Our Second Vacation - Rishikesh

The last stop on our tour of India with Dave's sister Beth was the holy city of Rishikesh. The city is well-known as the center of hippy culture in India and a stopping point for the Beatles in the 1960s. It is also situated on the holy Ganges River.

We stopped for breakfast at a restaurant with an...interesting mascot. This choti wallah (which means "little seller man") sat outside the restaurant and just looked creepy. Interestingly, there is another restaurant next door which is also called Chotiwallah's and has a similarly dressed man sitting front.

Most of our time in Rishikesh was spent walking around the markets and shoping while taking pictures and being offered "good hashish" (or gouda cheese). In these pictures, Beth and Beth are sitting at a German bakery which had a good view of the temple across the river and one of the suspension bridges across the Ganges. If you look closely, you can see the monkeys preparing to snatch things from passersby. We didn't particularly like crossing this bridge.

Our cultural event in Rishikesh was the aarti ceremony. We had gone to this same one during activity week, but wanted Beth to be able to experience it, too. We still only saw a couple of people drop their fires into the river, but it was a nice chance to see a Hindu ceremony.

As we said, most of our time in Rishikesh was spent wandering. It was nice to not have so many sights to see. It was more relaxing and we were able to just experience India. This would, of course, be felt the next day when we proceeded home to Mussoorie.

Dave and Beth