'A Teardrop on the face of Eternity' and other adventures.

It's been a while! I'm currently in Rishikesh. The temperature is much more bearable at a balmy 35 degrees and the mother ganga is only ever a few meters away to take an icy dip. Rishikesh is lovely...I am currently staying in a beautiful Ashram by the ganga in the hippy district of Laxmanjhula. Rishikesh splits into 5 main districts and Laxmanjhula is a buzzing colourful array of ashrams, shops, cafes, cows, wanering holy men and indian pilgrims…it is set in a stunning valley where the Ganga emerges from the Himalayas and meyanders down onto the Indian plains...It feels so good to be back in the Himalayas again, there's something about the feel of these hills that fills you with spirit and being on the hot, flat plains of Uttar Pradesh just didn’t feel the same. They feel timeless, they feel magical….and something about this holy river stirs an ancient feeling from up inside me. I feel like a pilgrim myself.

We spent about a week in Varanasi altogether. I could have happily spent a month there had the weather been more bearable, but it really was too hot to get anything much done. I feel as though I will be back. There were so many mazes of alleyways I never got to explore and the feeling of sitting down by the ghats at sunset with thousands of pilgrims worshipping all around is one I will find hard to match anywhere else. I was sad to leave, but time was ticking on and we had to get up and out of Uttar Pradesh before we wasted too much energy on the heat.

We took an overnight train to Agra in second class sleeper, and I learnt another valuble lesson in train journeys: never sleep on the bottom bunk. The view from the train was amazing and in the night time, Yvan and I sat smoking in the doorway, our legs hanging over the edge as we thundered across deserts and moors, the wind whipping past us at 70 miles an hour an and the moonlight bathing the huge horizon in front of us However, by the time we folded our bunks down to go to sleep I was tired of the relentless staring from the Indian men. I woke up in the night more than once to find a carriage full of men taking photographs of me and I've never spent a night so tense. Every bang and bump of the train woke me up and it was so hot, all I could do was lie there sweating, terrified i was going to get groped by the men who were piling in to sleep on the floor all around me.

We arrived in Agra battered and exhausted the next morning after 12 hours on the train and found a hotel very close to the Taj Mahal. From the rooftop restaurant you could see it's white teardopped dome and even from afar I could feel my hair standing up on end seeing it. After sitting down to some much needed food we set off out into Agra to organize our train tickets to Rishikesh and to go to see Agra Fort. Agra is a bit of a spin out, everyone, everywhere, is trying to sell you something, but unlike anywhere else I've been they are absolutely relentless. The town itself was huge and sprawling and hot and dusty and not particularly nice. It had a sense of an old capital that had fallen from grace, and the huge red fort stood between it and the sky. We had a few unpleasant run-ins with rickshaw drivers and I lost my rag with a few pushy touts...Eventually however we managed to buy our tickets to Delhi for the next day and Freya and I bought our tickets for the Taj Mahal. At 600 rupees the boys didn’t think it was worth it but I definitely did, it was quite annoying to learn that Indians only had to pay 12 rupees.

I was feeling really really sick by this point, having had the worst stomach cramps imaginable since arriving in Varanassi. I thought that they were heat cramps (apparently if you sweat too much you get heat cramps in your muscles) so was trying to just drink as many rehydration sachets as possible. A week of relentless stomach pain had really exhausted me though and after a few excursions out into Agra I ended up crumpling onto my bed in the hotel and staying there until the late afternoon. When I woke up Freya and I decided to head to the Taj Mahal. The heat of the day was passing and we thought the best time to view it would be from daylight to sunset. Believe me when I say it couldn't have been better.

The Ta Mahal was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen. I was completely expecting it to be an anticlimax considering the amount of hype surrounding it. I already have the image of it so imprinted on my mind from countless paintings, photographs, magazines and movies, I somehow didn’t realize what an impact it would make one me. But it really is the most perfect building ever made, it’s just unbelievable. We spent hours there, wandering around the stunning, peaceful gardens (peaceful apart from the hundreds of Indian tourists there clamoring to take our photographs, we seemed to attract more attention than the Taj!) As the sun set, we watched the marble of the Taj change colour from white to orange to pink as the sun moved lower in the sky. It’s an architectural masterpiece with so many optical illusions and incredible little touches that make it the ultimate 'monument to love'. For example, the whole thing is build in front of the Ganga, slightly raised above everything else, so the only thing you can see behind it is sky. It’s just amazing. Walking around on the marble was so hot though, and we had to take our shoes off so ended up hopping around like cats on a hot tin roof. If we had come in the daytime we would have died! Even the gardens and the water features and the minarets surrounding it were perfect. Th beautiful gate you walk through at the beginning present the Taj perfectly framed in the doorway and it just didn’t look real.It was stunning. It did feel as though we were the main attraction however, being low season we were the only non-indians there and although it was quite funny posing with family after family after family for “one snap?” (more like ten), by the end of the day we were pretty tired of it, and especially saying no to photos with Indian men. Apparently they like to take them to their friends and say that they slept with you, but are very persistent if you try to refuse. The Taj, however, was really the most magical experience and I am so glad I can now say I’ve seen one of the wonders of the world. It was totally worth the 600rs.

The next day we left Agra on another second class train to (gulp) Delhi. This one wasn’t a sleeper, but had incredibly uncomfortable wooden seats to sit on. At the start of the journey me and Freya were loving it, sitting opposite an Indian woman with the most beautiful smiley baby who we were pulling faces at. After hour 4 or 5 however, the carriage had filled to bursting with people. Myke and Yvan had seats on the other side to us and we were separated from our fake husbands by crowds and crowds of Indian men (sometimes it feels as if there just aren’t any women in India) All we could do was look out the window and try not to make eye contact with the carriage FULL of stares. Every pair of eyes was fixed on us for the whole journey and it was not a good feeling at all. As the carriage got even more crowded we ended up having men standing all around us and all you could do was try to sleep and not pay attention to it. However, after shutting our eyes for a few minutes the next thing we knew everyone was shouting and Yvan was stood up getting in the face of a man next to us, shouting at him. It turned out while we were snoozing these Indian guys had been making gestures towards us and everyone in the carriage had been laughing, luckily for us our Swiss protector had been there and making a scene like that seemed to get the message across that they ought to respect us the way we have tried to respect them.

The journey into Delhi was crazy though. For maybe 1 - 2 hours before arriving, we were going through suburb after suburb after suburb. It really is HUGE. And the scale of the shanty towns surrounding it is horrific. I wanted to film some of the sights I saw because it really was unbelievable but the thought of getting a camera out was just unimaginable. There were people living in landfill sites, living under motorways, in slums the size of towns, and just...argh. it was mad. When we arrived in Delhi I was quite relieved at the ease with which we made our connection. All I had heard about Delhi was horror stories, but the new metro system had just been completed ad that meant we didn’t have brave the crazed rickshaw wallahs. Finding our way to the underground station, it was as if we were in London or something. It was so clean and quick and even, dare I say, efficient! It cost us 6rs to get all the way across the city we didn’t have any hassel at all. When we arrived at the coach station the boys flopped down in a big lazy heap and Freya and I spent hours organizing our transport to Rishikesh. Being a woman does pay off in moments like this, because we got put straight to the front of every heaving queue and had managers from the coach station carrying our bags and trying to help us every way they could. We managed to find a tourist bus for just a little more than a local one, and it had air conditioning! What a lucury. In the afternoon we hopped on this bus to Hridwar and then it took 8 hours to there. When we arrived it was the middle of the night and in the darkness we managed to find a Vikshram (a sort of glorified auto rickshaw with a little cage on the back to sit in) for 50km to Rishikesh. Rumbling through the darkness we passed candle lit towns and jungle where signs announced that 'elephants had right of way'. It was so exciting getting away from the big cities and out into the hills again and we couldn’t stop smiling with anticipation. When we arrived in Rishikesh town, we had to leave our Vikshram and walk across a huge rope brige over the roaring Ganga and into the sleeping settlement of Laxmanhjula. Luckily we found a guesthouse that was open at night, and we were finally here, back in the magical Himalayas.

Our time in Rishikesh so far has been amazing. We spent the first 4 nights in a threadbare btu relaxed and hippyish hotel, with a huge stone courtyard covered in paintings and political slogans right by a huge temple. There were loads of interesting travellers staying there too, and they introduced us to Freedom Café, the local haunt for Laxmanjhulas traveller community, ironically named as it seems everyone gets totally stuck there (us included). In the morning we go there for a lemon nana (like a lemon juice slush puppy full of mint,) and to meet all the lovely friends we have made. Then the whole café full of people goes out for the day and spends it relaxing on the wite sandy beaches of the Ganga, swimming, exploring the town and surrounding hills, making music and returning to Freedom to while away the evening chatting and laughing, jamming out till the sun comes up.

On one of our first nights we got invited to a full moon party on the beach and made lots of new friends. One called Miles is from Hudderfield but is moving to Bristol when he goes home, and another lovely girl called Rose, is from New Zealand but is moving to Bristol after India too! Its crazy meeting people here who have connections like this with your life back home. Miles has even been to an Avalaf night! Another night we all went to our Mexican friends’ flat to watch the football and ended up having a party with about 20 of us squashed in this tiny room going world cup crazy, it was so much fun. We made some really special friends that night and now we are all living together in a huge Ashram called Shri Sant Sewa by the river. Me and Freya have got a room next door to our friends Theo and Barney, and we are also down the hall from Miles, Rose has a room nearby and Miles and Yvan are just down the road at Bombay Guest House. We have yoga classes held next to our room at 7.30 in the morning and then after breakfast it’s off to Freedom cafe to meet everyone else for the day. Rishikesh is amazing, there are so many interesting Babas (holy men) everywhere and so many incredibly cool travellers. We've met so many people and had such a giggle. It’s so nice to be somewhere where alcohol is illegal too, because everyone has such a good connection when we sit around jamming in the evening. It’s a nice break from the booze related craziness of Kathmandu and I feel so healthy getting up so early every day.

Today we are heading out on a trek up to the Beatles Ashram. It’s high on a nearby hill and is where the Beatles came to stay with the Maharishi in the 60s and where they wrote a lot of the white album. Nowadays it’s a crumbling ruin of crazy old buildings overgrown with jungle and I can’t wait to explore it.

Soon I will get some photos up. I will try and call home too. But yesterday I spent 500rs on a sim card that can’t even call international number. I’m planning on doing maybe three days of yoga then heading to Chandigarh to see this amazing garden everyone keeps talking about. Then it’s up and away to the high north to visit Manali, Dharamasala and wherever else the mood takes me. Theo and Barny have recommended to me the 'fairy forest,' a tiny hidden place in the Pavarti Valley. I'm so happy here, but I can’t wait to keep moving on. I’m halfway through already and it’s unbelievable, its going so so quickly.

I think I will be leaving a huge part of myself behind in Rishikesh, and I will be very surprised if something doesn’t pull me back this way in the future. Anyway, I'll write more in a few days before I leave, I’m sure we will have many more adventures before then.