Haridwar & Rishikesh.

After flying from Goa back up to Delhi, we thought we'd go for a quick trip up to Haridwar and Rishikesh. We'd heard they were pretty chilled out places and since it was only 4hours by train away, we figured it'd be a nice stress-free way to end our time in India. But we were wrong. We arrived at Haridwar at about 9pm and hated it instantly. The next day we walked down to the ghats where millions of pilgrims were bathing in the Ganges River, cleansing themselves in a river so polluted it is now classified as 'septic'. It just wasn't a nice place to be - and far from peaceful - so we got an autorickshaw to Rishikesh as quick as we could.
Rishikesh is known as the 'yoga capital of the world' and people go there to stay in ashrams, meditate, and practise yoga. About 40years ago The Beatles stayed in an ashram there, until they became disillusioned with their gurus demands for money and attitudes towards women, and left. Seems alot of people flock to Rishikesh desperatly searching for enlightenment or other such things to justify - or escape from - their lives. It's a pretty weird place. I talked to an american lady who had spent the last 34 years following some Indian guru, only to discover he wasn't a guru at all and just wanted her money and it seems there's alot of naive and/or brainwashed people in Rishikesh doing that. There's sadhus (holy men with dreadlocks) everywhere, except none of them are legit. Some even wear fake dreadlocks to trick people that they are of a high standing - the longer your dreads, the more enlightened you are believed to be. That's why Sean gets called 'baba' all the time hehe.
After a couple of the weirdest days I've had in India, we headed back to Haridwar because we had to get a train back to Delhi from there. Sean and I went to the train station to line up to buy tickets, but buying train tickets in India isn't exactly like buying them anywhere else in the world. There was a ticket window for women only so I lined up there, but soon enough the line became a moshpit and I had to fight off crazed Indian women (and the occasional man who tried to sneak into the womens line) and use all sorts of sneaky tactics to keep people from pushing infront of me. After over an hour of this in insane heat, I got up to the ticket window only to be told that the trains were completely booked for the next week. We had 2 days before we needed to be in Delhi to fly out so things weren't looking so good.
After talking to a travel agent we were told to line back up and ask for the foreign tourist quota seats, so Sean battled it out at the train station again for over an hour, just to be told the quota seats were full.
So, we were stranded in Haridwar - the worst town I've ever seen. We ended up having to get a taxi all the way back to Delhi and I've never been so happy to see the main bazaar in Pahar Ganj, New Delhi.
We're leaving for Thailand tonight to relax at the beach for a week before returning to NZ and the real world. See you all soon!

(will put photos up soon)

Goa Photos

The first 2 are of Candolim beach, where I stayed. In the first photo are the pulled down beach shacks, in the second you can see the shipwreck.

Me at Vagator beach.

Vagator beach.

Poster in Panajim.

Church in Panajim. In South India they're christian instead of hindu so there's crosses, churches, and 'jesus saves' everywhere instead of temples and 8-armed gods.

A pile of street dogs in Candolim.

Indian Summer

It's been awhile since I last updated this, so here's a brief rundown of what I've been doing since Pokhara, Nepal....
After a sad goodbye to our Nepali family we took a bus back to Kathmandu. A scary scary busride - I kept my eyes closed most of the time and everytime I opened them I saw a bus wreck either on the side of the road or off the edge of the cliff. After afew hassles and much trouble with airport security (lots of frisking, lots of bag emptying, lots of questions about drug paraphenalia which I didn't have!) we flew past Mount Everest back into the crazyness of India. And Indian Summer.
With summer you get intense heat (around 45degrees) and rain, which cools things down but turns the streets of New Delhi to a river of sludge and feces. So we got on a plane the next day and flew to Goa, in the south, to cool off at some beaches.
Because its monsoon season, there's no one around (except for afew Indian tourists who wear their matching "goa is heavenest" tshirts and take photos of the two strange people with white skin - being constantly stared at isn't nice but being photographed is so much worse) and all of the restaurants, shops, and hotels have either been torn down or closed and wrapped entirely in plastic. I love monsoon; there's no crowds or hawkers, everything's cheaper, and the electrical storms are so pretty.
We're renting a little house near the beach at Candolim and have our own manky-guard-dog and also a kitchen so I've been able to have all the foods Ive been missing like marmite and tofu yay.
We've been in Goa for about 2 weeks now, just relaxing and swimming and exploring the other beaches and sights by scooter. The roads are insane to navigate and we nearly died so many times and were both heading towards a nervous breakdown after afew days of driving!
We're coming to the end of our trip now and have about one month left, and no set plan.....