The stay here has been relaxing, if not for the noise and bustle outside, at least for my private room. No one has knocked on my door once here, and every other place, people have been knocking on my door regularly for things.
In general, Rishikesh (at least this part) is not as relaxing as it was made out to be by fellow travellers. Maybe they are staying somewhere else, but to me, this is about par for the course in terms of noise and activity and honking and yelling and chaos.
I have pushed my budget upwards a bit and scored a hotel in Goa with a pool, and a nicer place in Kerala also which I think overall will be less chaotic than North India. I think that will make some difference in my overall enjoyment, so it was worth it. And besides, while all nights are not yet accounted for, it does make me feel a little better knowing that (at least in theory) I have a room somewhere without having to haggle or look at different hotels. We will see if it pays off.
I am checking out of here at noon, and will have a bite to eat at the restaurant downstairs where I have had many meals (that and the “German Bakery” across the way). The food hasn’t been very appetizing, and I’m looking forward to having some real Western food again. A restaurant may bill itself as having Italian or Mexican or Israeli or Russian foods, but they are seldom confused with the actual food from that country. For instance, I ordered a veg taco here the other day. It said veggies and rice. Sounds good. I was expecting the rice and veggies to be inside a hard taco shell, with probably some tomatoes or cheese and possibly some sour cream on top. What I got was not that. It was a fried thing that looked like an enchilada and the veggies inside were not what you would usually want on your taco. For instance, warm cauliflower and green beans among others that we don’t have in America. It came with a massive side of rice, and in the pic below, it looks like there’s rice inside it, but there’s not… I just forgot to take a picture until I had eaten a few bites already and was mixing the rice in with the cauliflower!
They actually had an enchilada on the menu, but I didn’t order it. Maybe it would have been a taco.
The “pizza” I had last night had the wrong cheese, a soggy and thin crust, and the faintest of sauce applications I have ever seen.
I have been trying to eat “Western” for the last several days especially as my stomach didn’t really want more heavy spices with it’s upset, and also because in the next week, I will be travelling quite a bit and in areas where “Western” food really won’t be very available.
Speaking of restaurants… The Westerners I see always seem to be on a laptop or tablet or phone or something while they are eating. And none of them talks with another, unless they came in together. It is like strangers inside a sea of strangers. It’s really strange. And I usually don’t do anything while I eat, except think and look out the windows, although I did take a book down during dinner two nights back.
I bucked the not-talking trend last night and went up to a guy who looked like he was fresh off the boat, so to speak. He was clean shaven, wearing somewhat tidy clothes, and had a bit of a wild-eyed look to him. When my pizza came, I went over and asked if he would like some company. He kind of looked at me confused, and I repeated myself. He still didn’t understand. He asked me if I spoke English, and I said yes, and then clearly enunciated my enquiry. I think I have been guilty of doing the same thing before though. I am so used to trying to figure out an accent of English, as broken as it may be, it’s a bit shocking to comprehend a full English sentence with vernacular terms. *IT* sounds foreign!
He switched his translator engine to “off,” fully understood and agreed, and we had a bite together. He was in fact not fresh off the boat at all, and had been living in Goa for 6 months and Dharmsala for a month before here (he had to spend 2 months in Taiwan for his visa - 6 month stays only, then a break, then you can return if you have a multiple entry visa like I do [and he had]).
He was a nice, if timid, young man, and I had two thoughts regarding the interaction. 1) if he was able to hack it here, so too will I and 2) another example of the imprudence of judging a book by it’s cover.
One last thing before I leave this brief post. The bridge outside, the Laxman Jhula suspension bridge crosses the Ganges from the east to west banks in Rishikesh. Besides watching the monkeys harass the people on the bridge and bully them into giving up their food, it’s also a trip to watch the crowds. This is the one of the primary reasons my wife did not want to join me here (along with the food and the heat). It was about 108 degrees Fahrenheit in the crowded bridge photos below. Can you see the motorcycles stuck in there? How would you like to be swinging over the Ganges, stuck like that? How people are not getting sizzled on the exhaust pipes, I don’t know. I was glad I wasn’t there.
From here, I will head about an hour and half south to Haridwar to catch my first air-conditioned train journey, overnight to Delhi where I will hopefully score a Foreign Tourist Quota AC rail ticket from Mumbai to Goa later for a later railway leg, and do some *more* looking around north Delhi before my train into the Thar Desert on the border of Pakistan for a couple nights in a hut with a family, and an overnight camel safari in the desert, sleeping without a tent under the stars. That should be an experience.
Who know how the signal will be, so I might not be back on for a while, or until I hit Goa which will be a week from now-ish.
See you on the flip side or sooner, if signal and time allow.
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