Rishikesh - The Journey and Lord Shiva

So I left bright and early this morning to head off to Rishikesh, got my rickshaw, got to the train station well.... got almost to the train station, then my rickshaw broke down.  But another one came along and I hopped into that one and got driven the next .8 meters to the train station.  He then tries to charge me 30 rs. I go "oh nuh uhhh it's under 1k it's 20 rs" so then he goes "ok 25 rs." looking at my watch I say "fine whatever, but I only have 15 rs. or I need change for a hundred" he says "oh I no have change, but give me and I go find change" I look at him with the evil eye and say "umm.. yea no, you go find change then I'll give you the hundred" so he half heartedly looks around at the ton of people at the station, meanwhile two men come up to me and ask me where I'm going, I ignore them, then he comes back and starts talking to the guy there who was trying to talk to me, and he starts pulling money out, then oh wouldn't you know it!! the driver pulls out this HUGE wadd of cash out of his pocket!!! I smirk and go "yea that's what I thought, you can't get away with that with me, nice try" then get my change and push my way out of the rickshaw passed the now crowd of men around it.  Travelling alone has definitely toughened me up!! I'm a bit proud Lol

   Anyway, so I find the platform, and yay!! the train is there waiting, find my seat, settle and breatheeeee.  I get out my book and continue reading.  Then they bring tea and a package of biscuits (not American biscuits, but like cookie/cracker type).  Then they bring breakfast around.... very glad I packed my own snacks, because an Indian breakfast is rather interesting.  They were like spicy veggie "cutlets" which are like whats inside of a samosa but fried.  I took a bite and immediately wanted to spit it out, but figured I better not so as to not offend my neighbor.  But had to take a bite out of the white bread they served along side.  4 1/2 hours later I arrive in Haridwar where I get off the train then set out on my search for the bus I was told I had to catch up to Rishikesh.  I found the "enquiry" desk and inquire about a bus.  There is another woman there who was inquiring about the same thing.  So I ask if she is headed to Rishikesh, she says yes, then we immediately bonded and set out to find the next desk to get our ticket for the train to Rishikesh, which was... a whopping 4 rs.!!! Lol that is like.... not even a penny... if there is such a thing.  Gotta love India for their fares for getting around India.  So we find the counter and are in line and... well this is another thing about India which I just can't get over (and there are MANY!).  Rita (my new friend, she is from Portugal, I am so loving meeting new people from all over the world!!) gets in line, and I am behind her to get our tickets, and this older Indian woman just starts pushing me, then squeezing her way (and she wasn't all that small) past me with this expression like "excuse me, i'm more important, this is totally normal, why do you look so shocked" which she probably was thinking.  Then all of a sudden about 5 other Indian woman come out of nowhere and start squeezing me and Rita out of the way, but Rita wasn't havin that so she pushed her way up to the window and got both of us a ticket, which I of course payed her my half for, meanwhile as she is trying to just get our ticket, 3 of the women start shoving their hands through the ticket window waving money in the poor guys face.  I mean, come on!! what exactly is that going to do?? sure you can push your way up front, but dropping money?? do they really think that by just doing that a magical ticket will appear in thin air?? Seriously?
 So then we wait for an hour, and get on our train and choo-choo off towards rishikesh.  As we travel up, its nothing but green!!! and the air already felt so much cooler and clearer, ahhhhhh.
   Btw... side note, I would like to point out 2 things here.... call me crazy, but... a) the reason I wanted to go to Rishikesh in the first place was because its where the beatles came b) I meet a woman on the train whose name is Rita, she is from Portugal, therefore speaks portuguese c) The beatles have a song called Lovely Rita d) I just read the part in Eat, Pray, Love where Elizabeth Gilbert meets a young Brazillian woman e) Brazillians speak portuguese............ weird??? maybe I looked too far into that one, but I thought it was odd... ohhhh Lord Shiva, how you have amused me this trip!!  Another side note: Lord Shiva is the god, or one of the gods that Indian's or Hindu's pray to here.  Throughout my trip, while hanging out with my IVHQ group, Catalin (the one who had me always in tears with laughter) would constantly refer to Lord Shiva, anytime anything might or could go wrong, or anytime anything good happened, or anytime he or we were wishing for something good to happen.  He would, in his adorable Romanian accent go: "oh we must pray to Lord Shiva to bring us good things!!"  or "Thank you Lord Shiva, I kiss your feet!!"  so this is now something which has stuck with me as a happy memory which makes me laugh.
   Back to the journey.  So we arrive in Rishikesh.  Now during our journey we kept noticing all these people dressed in orange, carrying these odd contraptions that were all decorated and what not, and they would spontaneously break out in some strange chant of "OOOOAAAPP!!!! Bombala bombala bom bom BALA!!!" or something like that, I haven't fully distinguished what they are yelling or what it means.  Anyway, so we get to Rishikesh and TONS of people everywhere!!! but wait... isn't Rishikesh supposed to be a place of serenity and yoga and meditation?? I had this wonderful picture in my mind if it being all quiet, and everyone is peaceful and smiling as you walk by and everyone dressed in Yogi attire.... yea no, not so much.  So we find a rickshaw and tell him where we need to go and he says he can't drive us all the way there because of the festival.  Again, wait what?! Festival you say??? what festival?! I still haven't yet figured out what the festival is about exactly  except for everyone is wearing these orange shirts with...... LORD SHIVA'S FACE ON IT!!! ahhhhh Lord Shiva!! again you play with me!!! So he agree's to drive us as close as he can then we must walk the rest of the way.  So we walk, and walk, and walk, and walk, through the mass crowds of orange shiva faces, and the stares and hollers of "hi hello!! miss! hello! yes miss I have for you here!!" this for some reason they think will get me to spin around and run towards their shop of little trinkets.  It amuses me.  Anyway, so after about 2 miles of walking, dripping in sweat/dirt and my bag now painfully digging into my shoulder, I find my hotel.  Rita decides she wants to shop around a bit for hotels to see if she can find the best one for her money.  So, I decide why not and join her.  So we find a hotel finally, which i am glad I joined her cuz the one we ended up with is much bigger and cleaner and for the same amount of money as I was going to pay at my original place.
  I settle in, give myself a wetwipe bath, figured i'd save myself the hassel since I was going back out anyway and would get just as sweaty and dirty again.  So I wander around, find the place to take yoga and meditation the next day.  I still had not had any lunch and was starving! it being now 4:00pm in the day.  So I wander around the shops, and mass crowds.  Oh btw... on the way here we had to go over this bridge, which oh holy hell I swear i saw my life flash before my eyes crossing it.  There were so many people on that bridge, and it was swaying, and there were gaps in it where I could see the Gangas racing past me below.  All I wanted to do was race across that bridge and be on the other side, yet I was stuck behind this slow moving procession line of orange.  I finally after a couple hours of just trying to walk aruond and see the town, stop at a nice little Italian restaurant.  These types of places may say Italian, but really its just a mass fusion of everything on the menu, they tend to be the best places to find a wide assortment of items, so I got falafle and hummus with salad and naan. Like i said, fusion.  It's so funny because being here, there are so many white people (of all over Europe and the US) and they are all wearing harem pants, which I won't be caught dead in, sorry but to me it looks like your wearing an adult diaper which is full.... sorry for the image, but thats what they look like!!!
  Anyway, so I am sitting there salavating over the menu, since the last time I ate, was at 8am!! and it was now 7pm..... yes I had quite a few grimlins in my stomach that were not happy.  Then a young woman sitting at the table next to me leans over and asks "would you like to join me?" surprised I go "oh!! well... yea sure!" so I get up and sit down at her table (it was all so movie like! Lol).  Turns out she also is from the US from California (odd how I keep meeting Californians, seeing as how that is where I want to move to.... shiva???) and is also traveling alone.  Its funny when us traveing Americans respond to someone asking us where we are from we go "from the United.....uh from America" which to me just feels weird saying that, since I'm used to saying "The US" or "DC".  So we talk for a bit, again another "hmmm" moment for me, she went to UC Berkley, which is where I was looking when I started looking at grad schools, then she needed to head off to find the Ashram she is supposed to be staying at, and it was starting to get dark.  So I eat my meal, and during my meal some more white travelers came in, couldn't exactly detect their accents, then another group came in who were all french.  I finished dinner and headed towards my hotel.
   Have you ever run into this problem before.... your walking back home from dinner or whatever you may have been out doing, and its dark, not real street lights around, you turn down a side street and uh ohhh better watch out so you don't bump into or step on a cow!!! Well, I have, tonight, thank goodness I have a "torch light" aka flashlight on the phone I'm using, because I certainly would not want to tip over a cow!!  There were probably 7 or 8 of them laying down, standing, grooming each other in the middle of the side street.  In fact if I were to look outside to the right a little bit out of this little cafe I'd probably see them.  Just thought I'd add that fun little tid bit.

    So, my plan for a relaxing serene few days here up in Rishikesh is not quite how I'd fantasized, though I should really be used to things not quite going as planned by now in India.  As is another one of our IVHQ motto's "Anything is possible in India" and ohhhhhh how very very true that is!!!

 Namaste everyone