3 weeks backpacking India: Rishikesh

After a day in Delhi hosted by locals I moved to Rishikesh, where the Ganga is born and considered a spiritual place in India, besides of being a place where people go to do Yoga, meditation and adventure sports.

How I got there

When I got up in Delhi in, Savion flat, we cached up a little bit more meanwhile we had a breakfast and after I went to Kashemere bus station by metro.

Delhi metro is very good organised, well as we have in Europe, but in India is something to highlight; as well the price that it has, which is and average of 10 times cheaper than European ones.

In Kashemere, I took a bus, ticket which I had booked in advance.

The distance is less than 270Km but the journey is about 7.5 hours; why? because the traffic in Delhi and surrounding is crazy, the roads are always with traffic jams, besides of the roads which aren’t high speed ways as we consider in Europe.

Traveling by bus is another experience that I wanted to live, but it has less priority as nobody had told me anything about buses in India. After I lived it, I can say that you should experiment, because you will see how vehicles overtake by the left side (bear in mind that the drive in the left) and the bus is constantly horning as the other vehicles meanwhile is moving forward, you’ll probably stop in a rural service station even though it is in he opposite direction and lots of more things; so I highly recommend that you do it because you will experiment something something totally different than in Europe.

When I arrived, I had to figure out how to go to the hostel (Zostel) which isn’t exactly in Rishikesh, it’s in 5 minutes walking from Tapovan about 4km from the Rishikesh bus station up hill; my intention was see how much was the cost and depending of that I didn’t mind to have a walk even though I was going to take me 1 hour and a quarter. A few people in the bus station was looking for a tuk-tuk, they were dealing with one which wanted to charge 250 rupees to go Ram Jhula, which was on the way to my destination but nearer (about 2.5km only from the bus station), I felt that he was cheating so I started to walk.

3 minutes later one tuk-tuk insisted to me to carry where I wanted to go and to pay as I wanted, obviously I had to agree the price before to avoid any kind of wrong expectation; I bet 30 rupees, showing him the point with my phone in Google Maps, and he bet 50 rupees, I thought that it was fair enough and I took. It was a big tuk-tuk, he could carry 6 people and some luggage, hence he took some people on the way and dropped before my destination. He stopped on Tapovan, however I showed that Zostel it was a little bit more up in the road, he carried me there, I paid 50 rupees and he got annoyed saying that I was cheating him, because he had to dropped me in Tapovan and for that reason I had to pay 120 rupees, I said him that we agreed with the map, however he was very annoyed, then I said “if you want you can carry me back to Tapovan”, he agreed and he dropped me just 300 meters down the road; so I ended up walking 2 minutes to my destination.

After I check-in in Zostel, I took a shower, ate something, chilled out in the living-room and went to bed.

The first day

In the morning, I got up and had some breakfast, at that time I received a notification from the air line of my flight from Delhi to Mumbai for 11th of November (day before I had to take my flight to go back to London) to warn me that it was cancelled and I had to rebook a new one; I thought that it was going to be complicated after I could confirm that India is a very bureaucratic country, but it wasn’t, just I went online and they allowed me to book a new one which took off 2 hours before the cancelled one.

After I walked to the riverside and was walking along the shore; I saw Trayambakeshwar, Ram Jhula and all that riverside until Rishikesh.

Back to the hostel I was chilling out and I had the chance to meet very in deep my room mates, Mina, who was there the day before and Andy who just arrived that evening. We cached up for a while and I was very impressed about this guys.

Mina was 22 years old and he’s traveling for roughly a year; he had been so far in China, Camboja, Thailand and maybe in other countries which I cannot remember. He was in Zostel painting one draw in one of the walls and he had bought a motorbike there to start to travel India with it.

Andy, 27 years old, was in travel for 2 months, which he spent in Iran; he was in India for a week and he also bought a motorbike, but in Delhi, so he was already traveling with it; he was traveling for at least 2 years, so as you imagine, he wants to travel the world.

Very amazing guys with very interesting and fun stories.

Second day

My plan was to visit Deer waterfall walking and after chilling out near the hostel, because to go to Haridwar from there was a ping in ass, however Andy offered me to join him and visit both place driving; so I did.

We visited the waterfall, we enjoyed a bath there and after we went to Haridwar; we had a lunch in Haridwar and visited a bit the city and we also sat in Har Ki Pauri to see the starting of the ceremony that they do every evening.

We didn’t finish the ceremony as the temperature was going down and we had to ride back.

We rode back and I had to say that getting there in the morning was challenging by going back was even more challenging, it was dark and I could experiment the chaotic Indian road in the darkness.

We chilled out a bit and I went to bed as the following day I had to get up early to walk from there to Rishikesh bus station to go back to Delhi.

Conclusion

As a lot of people mention, in India, you have to negotiate hard; I had to do a few times before this but that tuk-tuk was the harder, moreover don’t let them to rape you, if you agree something be overwhelming with it.

In hostels you can meet a lot of interesting travelers, don’t miss the opportunity to talk with the people who is there, you will probably get a lot of them and them from you.

Have you met interesting people in your travels? I would like to hear about it.