Rishikesh

I've been in Rishikesh for over 2 weeks now. It's the yoga capital of the world and it's full of ashrams. It's sits on the Ganges River surrounded by lush green mountains that are full of monkeys. There are temples and bathing ghats lining the riverside. Rishikesh is a very spiritual place for the Hindu religion. One of the temples 13 levels, getting narrower as they go up. It looks like a giant wedding cake. Each level is full of huge statues of different Hindu Gods, bells, and people praying. The Hindu religion has hundreds and hundreds of gods. Two huge suspension bridges cross the river. They are pedestrian only, and they're always busy. It sometimes takes 20 minutes to cross the bridge. It's a loud and busy place, full of Indian and foreign tourists. It's also full of sadhus or babas. These are spiritual seekers who renounce the material world to seek spiritual evolution. They wear orange robes and are literally everywhere here.

The Ganges River is considered a sacred and holy river. They say if you bathe in it you will wash away a lifetime of sins. I attended a fire ceremony at the Shiva temple. They have the ceremony every night, and there are so many people there. The temple sits on the river looking out onto the river and a huge statue of Shiva. They sang, chanted, made offerings to the fire, and passed around big dishes of fire to cleanse the crowd with the smoke. People get little dishes full of offerings, light them, and float them on the river with their prayers. There was even a Hindu wedding there the night I attended! It was so beautiful to witness such a sacred Hindu ceremony watching an amazing sunset over the Ganges.

When I arrived I met a girl from Mexico, Ana, and a couple of Indian guys and we all went white water rafting in the Ganges. It was so much fun! Some of the rapids were huge! It was such a rush! We stopped at a big rock and I somehow mustered the courage to jump off into the water. I even went swimming a little bit so I guess that I've washed away all of my sins!

I went to the ashram where the Beatles stayed. It has been long deserted, and is now only ruins. The grounds are huge. They're full of different buildings and courtyards. It was fun to go exploring and imagine what it must have once been like there.

There's a beautiful hike about 3 km outside of town. The trail leads up through the beautiful green forest to a series of waterfalls. It's amazing! You can go swimming in the waterfalls and sit underneath them to get a natural massage. I've been on the hike and gone swimming there 3 times. It's been really hot here and it's so refreshing. The men go swimming in their skimpy little underwear and the women have to go fully clothed. It's weird swimming in clothes, but you adjust. They dry pretty fast. If you continue to hike up a steep path past the waterfalls you can go to this tiny village. It's surrounded by rice fields and green forest. There's amazing view and you can see the river and Rishikesh from the top. It's a long steep hike up the mountain and isn't accessible by cars. It's so remote and completely secluded. The people who live there have to do that hike down and back to get anything from the outside.

I've been staying in the Anand Prakash yoga ashram for the past couple of weeks and it's been so nice. It is a quiet and peaceful oasis away from all of the noise. It has beautiful gardens, and amazing views of the mountains. My room is nice and clean. I have my own balcony overlooking the garden. The people are great and so is the energy of the place. I've made lots of friends from all over the world, and I love the staff. We're like a big happy family. They even have 3 cows and a dog named Yogini. We eat all of our meals together sitting in the dining hall at little individual tables on the floor with huge windows looking out at the mountains. The food is really good, and it's all vegetarian. Everyone has their own plate and utensils that we wash after every meal. We do 2 yoga classes per day for 1 hour and 45 minutes. We wake up at 5:30 am everyday for our first yoga class. It's traditional hatha yoga so we do a lot of mantra (chanting) and pranayama (breathing exercises). We have kirtan 3 times a week and the guy who leads it has a beautiful voice and plays the drum. We also have fire puja every morning which is a fire ceremony with singing and praying. The discipline has been great for me. I've never done this much yoga in my life! I usually do it maybe 2 times a week, but never twice a day! All of the accommodations, classes, and food is about $9 per day!

Every time I go anywhere here, I have Indian tourists ask to take my picture with their whole family. Little kids want to shake my hand and say hello. I even had one little boy give me a flower. I feel like a celebrity just for being white. It's really weird. I usually humor them. There's going to be a lot of random pictures of me floating around India. It can be annoying sometimes. Like the time I was packed into an auto rickshaw with my friend and 4 men. One of them asked if he could take our picture and we reluctantly agreed. He took a picture with his phone and then his other friend started taking pictures with his phone, then another guy pulled out a huge camera, and the 4th guy pulled out a video camera! We were stuck in the rickshaw surrounded by these guys taking our pictures and videotaping us. It was really annoying so we pulled out our cameras and started taking pictures of them, so I have some hilarious extreme close ups of some random Indian guys.

I made friends with a local restaurant owner here. His name is Amit. He took me to a temple that sits on top of a mountain with amazing views. It was a beautiful and fun ride on the back of his motorcycle. He also knows a lot about herbs and plant medicine and took me to a medicinal botanical garden. It was so pretty and peaceful. He told me about all the plants and we tasted an smelled all the different herbs. It was a lot of fun.

I went to the Ayurvedic doctor here. He's the doctor that all of my local friends recommended. His grandfather and father were both Ayurvedic doctors. He took my pulse, and looked at my tongue. He knew what I was there for before I even said one word. It was amazing! I got 2 months worth of a bunch of herbs for less than $20. I'm also friends with my yoga teacher at the ashram who is getting his PhD in yoga, and he insisted on giving me a couple of acupressure treatments for free. I had a sore shoulder. He pressed a point on my foot that was really sensitive and then asked me if I was having problems with my right shoulder! It's amazing what you can find out about the body through poking your feet!

There's a huge Shiva festival going on here right now. Thousands and thousands of men wearing all orange are pouring into the city for this festival. They walk from miles around. It's getting more and more crowded every day. I love Rishikesh so much! It's going to be hard to leave, but I think it's time to move on. I've had such an amazing time here!