After breakfast, we gather our things and hop in a taxi for the weekly market.
It’s lovely to walk through, and I find some beautiful block print coverlets for the bunks in the lodge. We have an incredibly yummy lunch at one of the food stands,
then back with our taxi driver to meet Kaita’s friend Prashant at the train station. I have heard so much about riding the train in India (did you know the Indian railway system is the largest private employer in the world, with about 1.6 million people?).
We wait in line to go through security:
head up stairs and down to get to our track, being pushed (in a loving way, of course) by Indians wanting to get where they’re going with no never mind to anyone else. We get to our track about 40 minutes early, so I have time to walk up and down our lane and snap photos.
We get on our train, but Kaita is mighty chagrined to realize that the ticket agent in Delhi has not only NOT selected seats for us in first class (we’re in second), but our seats are not together. Everyone piles in and soon every seat is filled with some passengers standing in the area in front of the door. The upper racks are filled with suitcases, which line up almost perfectly with the line of fans that stretch the length of our cabin on each side. Somehow so optically pleasing, but can’t really capture it in a photo.
Partway through the trip, every one of us loses our seat, but Kaita is a determined woman and manages to finagle one for me, while they stand most of the way.
Four hours later, darkness has descended and we step off the train in Hardiwar and look to secure a taxi for the ride to Rishikesh. Rishikesh really encompasses the loose association of five distinct sections that includes not only the town but also villages and settlements on both sides of the river Ganges (or Ganga, as it’s known locally). These include Rishikesh itself, the commercial and communication hub; the sprawling suburb Muni Ki Reti or the “sands of the sages”; Sivananda Nagar the home of Sivananda Ashram and the Divine Life Society founded by Swami Sivananda, north of Rishikesh; the temple sections of Ram Jhula and Lakshman Jhula, a little further north; and the assorted Ashrams around Swargashram on the eastern bank. The Ganga Arti performed at dusk at the Triveni Ghat is popular with visitors. Many of us are most familiar with is from the Beatles visit in 1968 to visit the ashram of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
We roll and carry bags through alleyways, over a bridge, up the hill and around through more alleys. They are very solicitous of me, and I carry very little. We arrive at our destination, which is down a very narrow alley. The man at the desk speaks no english, so it’s good we have Prashant with us. All I want to do (is have some fun) is fall into bed and figure the rest out tomorrow. As I head into my room, Kaita walks in and hands me a roll of toilet paper, a bar of soap and a sheet, since none of these are provided in a guest house (no top sheet, anyway, just a blanket which has experienced who knows what). I am a little taken aback, and starting to move in the direction of “I didn’t really think this one through”, or “I wonder how much it will cost to leave early?” I’m too tired to worry/wonder any further about this, and I brush my teeth, add in a top sheet, and fall into dreamland.