Unfortunately I’ve
only been able to post the final story today. I’ve decided to do so nonetheless
because otherwise the blog wouldn’t be complete.
After the nice time
spent in Nepal we went back to India. We staid a couple of days more in Delhi (for the third time) where did some big time
shopping ;-) and after that we went to Risikesh.
The bus ride to get there was crap as usual, but this time even worse! My chair
was broke and therefore I couldn’t pull it backwards so as to sleep so I had to
fold my legs in a strange, uncomfortable position all night long.
Risikesh is a holy
city located in the foothills of the Himalaya
in northern India for Hindus and a famous centre of pilgrimage. People from all over the
world come there to meditate or to do yoga-courses (The Beatles stayed here for
2 months back in 1968). We got there really early in the morning and together
with some folks we met on the bus we got a Rickshaw at 05:30 AM not really knowing where we were going. Once
we reached the other side of the city, where all the Ashrams (spiritual retreats)
are located, we got off so as to find ourselves an accommodation. After about
45 minutes of walking around we found an Ashram where we slept a couple of
hours so as to get a little bit of extra sleep.
There is really not
that much to see here besides Ashrams and shops. Still it’s a nice place to see
for one or two days. In fact, after that we decided to go to another city
located nearby called Haridwar.
Associated with both
Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu, Haridwar is among the seven sacred cities of India. It is
a religious centre which holds promise of salvation for devotees. It is also a centre of
herbal medicine, and traditional studies. It’s one of the first towns where the
Ganga emerges from the mountains to touch the
plains, that’s why the water is crystal clear and cool, unlike in Varanassi.
Again we stayed in an
Ashram, but this time meals were included. I have to admit that the more the departure
date was coming near, the more I was longing for ice-cream, beer and all the
other goodies that I couldn’t eat there because of the risk of getting ill. In
fact, the food in this ashram was not really nice. Just as Risikesh, Haridwar
is a place where it’s nice to wonder around but it doesn’t have any special
sites to visit. We stayed there for just 2 nights because we wanted to make
sure to be back in Delhi 2 days before our departure.
On the last day in Delhi I just had to get some of those tailor-made clothes
;-) I got myself some trousers and shirts that were made on the same day, so I
was told to stop by at 20:00 PM. However, when I got there they didn’t exactly
fit seamlessly: they turned out to be the size of an elephant! Somehow, they
messed up and in order to fix it I had to wait there until 22:00 PM while will still needed to buy some souvenirs
etc. so in the end we didn’t get too much sleep that night ...
The next we flew back
to Holland with a stopover in London where our connecting flight had 1,5 hour delay
so by the time we got to my parents place I had been awake for 24 hours! However,
I felt wide awake as it was very nice to see my family again and to talk about
our adventures. After 2 days in Fryslân we flew back to Barcelona. We got home at 00:30 AM and at 08:00 AM the next
morning I was back at work … the entire 2 month trip seemed as if it where a
dream!
Now that we’ve been
back since one month every thing is back to ‘normal’. It didn’t feel that way
in the beginning though: one of the first things I noticed was the silence
compared to India. Before this trip I always thought of Barcelona as a noisy city, but now I don’t really see it
like that anymore.
The second thing I noticed was the fast pace of life in the west: people talking to each other while walking away in opposite directions because they're so busy they don't stop for a second to finish the conversation. Maybe it was just because of the fact that I didn't work during these two months, because now I'm doing the same thing ... :-(
