Bagsu and the last bit of the trip.

Having said our goodbyes Dan and I boarded the bus together. I managed a few broken hours of sleep which he did not so he stayed awake the whole night. We had a delay of a couple of hours due to the alternator breaking and so we had to wait while it was knocked back into life. We were dropped in Mcleod Gange and caught a rickshaw up to Bagsu. From there I knew the way and we climbed the steep stairs to The Evergreen Guest House which was one of my favourite places run by a Nepalese chap called Dinesh. Within two minutes of being there Yarden came down from her room and gave me a big hug and half an hour later Oggie too. So minus Tim we were all back together again. Dinesh had only arrived the day before to open the guest house for the season so basically we were the first ones there. The weather was beautiful for a few days but bloody cold at night. We had a nice room with a hot shower and our own toilet. The guest house had it all. A great view, good food and I discovered the booze shop had cider and as I am not a beer drinker I immediately asked Dinesh to bring up a case which was brought up by a donkey. I was feeling pretty ill and as I later discovered I had flu and a lung infection so although in no way bed ridden I had little energy to go climbing mountains and visiting waterfalls etc. A pity really as I would have liked to. Soon the weather changed and became really cold even during the day. I just wanted to keep warm and was wearing practically everything I had.

My friend Daniel who I met the first time in India and his girlfriend Stefania who I met with him in London arrived one morning and announced their arrival with Daniel blowing his didgeridoo. It was great to hook up again and having their company while I was there was a big boost to my morale as of course the reality of my trip coming to an end was sinking in. We hung out a lot together and the little group clung on to survive the cold. One chap, Stephen had a hot water bottle and it was passed around from person to person to clutch and warm up. We often sat in my room with a jam session going on and Stef would do her knitting. We, or I suppose I started the trend of going to the balcony and calling out "Dinesh" who would shout back "yes brother" and we would place our order. This was meant in the best possible way and taken as such. A convenience for both parties. Whoever of us went down the hill usually came back up with a box of the famous Bagsu cake made with chocolate on top, toffee and a crushed biscuit base. They were simple but delicious. While on the subject of food I must mention our outing one day to have sushi in Mcleod Gange. It was a rainy day and I felt awful but I committed myself to going and boy am I glad I did as the meal was fantastic. We all had a blast and enjoyed our food. After the meal I bought some vodka and juice to take back to the guest house. Aaron and some friends we met at the Bombay guest house were back at Evergreen. I really wanted to organise another party like the one Guillermo and I did two years ago. La comida barbecue part two but as it was too early in the season and the weather was not warm enough yet this was not possible but we still managed to have one night where we went a bit wild and the times were good minus a few key players though.

Soon enough the day arrived for me to leave. It was in the afternoon so had time to say my goodbyes. It was hard as Dan, Aaron and Daniel jammed and sang. I held the lump in my throat back as long as I could and eventually went up to Oggie and Yarden's room. They went on a hike that morning and I missed them which was disappointing. The tears flowed as I said to Dan how I would miss all the good times. I pulled myself together and went to say the final goodbyes and put my backpack on.

Dan walked me down to the rickshaw stand and I slipped on the stairs putting my hand in fresh cement leaving my mark forever in Bagsu. This lightened the mood somewhat. Promising to see one another again when I get to Israel off I went to Mcleod to catch the bus to Delhi.

The bus ride had a little mishap and burst a tyre adding a couple of hours to the journey time. I arrived in Delhi and headed straight for a hotel called the Cottage Yes please on a recommendation from Leona. I had the day to rest in an air-conditioned room and was able to shower and sleep. In the evening I flew to Mumbai and then had a fair wait to fly home.

I arrived back in England to beautiful weather and made my way to Sam and Stu's. What a brilliant experience I had. India I love you.

Rishikesh part two

As any traveller knows you can meet someone for five minutes and that meeting can change your life. Well I let some people close to me and I hope to maintain some form of contact and friendship with as many as possible as there were some gems amongst them. Some vampires too but I ate too much garlic for them to do much harm (being metaphorical). Rishikesh was the place where all these feelings came up and there were a couple of other things that happened there too. The first odd thing was that Dan, Tim and I had origionally planned to go to a place called Kasar Devi somewhere similar to Vattakanal. Then I had my dental problems and at first felt guilty about delaying the move. I was assured it was OK but none the less I kept that as the objective for a few days. That faded away as a new venture loomed on the horizon. There were some "Rainbow" people staying at the guest house and they seemed very interesting. I had never really heard about Rainbow gatherings or Rainbow people before so I enquired of them what it was all about. They explained that people get together and build a camp site and exchange ideas and do all kinds of workshops on stuff like reiki so of course this sparked my interest even more and I became desperate to go and see for myself. The thing was that it took a while to get off the ground and then people were not sure that it would move or even happen properly so it grew, it died and grew and died and grew again. After a few days of this I gave up any attachment and sat back and had a good laugh with the guys as my bag was packed and unpacked. I met a Frenchman who said if I was truly interested I should go to one in Europe where it would be well organised. Then I found out that the moon was the closest it had been to the earth in eighteen years and there was to be a big celebration. So the whole cycle started again.
At about this time I met Aaron who had started making jewellery with various stones and I had always wanted someone I knew to make a necklace for me with a stone I had chosen. We became good friends and hung out in the same group. Now there is a little story to be told and I will try and do it justice. One day a couple of friends of mine were going to do some acid and I wanted to go along and keep an eye on them. We went down to to the first beach and sat down. I watched the two of them come up on their trip. For one of them it was their first experience so I wanted to make her comfortable. She told me later that a line by Terence Mckenna "going to the grave without ever having had L.S.D is like going to the grave without ever having had sex" was the deciding factor. I think the acid was quite strong as they started to talk about the world being created from the sound of the word "duplodopus" and the sand was of course millions of tiny empires in where there were infinite possibilities. One started playing the didgeridoo being guided by nature to play what he saw. It sounded really cool. They tried to create an empire out of sand and build a sand castle. This took three attempts and looked quite hilarious by the end. One of them was the creator and the other the destroyer and I the mediator. While they were tripping Aaron found us on the beach and came over and gave us a stone to wear. It was Labrodite. He gave it to me and said I should give it to the others to wear and make it a part of the trip. After ten minutes I found it so heavy I had to take it off so I passed it on. My friend loved it and went into the Ganga with it. While he was in there he told me he had an amazing psychedelic experience with the water rushing through him while seeing the spirit of the river. He felt it was now purified and became quite attached to the stone. Later in the day when the two of them could move I guided them back to the guest house and suggested passing the stone on. At first he did not want to as he had cleansed it so I gave him some line about letting go and the stone would come back to him if it was meant to. When he passed it on it was only a short while before the girl said. "I have to take this off, it feels so heavy" As she was saying this my other friend returned at that exact moment and she gave him the stone. As this was going on Aaron walked in and heard the story and I observed all this. Quite a special experience and a little freaky too.
The next day it happened to be Purim, a Jewish holiday basically commanding everyone to get really pissed. Well for this day I had be Jewish. What a great holiday! Anyway I made a mission to get booze and Rishikesh is supposed to be a dry town so it really was a mission. I came back with vodka, whiskey and a bottle of poison I love to hate, yes Old Monk to those of you who know it. Eeuch! Foul stuff! We were poised yet again to go to the Rainbow gathering but at the last minute decided to go to a beach party instead. I bought some firewood to take and lit the fire on the banks of the Ganga. We all got delightfully drunk and had a great time. I even fell on a rock knee first and had to hobble home anesthetized by the alcohol and helped by a lovely Spanish girl. Through my inebriation I still had enough chivalry to lend her my sweater. Note to father I AM SAFE IN CABS!
The next day it was Holi, a festival where everyone throws brightly coloured paint over everyone else. An excuse to go wild really and get very messy. My nose thingy's on my glasses will be forever pink I fear. Dan and Tim had got some paint powder and we made weapons of water bottles and tried to fill one thousand tiny Indian balloons with dyed water. This idea was abandoned as the balloons were mostly all faulty or too small to fill properly. Indian manufacturing!
We eventually mustered the strength and courage and with bandaged knee I went onto the streets to commence battle. We got separated from Dan and crossed the bridge. There were some impeccably dressed Indians which confused me somewhat and I had a momentary wrestle with my conscience and the mischievous side won as I just had to spray a chap all dressed in white. It felt most satisfactory to drench this innocent passer by from head to toe. We went to the main area where they had some large speakers blaring out music and everyone was dancing. It was a hot day so being sprayed with water was a welcome relief. A few clothes were ripped off. Tim lost his Jimmy Hendricks shirt but I found myself standing quite close to the police who sternly said something like "today no problem. Enjoy!" I was covered from head to toe by now in various colours and my hair was a kind of purple. The police were spotless and were obviously out of bounds. After some more time we made our way back to rest and re stock. Dan called out and said Oi! At first I didn't recognise him as he was completely black with some oil based paint. It took a long time of scrubbing with sand in the Ganga for him to get clean.
We went out once more into the fray and then by two pm it was over so we went and washed with hundreds of others in the Ganga and the river did turn red. What a day.

We spent the next day chilling out together and trying not to think of leaving and splitting up and for me the last leg of my trip was about to begin as Tim went back to Varanasi to finish his tabla lessons and Dan and I went to Dharamsala. I listened to the two of them having a last jam session and felt a little sad.