Travel Along With Me

We woke and ate breakfast and decided to go on a hike to a waterfall that was supposed to be nearby. The walk ended up being a LONG one but a beautiful one. The road we walked was tree-filled and green. There was very little traffic. It ran alongside of the Ganges River. We saw a military graduation happening along the Ganges. We also saw some beautiful trees with spiral vines that hung from them.

We finally found the trail head that led us to the mountain waterfall. The waterfall was not as big as we were expecting but we enjoyed it anyway. The kids played in it and several of us dipped our toes into it.

On our hike back to our hotel we stopped at a little restaruant that had given us directions on our way there. The lady that owned it was very hospitable and friendly. She made us some wonderful hot ginger lemon tea and we sat there to talk for awhile.

When we returned to town we shopped again for gifts for family and friends. We spent time with the orphanage kids and we had a great supper.

We went to satsang that evening with the orphanage children. We were all sad that it was our last night with them. They sang us a beautiful good-bye song. I held back tears. A couple of the children drew pictures for me in my journal. We got their names and the address so that we could write to them.

After satsang Ankita and Lolita came back to our hotel with us. They had written us a beautiful letter to say goodbye. I had tears running down my face as I read it. We gave them big hugs and said that we love and will miss them and that they made our hearts full while we were there.

We all slept in until a little after 9:00am. We all got ready and had breakfast at Dev Raj restaurant. We then took the long walk to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Ashram (the one the Beatle’s stayed at) to finish exploring only this time we were with Llyn and Carter. We tried to schedule a tour with a guide that was listed in our Lonely Planet book but he was unavailable to help us. We stopped at some shops along the way to pack a lunch to picnic while we were there. Once again we saw many monkeys on the way and we stopped to feed them.

The gates were open to the ashram when we got there. We took our time and explored everything. The grounds were beautiful and green with plants and trees. The buildings were stone or concrete. We walked through the old buildings imagining what it must have been like before the place was abandoned. We picnicked at the top of one of the buildings that had a deck that overlooked the city of Rishikesh. We had two more buildings to explore before we left so after we ate we did just that. One of these two buildings was full of old papers – some from the 70’s. We tried to find some with the Beatle’s name on them but had no luck.

At the last building we explored there were domes on the top of it with ladders that you could climb to get down into the domes. Everyone was taking turns climbing and looking at the view and into the domes when an Indian man speaking Hindi showed up and began yelling at us all. Most of his words were in Hindi so we could not understand him. We did however understand that he was trying to charge us 80,000 rupees for trespassing and having cameras with us. We immediately were suspiscious of him and asked for his identification and told him we would not pay any money unless a police officer told us we had to. He pulled out some tattered paper from his wallet that I doubt was a real identification and told us to leave the premises right away. We began to leave and the man followed us yelling the whole way.

We saw some other westerners on our way out and we quickly explained to them what was going on and so they followed us as we were leaving so that they would not get into any trouble either. When we got to the front gate it had been closed and locked! We were scared at what to do next because the man had gone into one of the buildings, put on a uniform shirt and was still hollering things at us in such a hateful manner. The other westerners told us to follow them and they took us out an alternate way. Thank God the crazy man did not follow us past the exit. We were scared at the time but laughed about it all once we got down the road a ways. We figure the man must have been a park ranger and was trying to scam us for money.

We walked back into town and did some shopping, walking along the Ganges and ate supper.

We also went to the aarti ceremony along the Ganges that evening. Llyn and Carter enjoyed the experience and we enjoyed it again as well. It is beautiful to sit and sing with a bunch of strangers. All of us with peace in our hearts.

When we returned to the hotel I took the kids to play with the kids from the orphanage for awhile.

We went to bed after a full day looking forward to tomorrow which would be our last full day in Rishikesh.

Tilak woke early and got a taxi to Vasishta’s Guha (cave) to meditate. He said it was a pretty ride there and back. The cave was dark and the people were kind that he met.

The kids and I slept in. When we woke we did school work, journal writing and took our bucket baths. We then walked to Dev Raj for brunch. On our way back we found Tilak.

We decided to spend the next several hours along the Ganges River where we had taken the orphanage kids to do their laundry a couple days before. We played, looked for rocks, laid in the sand and talked. It was nice to have the family time. Texil found a fossil rock and Tilak found a lot of pottery pieces that he gave to Kali. They were from aarti ceremonies along the river.

We went back to the orphanage to assist with their studies again.

Lolita came back to our hotel with us after their studies and spent the rest of the evening learning card games (we brought from home) with Kali and I on the patio of the hotel.

I went back to the room and attempted to do some laundry. It was a disaster. The clothes were filthy and I could not get them clean. We ended up bringing them to the dobi walla on our way to supper that night.

We ate at Chotiwala restaurant again.

After supper we decided that we would walk down to a bakery shop and purchase some sweets to eat and sit by the Ganges River together. We bought 4 or 5 different types of sweets. We decided to taste all of them and vote on which one was the best. A stray dog was hanging out around us and ended up eating most of the treats because we did NOT like any of them. The dog was thankful that we didn’t.

I looked at a few jewelry stores and found my sister a pretty pair of earrings.

We took a rickshaw ride back to Lakshman Jhula and ate some real dessert at Dev Raj. Texil had his heart set on some chocolate cake and a woman took the last piece right before we ordered. He was so disappointed.

We walked back to our room stuffed and happy.

We packed our things for our trip to Delhi tomorrow. We were going there to meet our friends who would be with us for our last week in India.