Rishikesh

What a sleep! There were no calls to prayer at 5am,no dogs barking throughout the night, no beeping, just silence! At 4:20am we woke quite refreshed for once. We quickly got ready and jumped in the car.

Now Ajay has now been driving us around for what will be 14 days and I have been unbelievably impressed by his knowledge of the routes and his lack of any technology. He has a phone but it must by much older than a Nokia 3310, and he calls it his apple haha Every other day we have been driving during the day and I think the dark has completely thrown him. Bless him he got lost after about 10 mins as he didn't take the correct right hand turn and we had to use GPS to get him back on track.

Knowing it was 5am and dark we wrapped up in our coats prepped for a somewhat chilly start but I don't think I could have been more prepared... It was freezing. There was actual early morning mist on the fields like you see in the UK winter. Now I can hear you saying "Well I'm sure it's not actually cold like it is in England" and sure it isn't, but the temperature difference between day and night time is almost 20 degrees and that's what makes it feel so damn cold!

Eventually the sun rose and by about 10am I was beginning to warm up and even took off one layer. At about 12pm we stopped for Aloo Paratha and chai before reaching a metro station in Dehli at 1pm. The restaurant was called Mannat and it had the rip off version logo from Masterchef haha

We said our fond farewells to Ajay and we were now on our own. Ajay had told us the route we needed to take to get to Rishikesh and so we followed his instructions. First take a train direct to the bus station and then take a direct bus to Rishikesh. Easy... Haha so we were sat at the train station for about 40 mins when we realised there was no direct train to our required stop. So we asked and then jumped on the train. We arrived at the bus station an hour and half later to then find that Ajay had told us the wrong station! A local told us we needed to take another bus to the correct station and then get the bus to Rishikesh. So that we did. 2 hours later we were finally on the bus to Rishikesh! Ahhhh!! To be honest we were both just laughing at the whole situation hehe We decided to rough it and go on the local bus. Was this a good idea? I'd say it was bearable. It took 6 hours and the traffic was chaotic, our driver kept getting in yelling matches with other drivers, we eventually stopped for food where another driver was so peed with ours and so trapped our bus in completely and refused to move it for half an hour, but hey we eventually arrived in Rishikesh and I completed my book in the meantime - Andromeda Strain, I would definitely recommend it :)

We then took a final tuk tuk, got to our guesthouse, and it was absolutely freezing. I had to sleep in all my clothes and my coat! But I must admit it was nice to be out of the crazy city atmosphere. Rishikesh is at the bottom of the Himalayas and on the Ganges. Can't wait to actually explore and see the beautiful surroundings in the morning!

In the morning we both woke and decided today is a chill day. We had a few life decisions to make and to be honest just needed some time out to breathe the fresh air before we go exploring. We are both feeling a bit homesick and in need of fresh food so we went to a tourist cafe for avocado's and poached eggs on toast! We then wanderd along the Ganges and sat at a warm sunny spot on a peaceful beach along the river. My latest dilemma is what book do I pick next? After huge deliberation I've gone for Eragon.

For lunch we had thali for Rs50! It's the cheapest I have ever seen it and it was so much food. I was in mini heaven.

Then we went for coffee at a cafe looking over the Ganges, sat deliberating our next few months plans and then towards sunset we treated ourselves to carrot cake and ice cream!! Well that's what being homesick does to you :)

We sat for as long as we physically could with all of our layers on and then went for a wander to heat up. We found a popcorn man and bought a bag of fresh popcorn as another home comfort treat. We we do have a lot of calories to make up for barely eating yesterday hahaRead more