Rishikesh

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I woke up on the train on my birthday, as we were nearing the Rishikesh train station, to Tovah giving me a lovely card and beautiful turquoise stone ring present. Tovah, Anna, Charlie, and I met up with Kiera who was on another train car at the station and the five of us squeezed into a rickshaw that dropped us on the west side of the Ganges River. From there we walked over the bridge to Swargashram on the eastern side and put our bags down at Chotiwala's restaurant (great food and inexpensive) for a bite to eat. After, Anna and I watched the bags while the others ventured out to find accommodation. They settled on Hotel Raj Palace which was nice and reasonably priced. We dropped our bags and Kiera, Tovah and I went to explore Rishikesh. Rishikesh is a very holy place- you can just feel it. It is here where the Beatles stayed for a while and wrote most of the White Album and much of Abbey Road. We walked along the numerous ghats that line the Ganges River and took it all in. On our way we were shocked to see the cow in front of us rear up on it's hind legs and attack the woman in front of it by knocking its front hooves on her shoulders! Needless to say we were cautious around cows for the next few days. We dropped Kiera back at the hotel and picked up Anna and Charlie who were going to accompany me in bathing in the Ganges (Tovah came to dip her feet in and to be the honorary photo taker). The river is very holy and it is said that its water has healing properties and it purifies those that bathe in it by washing away their sins...thus allowing me to start off my 26th year sin free. It was cold out and had begun to rain a bit. Seeing lightning in the distance we decided to act fast. Holding hands to help balance ourselves over the slippery rocks that lined the bottom, we made our way into the freezing cold Ganges. We dunked ourselves fully in the water a few times then clumsily headed out to the river's edge where we splashed water over our heads while saying personal 'prayers' or thoughts for the various people in our lives. After hurrying back to the hotel to get warm, Anna and I treated ourselves to ayurvedic massages while Tovah and Kiera went out to experience the nightly puja ceremony at sundown on the banks of the Ganges. It is a beautiful religious Hindu ceremony full of music and songs of prayers to Hindu deity.

The next day brought good weather and so the five of us went for a long walk/hike through the ashrams and around Rishikesh.   The scenery was gorgeous  with old buildings, endless mountains, and beaches lining the Ganges.  We made it back to Swargashram just in time for the puja ceremony.  After a good meal we ended the night with texas hold em using the shells Anna saved from Goa.

We woke up the next morning to rain that would not stop.  I decided to go back to sleep while Tovah, Kiera and Anna went upstairs for a 2 hour yoga class.  Since there was not much to do outside we just hung out in the hotel with Kiera before the taxi came to take the 4 of us to the Hardiwar train station where we were catching an overnight train to Jaipur.  

Our train was in but yet it was still delayed by more than 2 hours.  I was getting the sickness/cold that Anna was just getting over and spent a sleepless night on the train listening to the child next to us cry, the man behind us continuously coughing up phlegm, and watching the security guards with guns too big to fit on the train walk back and forth past our compartment.  Finally the sun began to rise and we arrived in Jaipur, the main city in Rajasthan.