The journey from Amristar to Haridwar was fairly painless. The train was quick, pretty clean and got us where we were going on time, even with choosing the non-AC (cheapest) compartment it wasn't too hot. If you did happen to get hot, vendors selling water seemed to pass by every half an hour or so, there was also people selling crisps, cake and hot food. I didn't opt for any of the cooked food, mainly because i didn't trust it, Ben how-ever didn't share my view and tucked in.
The worst thing about the train was that it took us to Haridwar.
So our first impressions was that Haridwar wasn't half as pretty as it looked in the pictures. We were staying on the outskirts and the area seemed more industrial than anything. Haridwar is an important stop on any Hindu pilgrimage as it ranks as one of their 7 holiest places. According to Hindu legend the goddess Ganga descended to earth here after Lord Shiva released the river from his hair, this is how the river got its name.
The afternoon we arrived we decided to visit the river front area in the main town (Har Ki Pauri) to see where the Ganga Arti is performed. Ganga Arti, is a fire ceremony that is practiced every night on the River Ganga by placing an offering (on fire) to float along the river. The offering is normally a small paper bowl filled with flowers.
We walked from our hotel across the river to the town, stopping on the way for some food. We here encountered our first problem, other places we've visited in India had quite a lot of menus and signs in English, that was no longer the case. This was completely our issue as we can't expect everywhere to have information in a language we understand, but it was a bit frustrating. So we ordered some samosas - there were pictures we could point at. What we got was samosas and what appeared to be a soggy bread like thing, one we actually ordered then other we seemed to just get given. I didn't enjoy either; one too spicy and the other was just strange, Ben enjoyed them though so got my left-overs.
We then tried to walk along the river towards the main town area, this wasn't as simple as it seemed as we soon came across an area of slums and then a water inlet without a bridge over it. After backtracking for a while we decided it was far too hot to walk any further so we got in a tuk-tuk to take us to Har Ki Pauri. The driver took us some of the way before dumping us next to another slum and telling us to walk across it to find the bridge that will take us to where the ghats are. A ghat is series of steps that lead down to the river, these line both sides of the river but the ones on the western shore is where the Ganga Arti is performed at sunset. That is also where the Har Ki Pauri area is... not where we were left.
So we walked to Har Ki Pauri and it was packed. On our walk across it seemed like everyone was staring at us, it wasn't the most welcoming feeling. Then the beggars came, we had children trying to grab hold of our arms; women stood in front of us demanding money then hissed at us when we said no. The whole area was noisy, dirty, smelly and had far too much going on for my liking. It just wasn't what I was expecting from a religious sight, I felt completely overwhelmed and out of my comfort zone, I really didn't feel safe.
To get me out of my panic Ben took us to a little restaurant near by that was practically empty. I sat, calmed down and ate some very under-whelming pakora. We decided that maybe seeing the Arti could wait, as it was only going to get busier. We found a tuk-tuk that could cross the river and take us home.
After some looking into it we found that the Arti that is held nightly in Rishikesh seemed to be more relaxed so we decided we would just wait until then instead. We decided we'd pair down our itinerary for Haridwar and keep it simple so the next day we decided to go visit the Mansa Devi temple that you reach by a "rope-way" (cable car). It was a slight bit cooler that day so we decided to walk the five km to the rope-way, following along the river for as long as we could.
The rope-way was honestly (sadly) my favourite part of Haridwar, the only place where you had a sense of peace and it only lasted for 3 minutes. When we arrived at the top, we almost walked straight back down the mountain by accident by following through the market. After a while we realised that there wasn't a temple coming up so we headed back up the steps, while vendors we just passed resumed their attempts to sell us their wares.
The temple itself seemed more of a money grab that anything. It was a small fairly dark space with small shrines guarded by temple devotees who tried to get us to touch the statues and leave donations. We normally leave a small donation at every temple we visit, however we weren't going to leave one at every shrine! After leaving the shrine area and collecting our shoes, we were bombarded by people asking for selfies. After the impromptu photo shoot ended we stopped to have a ice-cream (while some very vocal monkeys tried to get us to give the ice-cream up) then we jumped back on the rope-way and made our way back down.
While trying to cross the river to head home we somehow ended up in a courtyard with an insistent old woman trying to get us to drink some river water, we politely decline with a "NO thank you!" and rushed out to find another route. Finally we made it to a bridge and wandered along the Ganga, passing the people washing until we found a relatively quiet spot where we could sit and dip our feet into the river. This lasted about 10 minutes before someone came and stripped off next to us and began to wash, we took as a hint to be on our way so headed back to the hotel.
Not soon after we got back Ben wasn't feeling hot so we spent the rest of the night in, me having a chill and Ben, spending a lot of time in the bathroom. He wasn't any better the next day, however he thought he'd manage the 1 hour train to Rishikesh, and that's where we went next.
In a way I feel bad for not liking Haridwar, that maybe I should have pushed past any anxiety I was feeling and tried to find pieces of it to enjoy. It sometimes feels like if i'm not enjoying somewhere i'm not making the most of our time, but really this is unrealistic. Just because I felt uncomfortable there doesn't mean everyone would, it just means this wasn't the place for me.
コメント