My month in Rishikesh is coming to an end and it feels a little bit sad to leave this place tomorrow, although I'm starting to feel ready to go back home.
I've been staying at an ashram this whole month. It's a place where you practice yoga, meditation, eat simple, healthy food and do morning fire ceremonies and evening chanting together.
When I first arrived I was totally exhausted and since I got up every morning at 5.30 for yoga class I had to nap during the daytime. I guess I finally relaxed after all my travelling and the exhaustion of all the impressions of the last months caught up with me. It was a relief to be staying in the same place for a longer time after jumping from one place to another without more than a week in each place. There wasn't really much to do between meals and yoga classes, but it was nice to have time to read and write and reflect.

Even though I've done a lot a yoga I've had some time to do other things as well during my time here in Rishikesh.
I've had a dip in the fast flowing Ganga on one of the really hot days. The Ganga flows down from glaciers in the Himalayas and the water is cold and fresh here, compared to how it looks in Varanasi which is further down along the wide river.

I went to The Beatles ashram with one of my roomies. The Beatles visited Rishikesh in the late 60's and made it the popular tourist destination it is today, it is even called The Yoga Capital of the World.
The ashram where The Beatles spent their time during their visit is now abandoned. It was a pretty cool place though. There were old ruins of houses, meditation huts, yoga halls and buildings scattered over a big overgrown area. There were cracks in the walls, cobwebs in the corners and vegetation taking over the once busy ashram grounds. What I loved about the place was the street art and wall paintings in the ruined houses. Beatles fans had written texts on the walls and painted over the cracked walls with bright colours and given the place new life.
It was quite a long walk to get there and the day was almost unbearably hot, so we didn't have much energy to explore all the hidden treasures of the place before we turned to walk back again, but it was still one of my favourite places in India so far.

A lot of people came and went pretty frequently at the ashram. Just as you thought you knew all the faces, there would be someone new. I wasn't feeling overly social, so I mostly stuck to hanging out with one of the yoga teachers, since he wasn't going to leave after a few days like everyone else. So me and Raahi would escape the ashram every now and then and go out for some dinner.
The ashram food was really good, and it was a relief not to have to choose what to eat every single meal. But the food wasn't really varied, it was pretty much rice and dhal and veggies every day for lunch as well as dinner, so a change every now and then was welcome.
Rishikesh is a holy city, so you won't find any meat or alkohol here. One night when me and Raahi were out we felt like partying, but since there wasn't any party we made our own version. We went up on the roof of the ashram and put our headphones on and danced. It was just what I needed, I hadn't danced for such a long time, so it felt good moving that body again!

There are a few funny characters working at the ashram, whom I'll miss when I leave.
My personal favourite is one of the cooks. He is a very short, grumpy looking man. The first time I saw him he was wearing a bright pink T-shirt and he had just dyed his greyed hair with henna, giving it a flaming orange colour. He looks grumpy with his mouth permanently dragging down at the corners, but this old man is so full of humour. He is always trying to fatten everyone up at mealtime, loading your plate with twice as much as you asked for and giving you a mischievous smile, turning the curve of his mouth the opposite way when you protest. He kind of looks like one of those grumpy old women you imagine serving food at a prison or school kitchen, only he is an old man instead and makes the whole scene pretty hilarious.
Then there is Rabat, one of the office guys. He is 30-something years old and still a virgin. He always comments on my hair in his high pitched voice and titters like a girl saying he wants the same hairstyle. His English is better than the other office guy, but he would always make a long "Eeeehm..." noise before he said anything, as if he had to think long and hard to come up with the right words in English.
Another character is one of the boys coming to collect the ashrams laundry every day. He is always sitting and waiting when we are done with lunch and he always gives me the biggest smile. This skinny teenage boy with his radiant green eyes and the wisp of moustache on his smiling upper lip follows me with his green gaze all the way up the stairs until I vanish behind a corner every time I walk past.

The ashram is situated in a quiet area, off the main tourist beat. There's two bridges crossing the Ganga over to the touristy area. I was sitting and waiting for a friend of mine one day on the western side of Laxman Jhula bridge. The bridge is always very crowded, mostly made up of all the big Indian families insisting on blocking the way to take photos of them posing on the bridge. Of course the cows, motorbikes and monkeys only add to the chaos of the pedestrian bridge. Anyway, there I was, sitting and waiting and suddenly I became a target for this hysterical photographing. I get questions pretty often, with Indians wanting to take my picture, most times I say no and walk away. But this time I was sitting there waiting with nothing to do and I thought I'd give the sweet family a picture if that would make them happy. That was obviously a big mistake.
Before I knew it, all the families coming from the bridge with their cameras still held high, were queuing up to pose with me and snap their picture as well. Since they saw people already taking my picture they took it as an invitations to also use me as their photo subject.
After a few minutes the queue had dwindled to an end and I was left alone again. But not for long, a minute later the next wave came, and I had to endure five more minutes of smiling at various cameras, squeezed in between chubby, colourful Indian women, sweet, shy kids and moustached men, old and young. When the next wave had subdued I got up and hurried away over the bridge. Halfway across zig zagging through the crowd a cow comes charging at me. This is very unusual, you see cows everywhere, but they are the calmest, kindest creatures and they would never hurt a fly. I jumped out of the way quickly and saw the explanation for aggravated cow. A crazy sadhu was walking behind the cow, hitting it hard with a stick every time he got into reach. Behind him he was dragging a viscous looking dog in a chain.
I saw the same sadhu several times and he was always in the action of plaguing some poor animal. He had grey matted hair, entangled in dirty dreads and his orange coloured robes were torn and dirty. His eyes were big and crazed as he lifted his stick to strike. I always made sure to keep a safe distance to him.
There were many sadhus walking the streets in Rishikesh, holy men with orange coloured cloth wrapped around their skinny bodies with a metal container in one hand to beg for food or money. Sometimes it was hard to tell though if they were holy men or homeless men.
My month in Rishikesh has gone by really fast, even though I haven't done much. It has been very nice to have some time to process all my months of travelling before I go back home again. It feels weird to be diving right into the big city life of Mumbai again after this calm month. But it will probably be fun when I get there! I'll be back home in about a week, so see you soon!