Agra > Vrindavan > Palwal > Gurgaon 280 km

January 04, 2015

Agra > Vrindavan > Palwal > Gurgaon 280 km

[Originally posted Jan 4, 2014]

From the rooftop terrace of the Ishan Hotel, in Rishikesh, Uttarakhand, India there are many sights and sounds to observe. To the north are the foothills of the Himalayas, with dark clouds tumbling down from above threatening rain and stormy weather. It’s not the rainy season, here on the Subcontinent, but when you’re in India all bets are off. The Himalayas will begin here and then wind and weave hundreds of kilometers until cut up and through the sky with their magnificent 8,000 meter peaks before arriving at the vast, barren 5,000 meter plateau of Tibet.

To my east is the Laxman Jhula, a cable suspension bridge that crosses the Ganga River (Ganges River). The bridge carries every type of traffic, donkeys loaded with supplies, motorbikes, domestic and foreign tourists, touts hoping to snap a picture and make a buck, the wayward cow, sadhus (the holy men) in their orange robes, shoeless kids selling flowers in paper boats with candles to those hoping to send some Karma down the river. Monkeys traipse and swing on the suspension lines, stealing glasses from foreigners and taking a cracker from a kind local. On the opposite bank of the river is a nine story orange building with bizarre steeples at the top with the words YOGA TRAINING CENTER plastered across the front. When you come to the yoga capital of the world, you better be ready to slow down, focus on your breath and forget your body. Because as we were told last night, your body is a block, it is not real, your body will die and disintegrate and you will still be here, focus on your breath, when you focus on your breath your body will disappear, your body causes you suffering, your body is a block.

To the west is a small square, with a large statue of Shiva looking down on a busy man, sending stalks of cane through a diesel powered engine, producing juice for a handful of guests who sit in plastic chairs in the middle of the road. Beside him, his son uses the same stalks of cane to smack the holy cows that are looking for a free meal. The horn of the motorbike tells pedestrians to move over or risk losing an elbow. Chanting is heard in the distance. It seems chanting can always be heard in the distance.

When the metal roof above my head starts thundering and the screech of dying children is heard, my heart skips a beat, but then I relax. It’s just the monkeys. It’s just the monkeys. Many animals bicker and quarrel here in India, but only the monkeys make such a crazy inhumane screech that you worry if someone, someone innocent, has lost their life.

This morning we took a small hike up to a waterfall, a couple hundred meters above and 3km upriver from town. The sun was out, sweat dripped down my face, I grabbed two large rocks for the journey up to do some exercises to start reversing the upper body atrophy that has occurred over the last couple months. I think I’ve lost 20 pounds since we’ve left, and it hasn’t all been love handles, gut or butt.

India is a unique place, one I may never figure out, but I’ll definitely keep coming back. In the past month we have cycled just about 1,600 kilometers, or 1,000 miles, in Nepal and India, and it has been a wild ride. It wasn’t until southern Nepal we met kids who had never heard of McDonalds. It wasn’t until India that we were brought into local schools and asked to teach Physics or English. It wasn’t until India that when we tried to pay for food or tea our payment was refused because we were a guest in their country. It’s also the only country where I had to put on headphones to listen to Phish to prevent myself from kicking the many motorcyclists off their bike as they harangued me with a dozen questions. It’s the only country where we often got off our bike and walked because traffic and road conditions were so horrible. It’s the only country where you ride down the highway and expect trees in the road, lots of oncoming traffic in the wrong lane, dozens of requests for photos, speed bumps galore and a million smiling faces also exclaiming the exact same thing; ooh, lovely double cycle, very nice. It was the country we were the most excited to get to, the one we, at times, were the most excited to leave, and I suspect it will be the hardest to leave when we get on a plane in six days.

In the past week we’ve been at the Taj Mahal (rather lovely), chanted with the International Society for Krishna Consciousness in Vrindavan, and found a grocery store that sells things like blueberry muffins, salsa and almond milk. MIRACLE.

In six days we are off to Vientiane, Laos where our journey will resume (after a visit from my parents) cycling through the hills of Northern Laos and then Thailand and hopefully Malaysia and maybe we will get down to Singapore.

Happy New Year, y’all.