Oct 1 Rishikesh

After a fitful sleep, I wondered what possessed me to eat those sweets before climbing into bed.  It seems sugar and sleep don't mix well.  Four thirty came early, but I needed to finish packing before I made my way to the train station.  Showered and packed, I checked out of the hotel and pulled my suitcase through Main Bazaar before the sun struggled from the horizon to heat the already humid city of New Delhi.  Dogs harrassed each other around the food vendor's cart as old men swept the night's garbage from the street with hand made brooms.


The train station was busy for 6:00am, but I found Platform 16, car C2, boarded, and located my seat.  I settled in as the train pulled away from the station. The outskirts of Delhi slid past my window as we picked up speed.  On the side of the tracks, women in bright colored saris squatted next to huge piles of cow dung, scooped it into a mold, and made 6" patties to be dried in the sun.  They would be sold at the market and used as fodder for fires where dinners were prepared. 


Fields of sugar cane stood beside acres of rice paddies as men in traditional kurtas worked the crop.  Women with their saris pulled up and tied to avoid the water, tended rice.  Colorful birds flitted in and out of the pink blooms of lantana that grew beside the tracks as the Shatabadi Express wound its way toward the mountains.  I dozed between cups of tea and breakfast.  We pulled into the Rishikesh station 4 1/2 hours later.  A shared motor-rickshaw ride to upper Rishikesh and I was settling into my room at the Hotel Ishan.



Footbridge at Laksman Jhula

 Now the sun sets over the cloud enshrouded mountains surrounding Rishikesh as the pundits chant, a fire burns, and the River Ganga flows rapidly past.  Monkeys nurse their young sitting on the foot bridge as the pilgrims make their way from the Swarg Niwas and Shri Trayanbakshwar temples on the other side of the river, back to their hotels.  I sit on my balcony writing and enjoying the breeze as the temperature drops to a pleasant level for the evening.