After heavy rain the night before, it was cloudy and cold in Mussoorie on the morning of the 23rd. I walked up the Mall a bit for a look down the valley towards Dehra Dun to see if the rain had cleared the haze. It had to an extent, but the view down was still pretty hazy. After breakfast, I left on a 9:30 bus down the winding road to Dehra Dun, with good views both down into the valley and back up to Mussoorie. We arrived about 11 and I hired an auto rickshaw to take me out of town to the Forest Research Institute Museum in a huge brick building built by the British a century ago. It is said to be bigger than Buckingham Palace and is situated in a large park. Six of the large halls are museums, mostly about forests and forestry products, although one hall had tiger skins on the walls. I spent an hour there and then went to the Ram Rai Mausoleum in the center of town. His mausoleum has beautiful paintings and is situated in a quiet courtyard, with four smaller mausoleums around it for his wives. Apparently, he was a rebellious son of one of the Sikh gurus, who was rewarded with a fine tomb by the Sikhs' arch-enemy, the Moghul Emperor Aurangzeb.
I made my way to the bus station between 2 and 2:30, ate lunch and caught a 3 pm bus to Haridwar, arriving at 5. I got a hotel room and took a cyclo rickshaw along the very busy main street to the Har-ki-Pairi ghat on the Ganges. Haridwar is one of the holiest cities in India because this is where the Ganges emerges from the foothills of the Himalayas into the plains. There is also something about a footprint of Vishnu found on the banks here. At sunset on the Har-ki-Pairi ghat there is a ceremony with thousands of people on a canal of the Ganges that runs just west of the river. The ceremony is called the ganga aarti and I arrived just before it started. Thousands of people were sitting on the ghat steps of the canal. During and after the ceremony itself, which I didn't see from my vantage point, the people along the water lit small candles on little leaf boats containing flowers and the candles and set them afloat on the swift moving water of the canal. It was all quite fascinating to watch, with some young men bringing around platters of fire that people seemed to bless themselves with. I spent a little over an hour there and then walked back along that busy, noisy main street, with the incessant horn blowing and dodging of motorcycles and other vehicles that makes walking along the street such an unpleasant challenge. I stopped at a friendly little restaurant for a great thali dinner, with eight different courses for about $1.85, plus a lassi (a yoghurt drink) with sliced almonds on top. Only vegetarian food is available in Haridwar because of its holy status. In fact, one of the restaurants where I ate quoted Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita that "purity of mind follows purity of diet." (Not quite the same as General Ripper's "Purity of Essence = Peace on Earth.") In fact, I've eaten almost entirely vegetarian food here in India and been quite happy with it. Indians really know how to cook vegetables. I have had chicken here and there while in India, and some mutton in Moslem areas.
It was sunny and cool the next morning, with a cool breeze, as I walked to the Har-ki-Pairi ghat, arriving about 8:30. I spent about two hours there watching the morning activity. The canal water level was much lower than the night before (there are dams just above Haridwar and a very big one further up the Ganges), exposing rocks and lots of garbage, mostly plastic, wedged among the rocks. Lots of people were bathing in the dirty, though holy, water. Some were drinking handfuls of it, or putting the water into plastic containers to take with them. Men stripped down to their briefs while almost all women wore their clothes into the water. I did see a few old women sitting on the steps bathing bare breasted. People were also bathing in the Ganges itself, just a few feet from the canal. Some people were digging in the exposed rocks and sand, for coins, I think. It seemed more of a carnival rather than religious atmosphere, with people laughing and posing for photos and splashing each other. I saw one vendor selling cotton candy and balloons hanging from a pole. I appeared to be the only foreigner there and no one seemed to mind me there. There were dozens of saddhus (itinerant holy men) dressed in yellow and dozens of other beggars, most with some physical deformity. They were lined up in places.
I had a good breakfast nearby of cheese parantha, curd and tea, and then chose to walk back to my hotel not via the busy main street but through the crowded bazaars, filled mostly with religious articles near the ghats. I passed a square filled with cows and barbers shaving the heads of customers, leaving only a wisp of hair at the back. Nearby was an arcade along the canal with ceremonies taking place inside. I also stopped at a hotel in a beautiful old haveli (mansion) on the canal built a century ago or so ago. Further along, the crowds diminished and I ran into a religious procession, with two men dressed in yellow in a yellow chariot with carved wooden elephants in front. It was pushed and pulled by men in white. In front of it, women danced when it paused. Further in front were children on horses, a band with lots of horns, and at the front a painted elephant. I got back to the hotel about 1.
After lunch at that good little restaurant with very friendly waiters, I walked up to the Mansa Devi temple on one of the hills on either side of the Ganges. These two hills are the last two along the river and both have temples on top. There is a gondola to the top, but the sign said the wait was an hour, so I walked up in less than half that, as the temple was only about 500 feet up. The temple wasn't much, but the crowds were interesting and there were good views of the Ganges. The monkeys on top included not only the familiar red-butted, short tailed macaques, but also slimmer, long tailed langurs, with black faces and whitish manes. From there I made my way to the Har-ki-Pairi ghat again for the sunset ganga aarti. This time I saw the magnificent fire ceremony on the banks of the canal just after it gets dark. About ten Brahman priests swirl around platters of fire on the canal bank and nearby temples. It is quite impressive. I stuck around after to watch the boats being floated down the still low canal and then walked back through the crowded bazaars to my hotel and the friendly little restaurant nearby.
I made my way to the Har-ki-Pairi ghat by about 8 the next morning and watched the activity for more than an hour before walking back through the bazaars. I had a late breakfast and then visited the state tourist office to see about their tours of the Char Dham Yatra sites, sources of the holy Ganges and Yamuna Rivers. At noon I left on a bus to Rishikesh, only about 15 miles, but an hour by bus, up the Ganges. I checked into a good hotel full of foreigners, had lunch and then, with some difficulty, found the state tourist office to see about the Char Dham Yatra tours. It turned out they wouldn't take me because one of the hotels on the tour won't take foreigners. At least that is what they told me.
I made my way to the Ram Jhula (Bridge) over the Ganges, crossed it and walked downriver along the other side, past ashrams and shops, to a ghat outside an ashram that has an evening ganga aarti ceremony. Rishikesh is in quite a lovely spot, in a canyon of the wide, fast-moving Ganges with forest-clad hills on both sides of the twisting river. The elevation is about 1000-1200 feet and the climate at this time of year very comfortable, with warm sunny days and cool nights. I haven't seen a cloud since I've been here. In contrast to the more interesting Haridwar, Rishikesh attracts lots of foreigners, the most famous the Beatles in 1968.
Sunset was about 5:20 and the ceremony started soon after and lasted about an hour. It was a much more upscale affair than at Haridwar. About half the audience were foreigners. Yellow-clad boys, maybe a hundred of them, sat on the steps and around a fire pit on the fine stone stairs of the riverbank. Around and among them were foreigners and Indians, with people staying at the ashram given seats on the steps near the front. A musician played the small drum, the tabla, and another the harmonium, a keyboard with bellows, and the music was very pleasant. There was lots of singing. In fact, the ceremony was almost all singing. A few minutes into the ceremony, the ashram's maharishi, clad in red robes and with long hair and beard and looking like a younger version of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, came down the steps to the fire pit, threw some stuff into the fire, and then went back up to the center of the steps where he sat on a rug before a microphone and led the singing. It was all quite pleasant. Afterward, I walked back to the bridge, crossed it, and then took a vikram (a shared auto rickshaw) back to the hotel.
I spent the next morning and early afternoon in and around the hotel, situated in a pretty area on the high bank (in an area called High Bank) west of the Ganges. About 2:30 I walked to the Laksman Jhula, the pedestrian bridge upriver from the Rama Jhula (both "pedestrian" bridges, but with motorcycles and bikes allowed, so you have to pay attention), crossed it and walked down the other side past two 13-story temples and lots of ashrams, shops and saddhus to the ghat where the ganga aarti had been held the night before and then further to the abandoned ashram formerly headed by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi where the Beatles stayed in 1968. It is behind a wall with a locked gates. The abandoned buildings that I could see looked dilapidated and some saddhus seemed to be living in them. The forest there is very nice with langurs in the trees, near the rocky and sandy riverbank. I went back to watch the ganga aarti ceremony at the same place I had watched it the night before.
I spent the next morning and early afternoon again in and around the hotel, then made the same walk I had made the afternoon before, though stopping at the ganga aarti ceremony ghats, where I again watched the ceremony after dark. At the end the maharishi made a few remarks in Hindi and English and remarked about the number of Californians coming to his ashrams. He said something like, "There is something about this California." No kidding.
The next day (today) I've spent in and around the hotel. It is quite a nice place here, with some interesting people, and I have been trying to find someone interested in sharing a rented vehicle for a trip to the Char Dham Yatra sites. It's also nice to have a few days of rest and relaxation. Today is the 90th day since my arrival in India on July 31, so I am halfway through my allowed 180 day stay.
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