Going to North India and finding ourselves back in Israel?

Rishikesh – arouse your chakras, baby

So we traveled 5 hours in a very nice air conditioned train and we reached Haridwar, in Uttarakhand state, on the foothills of the Himalaya in northern India. The city is by itself an important pilgrimage city for Hindus little, but a little too hectic stop for us on our way to Rishikesh. So we took a one-hour local bus and a 20-minutes autorickshaw and we arrived in Rishikesh, the former retreat city for the Beatles and the first Israeli colony in the north. To give an idea of the amounts of Israelis, think that we witnessed Israeli people seeing friends from school by chance. In my case, I ran into my brother’s (Israeli) ex-girlfriend on the street!

 Every restaurant has virtually the same menu that presents first of all Indian food, but also Israeli dishes like humus, tahini, shakshuka, fatut and even ethnic Israeli food that I’ve never eaten like ziva. Those menus also include the classic Indian distortions of Chinese, Italian and Mexican dishes.

The tourist area spreads on both sides of the Ganges river around Lakshman Jhula street and on the High Bank (also called the Swiss Cottage); in those areas you’ll certainly hear Hebrew and see the local fauna: after-army-smoking-charas Israelis (for the sake of the truth I have to say that the ex doesn’t get into this category) that spend days (or weeks) drinking chai in the local restaurants and doing the same thing: talking loudly about the army, of course, and smoking charas, of course.

Anyway, the scenery was interesting, the weather was slightly cooler and the city streets were slightly quieter: we didn’t have to put pieces of toilet paper in our ears as earplugs like we did in Varanasi and Delhi to bear the noise. In fact autorickshaws aren’t allowed in large parts of the Rishikesh.

Sikh people invaded by monkeys

We took antibiotics that we happened to have there (prescribed by my doctor-mother), and finally we started feeling better from our travelers-diarrhea. So we walked around, we saw the sad water falls and many monkeys. We also did our mii-pilgrimage to the now-closed Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram, where the Beatles once got high and got inspired to do more beautiful music. I think it’s an exquisite building on the top of a quite park where sadhus (half naked guys who leave behind all material attachments) hang out and do what they excel in doing –nothing, but a mystical nothing. Sadly, the building is abandoned in the growing vegetation and even though it’s picturesque, it seems that soon will disappear into oblivion.

Sadhus doing nothing

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram

Rishikesh is a mostly vegetarian and an alcohol-free city and it supposed to be the “world capital of yoga”. Since we did yoga for the last two years, we thought it could be a good place to take some classes. We did a long walk visiting ashrams (roughly, yoga schools that provide accommodation, simple meals and of course yoga lessons) trying to find something adequate.

But they were either too serious, I mean, you had to register months in advance or you had to stay at least 2 weeks; or they were a joke: a regular hotel but with an ashram sign.

We visited the famous Parmarth Niketan Ashram at Swarg Ashram area; but the place was far from relaxing and inspiring retrospection. It was a very busy and loud place where we heard a long and loud speech in Hindi from speakers everywhere. There we met a Western girl who gave us a new-agey brochure of Trika yoga. But we resigned and preferred to try the yoga classes promoted by our hotel (which in fact was the same class promoted by every hotel in the Swiss Cottage) than going all the way to the lower bank to try that.

Iohi peeked at a class, the young teacher didn’t inspire us too much confidence but the following morning we participated anyway. It was a rather mechanical slow-paced hatha yoga class word-by-word and movement-by-movement exactly like the one she saw the previous day.  

We didn’t want to take classes there anymore and we decided to give a try to the Trika yoga, it included morning and afternoon yoga lessons and some evening discussion. So the following morning we did the 40 minute way to Swarg Ashram area and found the school. The teacher was called… Yuval! (if you didn’t get it, he was Israeli!). The class was ok, a little too much arouse your chakra stuff, and extremely slow-paced, but he was an interesting teacher. And in the shavasana state, the final relaxation, we were completely high (and only from the class).

The afternoon class was led by a Mexican girl, who didn’t even present herself. Her class took the meaning of mechanical to a whole new level: she seemed like a videotape (yes, DVDs are less mechanical than her). It was awful, she was completely disconnected from  what was happened in front of her, and, actually, she did the whole class with her eyes closed!

Afterwards, she gave a class about the do’s and don’ts of the way of the yogi. There she presented pearls of Hindi wisdom like: if you do yoga half a day and the other half you torture kittens you won’t achieve balance. Or more realistic examples such as: if you do yoga six hours a day and then you’re bad with your husband and you mistreat your children and you eat ice cream, you won’t achieve balance. She kept presenting very adequate and relevant choices like either eat ice cream or do yoga, until we couldn’t take it anymore and we left.

Shimla – the toy city

The following midday we took a train from Haridwar to Chandigarh, spent the night and then traveled one hour in a crowded local bus to Kalka. There we took the cutest narrow-gauge toy train to Shimla in Himachal Pradesh state. It was a cool trip, passing through more than one hundreed tunnels and lots of retro stations as the little train creeps up through the mountain.

The city is a hill station, a cute and clean city with British buildings and it’s filled with monkeys! It was the summer capital of British India; in fact the British ruled India most of the time from there since it was cooler than Calcutta. It’s a rather expensive city (for Indian standards), but the city is very clean (for any standards): it’s forbidden to litter, to smoke in the streets, to spit and to sell plastic bags. And this works. The no-cars policy for the tourist area and the fact we were in some kind of shoulder season make it a perfect spot for relaxing.

Sadly, as the train went up I started to develop the symptoms of flu and I got there completely feeling like shit from fever. And in the following days I got the whole package: diarrhea, cough, tiredness. I spent most of the time at bed.

Iohi (besides looking after me) went in one occasion uphill to see the Jakhu Temple, dedicated to the monkey-god Hanuman. The way was packed with monkeys that learned to ransom items for food. They specialize in glasses and phones, but the locals tell that once they even robbed a baby! When Iohi was near the temple, one of the monkeys jumped over her backpack and took a bag of chips. Then some minutes later another monkey jumped over her and took her glasses, and she had to exchange it for an apple! Locals told her to take them off because the monkeys will continue to harass her. So she went on without glasses hugging her backpack and got attached to a French group that seemed a better prey for the monkeys. She finally saw the blurred temple (but she couldn’t tell me if it was nice) and went back to the hotel.

Manali –where we finally got better

When I felt slightly better we took a night “deluxe” bus to Manali. The deluxe bus was a very old bus with more or less reclining seats, it went up and did turns and more turns and I got completely dizzy. Every time we managed to fall asleep, the bus stopped for like 30 minutes and all the lights were turned on!

So we got to the noisy new Manali and we could choose between two satellite towns: the small Old Manali or the smaller Vashisht. Since we were already out of season, we opted for Old Manali. We found ourselves again in a second Israeli outpost. Everything had a translation in Hebrew or some writing assuring to Israeli compatriots that the shop had the best sandwiches or the best cakes. The clothes shops there sell a variety of hippy-colorful-shanti-rastafari clothes that people in India don’t wear at all and are tailored for, guess what, Israelis. It was cold there and I bought a long sleeved t-shirt and the store-owner assured me that the cut was exactly as Israelis want.

Right outside Manali

Old Manali is even closer to the Himalayas than Rishikesh and Shimla and it’s located on green mountains with small rivers and waterfalls. The view from there should be beautiful, but there are so many shops, guesthouses, restaurants, tourist agencies which sell exactly the same that the view is completely buried.

This time Iohi got the same virus I had before with her round of fever, cough and diarrhea. We stayed for almost a week until we both recovered: I broke a record with 20 days diarrhea, I think I almost vanished.

When we felt completely ok we started to look for a trek around, and after so many days of inactivity we prepared ourselves with a couple of days of yoga. We found the only classes in a guesthouse up in a small hill where workers of the places presented us with utter respect the guru.

So for the next couple of days, we woke up early and climbed the mountain to meet our bearded yogi guru. And we prepared our recently healed bodies with super fast-paced hatha yoga!

We tried to do a trek by our own, but around Manali there are huge marihuana plantations. Marihuana farmers seem not to be the kindest type of person and we read everywhere that you shouldn’t trek without a guide. The thing is that tourist agencies force you to take a cohort of a guide, a cook, a helper for the cook, a guy to take care of the horses and a guy to help the guy who takes care of the horses! And they won’t let you go with less people! So it’s expensive and we found it rather stupid to have more helpers than trekkers.

A group of Spanish guys told us about Spiti Valley, a moon-like valley 6 hours from Manali, which supposed to be safe and easy. I found out about a home stay walking trail in some forums and we decided that it was the best option. On the next morning we headed that way in a local bus…

As always more photos in Iohi's picasa.

Sweating from Calcutta to Delhi

Kolkata

Our trip in India started in Kolkata, previously known as Calcutta. We were supposed to arrive at 1am at the international airport but our 2 hours flight was delayed for more than 2 hours. People we knew that have been to Kolkata frightened us so much about the city that we did our homework: we booked a very nice and expensive inn where we could arrive at 2am (although we actually arrived at 4:30am) and we previously found out that we could take a pre-paid taxi from the airport.

So we paid our taxi before we actually took it, we went with the ticket and we took the taxi to our Best Inn. We drove for around half an hour on huge empty lanes in the middle of the night, on a city that looked like a post-apocalyptic English city without survivors. We arrived to our Inn and we rang and rang the bell until the guy that was supposed to wait for us waked up and opened the huge metallic door. And of course, our pre-paid taxi driver made something up to ask for more money even though we had already paid.

Anyway, we arrived in peace and we had our night of sleep. On the morning (after a couple of hours) we were woke up by the guy that worked there. We managed to understand that we have to fill two strange forms where you specify how you eat your eggs or if you have the bread with butter or with honey.

Then I tried to communicate with the guy and understand where we eat the breakfast. So I started simplifying and breaking the English but still what he said doesn’t make any sense. I ask “You bring the breakfast or we go somewhere to eat the breakfast?” and he answers “Yes, yes, you bring the breakfast”.

So after breakfast we went outside to move to a more central area and then we were confronted for the first time with the poverty of Kolkata. With its English constructions falling apart and all the garbage and the crowded streets, our first impression of the city is reinforced; this was really how I imagine England after the apocalypses.

It’s poverty beyond our imagination and no matter that we heard a lot about the city; we were completely shocked. So many people developing their entire life on the sidewalk: begging, sleeping, cooking, eating, shitting there. The line between food stall, toilet, sidewalk and street is completely blurred and we walked avoiding stepping into a poll of urine, bumping into people or being run over by a car. The heat, never ending honks, the traffic and the crowds created a feeling of claustrophobia even in the open spaces which were crammed with open markets selling Chinese stuff.

We tried to visit some sights, we entered to the Victoria Memorial, and walked in B.B.D. Bagh but most of the time we tried to avoid the heat and the crowds, walking a few hundred meters took too long and was too tiring.

The Victoria Memorial

I had my birthday in Kolkata!

After a couple of days we took a night train to Bodhgaya.

Bodhgaya

Bodhgaya is the place where the Prince Siddhartha sat under a tree, obtained Enlightenment and became Buddha. You can see there an offspring of the original Bodhi Tree and an interesting temple that was build close to the tree. But since it’s one of the most important places for Buddhists, there are pilgrims from all around the world and there are temples of virtually every kind of Buddhism in the world.

Because of the pilgrims, the town has also a myriad of stalls selling Buddhist souvenirs and clothes and of course an army of beggars.

A beggar at the entrance of Mahabodhi Temple

We stayed two days, having a pleasant and relaxed time there. And then we moved to the main town, Gaya, where we had to take an early train. The way to travel from Gaya to Bodhgaya is with autorickshaw: a kind of motorcycle with a closed space for two or three passengers but that actually transports an unlimited number of people. Once you’re in and you’ve arranged a price, you have to start fighting with the driver to actually get to the place you said. The driver may want to drop you as soon as possible but he might be a tout as well and might have in his agenda to leave you at the place he receives a commission.

The problem is that there are too many places with almost the same name. If, say, Raj Hotel enters in some guidebooks, you’ll see popping up like mushrooms: New Raj Hotel, Raj Guesthouse, The Raj Hotel, First Raj Hotel, and every other variation on every corner.

When we were in Gaya, we asked for the Vishnu International, and we found ourselves in front of Vishnu Resthouse. We managed to get to the right Vishnu but the driver tried to ask for more money claiming that it was our fault.

On the following morning we waited our 4-hours-train to Varanasi that was 7 hours late…

Varanasi

So we arrived late evening instead of at midday. Varanasi is situated on the banks of the river Ganges and it’s one of the holiest cities for the Hindus. They believe that bathing in the Ganges frees from sins and that dying there ensures release of a person's soul from the cycle of its transmigrations. So all kind of ceremonies, including bathing and cremations are conducted on the ghats: kind of open spaces with steps that sink in the Ganges.

So as soon as we arrived at the guesthouse, we got a nice map and explanations from Rahul, the owner of the place. However, instead of walking around and see the ceremonies at the ghats, I stayed in bed for 2 days with fever and a terrible diarrhea.

On the meanwhile Iohi walked the city, entered to Kashi Vishwanath Temple or the Golden Temple and attended to an evening ceremony in Manikarnika Ghat. Then she tried to go the Brown Bread Bakery, a bakery that supports a local school and where you can volunteer to help in that school. And it’s the number 2 of the things to do in Varanasi according to Lonely Planet site. But, there are two Brown Bread Bakery one in front of the other, like the place and its reflection. It’s just that you don’t know which one is the real one. And they both claim they are the real thing. Iohi even checked the schools that they support; each one has a different school! Later, she heard the story: the owner of the original bakery had some problems with the place he was renting, so he decided to move the bakery. Then the guy who had the property decided not to remove even the sign and maintain the Brown Bread Bakery exactly as it was creating two places with the same name and blurring the copy from the original.  

Next day when I more or less came back to life, I visited the Golden Temple. I had to pass a strict security check to go inside, where I was asked about Israel and its relations with the Philippines! The guard was completely puzzled when I told him that I had no idea. I thought maybe the Indians have some issues with the Philippines and I didn’t want to screw it up and being kicked out of the temple. Anyway when he started talking about the Muslims I understood he was referring to Palestine.

I still wasn’t feeling so good so we spent some hours seeing the city on a cycle-rickshaw. The advantage is that when you’re on a rickshaw they can’t drive you crazy about taking a rickshaw!

Agra

Later we took the short four-hour train to Agra.

We stayed for only one day: we saw the famous Taj Mahal (and there's a reason why it's so famous) and the not so famous but pretty cool Agra’s fort. And then the heat, the souvenir sellers and rickshaw drivers drove us completely crazy and we were more than happy to leave the city.

Taj Mahal!

Agra's Fort

Delhi

In Delhi, it was Iohi’s turn to be sick. Now she had exactly the same I had (only that I was still not entirely ok). And we didn't  do much; we just tried to recover. And then we fought with the guys of the same company that sold us the Reliance internet net-stick. We bought it in Kolkata and we were very happy with our portable internet. But it stopped working after a week, and no one knew anything there. They even had the great idea that we should go back to Kolkata to the store where we bought it! Then we went to the Reliance main store where the system was down and then… just fuck it, it was too noisy and too hot in Delhi and we traveled anyway to Rishikesh, which was slightly higher and cooler.

All the pics in Iohi's picasa!