Leaving Delhi

Thur 1st Nov

Lazy breakfast of Dal, chapati and masala chai, in roof top restaurant. Went for a wander in the same back streets but by daylight this time we made our way to the station, our train was due to leave at 15.25 the only way we knew it was ours was from lists of names attached to the carriages.

Arrived at Haridwa just after 19.30. There was lots of noise and street vendors and rick shaws just like Delhi and it was very dark by then. We found the bus station across the road, it was massive with all the signs in Hindi so it was very difficult to find the right bus, various people tried to help us but they couldn't speak English so it was a bit fraught for a while. We eventually found the right bus just before it was about to leave and jumped on, more by luck than judgement. We also managed to steer a Japanese boy who was traveling alone onto this bus as well, he was headed in the same direction as us and was looking very lost. The journey took about three quarters of an hour, it was cold and windy compared to Delhi and we were going along with the doors open most of the time, 30 rupes each which is about 35p. We arrived in Rishikesh and got a rick shaw up river to the 'hippy part o town', Rosanna managed to bargin this down from rs 200, the ride was abot 7.5 kilometers. The driver let us out in the middle of what we thought was nowhere, it was very dark but the guy insisted it was the right place but we were abit nervous. We eventually found the bridge over the Ganga but once on the other side it seemed as if everything was closed or just closing. It was dark and we were tired,we wandered the streets for a bit trying to find a room for the night and then we bumped into a couple of rich Danish women who were a bit spaced out but they walked us to where there were some (rather expensive) hotels. We asked for their cheapest room and had ourselves some dalh, tierd and exhausted .. it was a quite night.