Coming back to India from the easy travel in Thailand was quite a shock, but I ended up spending a little over 2 weeks in a wonderful place called Rishikesh. Rishikesh is a small town on the banks of the Ganges River in the foothills of the Himalayas. The scenery is beautiful but it is often referred to as the yoga capital of the world. There are endless yoga classes, meditation courses, and all sorts of other spirituality stuff. It is quite busy at this time of the year with foreign tourists as well as Indian tourists making their yearly religious pilgrimage.
The Stephanie's finished up their six week yoga teacher training and couldn't stop raving about the great people they met and how wonderful (and cheap) the course was. We ended up staying around for a week after they finished because it turns out booking an Indian train out of Rishikesh in March has to be done weeks if not months in advance. In any case it turned out to be a blessing as we had a great time and made some good friends.
Plenty of monkeys hanging around in Rishikesh
Lots of Tibetans and Nepalese as well giving a little bit of their culture to India
The Famous Hello to the Queen desert......delicious
Chakra artwork homework for the yoga students
Sunset over the holy Ganga
Street butter cookies
Rishikesh is surrounded by hills and there are no shortage of hikes and outdoor activities to do. The pics below are from a nice hike up to a waterfall and beautiful hillside village. We also had a great day white water rafting on the Ganges, but unfortunately no photos from that trip.
It was a steep trail
Brand new yoga teachers ready for their graduation ceremony
Hooray!
It turned into a crazy dance party
It was also Holi (sp?) the first day of spring all of India celebrates the day of color where they cover you in bright colored chalk. Good fun.
Betty from NYC, our new travel partner for trekking in Nepal
This is Oasis Cafe, a great place to eat and hang out
I was having a black and white picture day
Typical traffic yam on the pedestrian bridge
Now we are off on a long 3 day journey to get to Nepal by busses and trains. We plan to do the Annapurna Circuit trek. About a 3 week tea house trek through the Annapurna region of Nepal. Getting very excited to get into some real mountains.
Machhapuchhare, also know as fish tail mountain. 22,944 ft (6993 m) This is the view looking down from the Annapurna Base Camp
Plenty of monkeys hanging around in Rishikesh
Lots of Tibetans and Nepalese as well giving a little bit of their culture to India
The Famous Hello to the Queen desert......delicious
Chakra artwork homework for the yoga students
Sunset over the holy Ganga
Street butter cookies
Hooray!
It turned into a crazy dance party
It was also Holi (sp?) the first day of spring all of India celebrates the day of color where they cover you in bright colored chalk. Good fun.
Betty from NYC, our new travel partner for trekking in Nepal
This is Oasis Cafe, a great place to eat and hang out
I was having a black and white picture day
Typical traffic yam on the pedestrian bridge
