On the 16th of May 2011, the moon was full, although hiding in the cloudy Rishikesh sky. Not long before midnight, I had a hankering to sit beneath the murky night anyway and eat cake on my balcony. As I took the few flights down to the kitchen, hotel manager Mahesh asked me if I wanted to join him and 15 Russian / Ukranian yogis on a ten day pilgrimage into the Himlayas. Known as Char Dam, this pilgrimage visits four sacred sites around the Uttarakhand province. We would leave in 8 hours or so, and at first I dismissed the invitation, thinking only about how unprepared I was (no jacket, one pair of skinny socks, only running shoes). But, after watching the Ganga float by, silent as usual, and recognizing that I was kind of stagnating in the Rishikesh heat, I decided to do it. To take a risk, pack my bags and jump aboard. Why not?
But of course I was nervous. Usually travelling alone, I avoid packaged tours, particularly ones where I would be the only one not speaking Russian! I barely slept that night but woke anyway at 6 to meet my makeshift family for the next ten days over breakfast.
ON THE FIRST DAY, WE DRIVE FROM RISHIKESH TO BARKOT, FRESH AND EXCITED...
Luckily, I had another girl sharing my car who had also come in at the last minute. She was not part of the tour group but happened to be Russian also although spoke very good English, so our first few hours in the car passed easily as we shared our travel stories and philosophies. After stopping at a beautiful temple a few hours out of Rishikesh to wash the crystal Shiva lingam, eat some prasad and feed the rest of it to the monkeys, we drove a few more hours to 'Kempty Falls', a popular tourist destination for Indian families. Based around a waterfall and a man-made lake in which tug boats rode around and around in mindless circles, we elbowed our way through the crowdloads of people and were overwhelmed at the colours dancing in front of us - various shacks were renting out day-glo pink, green, blue and orange plastic tubes to float inside by the hour. The air was thick with excited shrieks as fully clothed Indian girls and turbanned Sikhs pushed each other overboard repeatedly. A few of the more adventurous dived into the falls, although I stayed dry for the moment and searched for a hat to shield my pale, pale skin from the sun.
In a dhaba deemed respectable enough by our guides, we shared our first meal together, and I began to get to know some of my fellow travellers and tried to remember their unfamiliar names - I'd taught a Natalia and a Sergei before, and my friends have a son called Kolya, so they were easy. I had worked with an Xenia and was familiar with the names Dimitry and Vlad, but others like Vitaly, Zuhara and Gennadiy took longer to memorise. But HEY, I'm a teacher who is faced with memorising 150 new names at the beginning of every school year,so as usual managed to fake it for a few days until I had it sorted.
My favourite moment of the day, and possibly one of my favourites of the whole tour in hindsight, came late in the day after a looong day of driving in a non air-conditioned car. We stopped at a beautiful place whose name I've since forgotten, only remembering that the Yamuna river was flowing, and instantly appealing. Some locals told us there was no way to get down to the river bank but we persisted, and wove our way through the mud and sludge down to her gushing waters. It was here that I began to get a sense of Russian / Ukrainian enthusiasm as most of the men stripped down and dove straight in. They would go on to do this at the drop of a hat many times over the next week or so, bless 'em... I joined in eventually, unable to resist her refreshing waters, although did so fully clothed because quite frankly I could do without the stares of the locals. Simply to be immersed in this body of water was incredible - the current was strong and I clung to a rock for stability as the current washed from me the grime of the day, my paisley Indian clothes swirling and merging with the patterns around me... I felt the power of the river and wondered if any temple on earth could compare to how good this water made me feel...
In Barkot, our first guesthouse of the trip was garishly pink and purple, and typically overpriced for a region that can only open for business for half of the year due to weather conditions. We were dubious about the state of their kitchen but in fact they managed to turn out some pretty decent kai - and I met more of my crew around the long table as we whet our appetites on lady fingers, dhal, potato (a Russian staple we weren't to be a day without!) and chapati.
DAY TWO - WE WALK 6 KMS THROUGH A THRONG OF PILGRIMS AND DONKEY POO, AND BACK DOWN AGAIN
We woke early, despite the 1 a.m noise from a busload of Indian tourists who had arrived late and VERY LOUDLY at our hotel! Very typical of India, and one of the things I struggle with the most - the noise and lack of sensitivity to light sleepers such as myself. But what to do?? We were off to Yamonotri that day, which involved a 6 km trek up to a temple dedicated to the goddess Yamuna, the same river I was so taken by the previous day, and would trek the same path down again after bathing in the hot springs at the summit. I must admit that I wasn't prepared for quite the amount of people that were on this track - it was PACKED! And really put into perspective the preciousness of New Zealanders when I hear people complaining that our tracks are too busy - there were literally thousands and thousands of pilgrims here this day... all walking / being carried by horse or on sherpas' backs to visit this holy place. Madness!
In the carpark we were accosted by various porters / sherpas / donkey hench-men all offering their services to us at an inflated price. After a typical breakfast of paratha and curry though, we were fit and ready to walk the 6 kms - a walk which was not hard, especially considering that at times the track would be too busy to even move! At one stage I was almost crushed for about ten minutes behind a group from Mumbai as the track became too narrow for a two way system. Various cries of "single line! single line!" as well as the usual "chalo chalo chalo!" (Hindi for 'go,damn you!') were heard from all around, but I wasn't phased at this point because a lovely man in a woollen hat behind me had began to sing a Ganesha bhajan and everyone around him joined in. I was LOVING it! and even enjoyed the usual 'which country are you coming from' questions - it seemed that today was a day to make friends with all these families from all around India, excited about doing this pilgrimage to four sacred sites...
Although, by the end of 6 kms I was kind of tired of the shit covered slopes, of the yells and cries as porters tried to avoid donkeys and vice versa, and basic lack of respect for each other and the environment and I was happy to find my Russian / Ukrainian friends up top. I went in excitedly to the ladies bath, but was somewhat uninspired by the dirty looking hot water inside a concrete tub.... sure, it was natural, but it had also bathed thousands of other pilgrims that day... I went in anyway after managing to fight my way through the crowd of women swimming super close to the steps - it's not that it was even that deep beyond the entrance, but Indians are notoriously lacking in confidence when it comes to water, most of them 'not knowing how to do swimming' as they say. So I had half a pool to myself because of their insistence on crowding the entrance to the water. A few minutes of breaststroke was enough for me before we went to a freezing waterfall nearby, with the intention of bathing in Chandra waters (moon) after our Sooria (sun) experience. I must admit that I'm not quite as staunch as those Soviet blokes, who were soon in their underpants again and diving into the freezing waters. I stuck my feet in and it took me five minutes to thaw out... upon reflection, I wish that I had just jumped in actually, but what to do... life is not about regret!
We returned to our same hotel before sundown, so had time to eat and drink the usual copious amounts of chai before our evening meeting about the following day's events... we were to be in the car for most of the day, another situation we were sure to get used to as the kilometres were many and the roads in India, well, they weren't so good...
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