Spiritualism

Rishikesh, India. I took the overnight bus from Chandigarh to Rishikesh, so when I arrived at 2 am I let the rickshaw guy take me to a cheap guest house. (a rickshaw is the three wheel mini taxi). Rishikesh is a holy city and it is situated along the Gange River, at "the gate of the Himalayas". It is also known because The Beatles used to come here to visit their own guru and ashram.

I happen to be at the last day of the maha kumbh mela, which is a hindu religious festivity hey hold every three years in four diferrent towns each time. So the last time it took place here was 12 years ago. It was quite a seight. Thousands of pilgrims, thousands of gods, hundreds of temples and offerings everywhere. I met Emily, from USA, and she showed me around 'cause she had been for almost two weeks. We walked, bare feet, into the tallest temple. We had to walk our way up, passing through several minitemples for different gods and ringing bells along the way to 'let the gods know we are here'. Along the river you could see people going into the river to purify hemselves.

It ended this particular day because it was on a full moon night and we decided to go swim in the sacred cold river at midnight. Quite an extraordinary experience! There were also some hippies playing their drums around a fire in a place that looked like a volcano (because of the stone walls). Really fun to watch! The next day I went rafting in the rapids with some indians I met and also a good experience!! This day I got on another overnight bus, this time to Delhi. At the bus stand I met two girls from California, one of them was identical to my mother when she was young so it was kind of weird talkin to her haha... But they were cool and one of them had a rough time in the bus, being harassed by some guys. By the way, here in india every indian stares at a foreigner and they always take out their phone to photograph you, specially if you are a lady. So my respects to girls that travel alone here!


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