Haridwar

Day 10 (1/10)

Rise and shine! Got up pretty early to have some breakfast before our venture to Haridwar. Said my goodbyes to my new friends at Nirvana Hotel, strapped my bag on my back and headed to pick up our train tickets. We were just going to catch a bus to Hardiwar but had pre booked our train tickets from Haridwar to Varanassi…as we approached there was someone unlocking the door…good timing I thought, they must open at 10am. We were invited up to find out that the boy that opened the door was just there to clean and no one else would be in until 1030. Shoot. We only had one night in Haridwar so we wanted to get there soon to have the day to check it out. Oh well…we headed to the ghat to hang out by Mother Ganga and wait. 1030…still no one. 1045…someone shows up but says we have to wait that our tickets aren't there yet. 1115…the man we bought the tickets from shows up and says we still have to wait. 1130…wait. None of the men that work there know very much English so they just keep telling us to wait with no reason…we started to get a bit frustrated so I walked back to the hotel to ask my new friends what we were to do. They said it is very common, to not worry, the tickets would be there. Finally around 12noon we got our tickets!!!! Hooray! We strapped our bags back on and headed for the footbridge and then to find the bus. As we are searching for where the bus might be we were offered a tuk tuk (auto rickshaw) to Haridwar for only 400 Ruppees…thats about $7 for 20 miles travel! Sweet…granite the bus was about half that but I wasn't sure that I was ready for the whole India bus experience quite yet! So we hopped in for our longest tuk tuk ride so far:) It was actually not bad. It was really cold so we were bundling up with scarfs and gloves and laughter! That warms the body and the heart:)

 Brenden had found 3 hotels in his travel book that were recommended so we picked one and asked the driver to drop us there…he lets us off at the end of a narrow alley that was too small for his auto rickshaw to go and said it was down and to the right. Alright…we kept walking, and walking, and walking, and walking…no one seemed to know where the Yatri Niwas was. Or, some would direct us towards it and it would be nowhere to be found. Hmmmm, what to do? Chant of course! We began to chant YATRI NIWAS~YATRI NIWAS~YATRI NIWAS at the top of our lungs…we were determined to manifest this hotel! So we just kept wondering around chanting, hoping and praying it would just appear! We finally asked another rickshaw driver if he knew where it was…he said he did…but he didn't! Lame. We were running out of steam and our bags were becoming VERY heavy. So we decided to start looking at some other random places along the way…3 strikes and we were really starting to loose not just our steam but everything else too…this wasn't fun anymore. And then, out of nowhere…I see it. I see the sign for Yatri Niwas!!! Hooray! We found out, our worries our over:) Or not. Brenden said he trusted my judgment, so I went to look at a couple rooms. It wasn't good, but it was better than the other 3 I looked at so we settled for it at 800 Ruppees for the night (talked him down from 1000) We paid the man, filled out paperwork and headed to our room…it was not very clean to say the least. I didn't really want to touch anything much less use the bathroom but I really had to go! Well, there was no sense hanging out in this room so we headed out to find some food. The only place recommended in either of our books was called Big Ben…even though we had lost a little faith in their ratings we set out to find this place…chanting of course! The food there was very good and we experience our first fresh lime soda:) Basically you get to make your own soda with soda water, sugar, and fresh lime juice! Yummy!

After lunch we decided to try our first street food for dessert…not sure what they are called but they are like these little cake balls soaked in some kind of syrup~tasty:)

 We continued back through the bazaar, taking more time to look at what was for sale without lingering too long to get hassled and possibly convinced to buy something we really didn't need/want.

 We were heading toward the Ganges once again to check out the Aarti here in Haridwar, as we approached we bought a flower basket offering to light and give to Mother Ganga. We headed in and went straight for the stairs to get a good view of where we should go…we spotted some space down below and then realized we didn't have any matches with us to light the candle…I've never had a problem asking someone a question before so I simply asked this man if we could use a match and he said yes and walked with us down to the water, lit our candle, and then started instructing us to repeat after him…to give our family members a long healthy and happy life. We kept telling him we didn't have money and he just kept on insisting, almost forcing us to say these chants after him! We finished the "ceremony" and then of course he kept trying to get money from us…I cant really remember but I'm pretty sure Brenden gave him some just to get ride of him. So we finally get away and decide to take a self portrait in front of the Ganges and these men with "tags" around there necks come up and start asking us our names…Brenden buckles and quickly tells them his name and then they tell him he has to pay for pictures in front of the Ganges…Brenden immediately starts digging in his pockets for cash but I take over and ask for WHAT?! They ask me my name and I said…It's none of your business and I am not paying for a picture I took! I grabbed Brenden and started walking. Sometime (more often than ever these days) I sure do surprise myself! 

This Aarti was defiantly not as magical as the one in Rishikesh so we just started walking back toward the hotel (if you can call it that!) I suggested we stop and buy some cheap blankets to surround ourselves in with hopes of keeping anything that might be on the bed/bedding OFF of us! We got 2 big blankets for 200 Ruppees ($4), some water and went to our room to try to make ourselves as comfortable as possible…

As I had mentioned before I brought a bunch of essential oils, so I made a spray of Purify and a spray of Theives…we totally doused the room! The bed, the scary blanket and the entire room in general, lit some insence all while chanting Om Dung Durgaya Namaha (mantra for protection). We folded the blanket that was on the bed down (to possibly cover our feet with) and covered the bed with one of the blankets we bought…ahhh…at least we have somewhere to sit now! Luckily I brought my BananaGrams game, so we put some music on my computer, played a couple games and had some snacks:) We soon learned that there was no heater in the room…which we are finding is quite common in India, so we started bundling up! I was doing jumping jacks and dancing around the room just trying to stay warm! Isn't it interesting that sometimes the most challenging moments on our lives, when we are faced with a situation, (and you can either freak out, or you can make lemonade) end up being some of the greatest memories?!:) We decided to lay down and attempt to possibly sleep…we used the 2nd blanket we bought to cover with and I read my book Shantaram out load to entertain our minds until we got tired enough to pass out. So had my head lamp on, with as many clothes as I could layer on, snuggled under the blanket and I could see my breath as I was reading. Sweet memories:) And I actually slept pretty damn well!