and to see what 'action' there was to be had in a town which, like Varanasi, serves no alcohol or meat.
To my great surprise, I did find some 'action'... there was some kind of parade going along the main street. It was clearly some kind of Hindu puja but I never found out to what or whom this particular puja was dedicated. There was another one the following night; I didn't find out what that was about either. I did try asking the locals, the upshot being that they either didn't know or didn't want to tell me!
The parade was a mish-mash of decorated animals and various brightly-lit floats pulled and pushed by hand or by tractors. The power for the lights came from generators pulled by hand, with long cables trailing to the floats behind, held up from the street by men with poles. On some of the floats men in heavy make-up depicted scenes from Hindu mythology.
Other floats were basically just sound systems, with nationalistic names and slogans like 'Bharat' (official name for India) and 'Ashok' (emperor from the 3rd century BC). These were also brightly lit and extremely loud! Sometimes these attracted a crowd of madly-dancing youths, sometimes some older guys would dance around a trumpet in front of them.
Lastly I have to mention the brass bands that accompanied the sound systems - they play along with the music pumping out of the speakers, and wear the most amazingly bright uniforms. And none of them seemed to mind me struggling to get decent photos of them!
I was genuinely surprised by Haridwar, as it turned out to be such a colourful place. There wasn't really a heck of a lot to DO there, short of joining an ashram and becoming a yogi, but just wandering around was very rewarding. Just crossing the river in the morning, I was surprised to see guys panning for gold in the Ganges. I later found out that they also look for old coins and jewellery, the latter often coming from the remains of cremations. Nice.
Further upstream at the main Ghat, locals and visitors alike cooled off from the heat of the day by taking a dip in the holy waters of the Ganges, making for another colourful scene.
Having been told a tale or two about the presence of elephants, leopards, and tigers in the National Park that surrounds Haridwar, I keenly signed up for a 'jungle safari' in the afternoon. Unfortunately I didn't see any of the big three mentioned above (this is not unusual apparently) but it was nice to get out into the countryside and we did see a lot of interesting birdlife, like flocks of parakeets that dart past you like fighter jets. As it got dark we saw a few big mammals too, like deer and wild boar.
An unexpected highlight of this trip was visiting a tribal village. The guy who ran our tour (of just four tourists) has been involved with bringing government assistance to these people, who have only recently abandoned their nomadic lifestyle and started using cash instead of the barter system. Hailing originally from Afghanistan, they speak a mixture of Afghan languages, Punjabi, Urdu and Hindi. I couldn't believe that people could still be living like this, so close to the city. They let us into their homes, made of a mix of mud, straw, and buffalo dung, and made us tea, using fresh milk from their herd of buffalo. Yum.
Next was Rishikesh, about 30km north of Haridwar, or an hour and a half of bone-shaking in the back of a three-wheeler! Rishikesh is famous as the place where the Beatles got spiritual with the Maharishi (man). Today it still attracts a sizeable crowd of westerners who want to get spiritual at the many ashrams and yoga halls, most of which sprang up only after the Beatles got disillusioned and buggered off to carry on selling records.
Funnily enough, your average Indian is generally bemused by the swarms of westerners who come to places like Rishikesh to learn yoga. You see, it's just not that, well, cool. According to the 'good book', the sight of westerners coming to Rishikesh to learn yoga is to an Indian what an Englishman might think of Indians coming to somewhere like Devon to learn something like Morris dancing.
Rishikesh is strung out along the banks of the Ganges, with the main centre lying some distance away from the more attractive and interesting areas upstream - this is where the ashrams, yoga halls, and most of the westerners are to be found. Oh and lots of monkeys stalking the two pedestrian suspension bridges, waiting to pounce on unsuspecting tourists - one went for my bag! Also to be found, despite the ban on alcohol and meat also in force in Rishikesh, are restaurants and cafes that don't just sell curry or poor imitations of western food - lack of variety in Haridwar became a pain after a while, and this coming from someone who loves Indian food - try as I might, I just can't eat two curries a day!
The 'good book' says that Rishikesh is the kind of place that you either shoot straight through or stay for weeks. I stayed just one night - I managed to walk pretty much everywhere in town on my first day, and the rafting trip that I wanted to go on on the second day was cancelled. Pah. Rafting on the Ganges would have been fun, particularly as I failed to go rafting in both Argentina and New Zealand, for various reasons. Anyway I didn't fancy joining an ashram, and I was keen to push on to Mussoorie before I had to get back to Delhi, so off I set. Little did I know it would take almost all day to travel the 80km or so to Mussoorie... more on that in the next post!
Robin
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