Its just a river isn’t it?
Its flows past my room in Rishikesh, quiet and deep and green. People come to swim in it, chat and laugh by
it, or just sit and gaze. People leave
everything behind and dress in robes to walk to its source way up in the
Himalayas. Spend time with Ganga and you
are the richer - I certainly feel richer for having been there, watched over by that
fabulous, holiest mountain of the Gods, Shivling.
So I am content. And knackered. I got sick again and this time it has
finished me off! I made it up to the
source of the Ganga but not above, and that is OK. My journey is complete. I have drunk its water (well boiled, sorry,
but when you’ve been that sick for that long, its best not to tempt providence)
and seen those mountains with my own eyes, and basked in the place among blue
Himalayan sheep and eagles and mountain crows with red legs and very yellow
beaks who ate out of our hands. I’ve sat
with hundreds of pilgrims enjoying the opening of the Ganga Temple – Gangotri –
and have shared companionable moments with my young Nepali guide peering together
into a mirror on our return to tut tut over the state of our hair and the
burnt-ness of our noses. I’ve fallen in
love with India all over again although for the life of me I can’t think why……..I
have tried to capture it and will enclose it as a separate page in case you are interested (see list top right) but won’t put
it here, honouring my promise to keep these posts at least relatively short and
sweet. And I'll post a few pics to give you a flavour, and maybe a little bit about the treks - maybe you'll have a laugh reading about our Great Cultural Divide on the Kuari Pass trek - or would like to experience 2nd hand the business or getting up to Gangotri!
A week today I’ll be on the
plane home and at last I want to go home – I want my bed and my shower and food and I so want
to see my friends and hope that my 6 months away won’t distance me from them
too much. I’d hate to be an India bore
but cannot deny this trip has changed me.
But my friends are the best in the world! They'll keep me right Slowly slowly.
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| Shivling |
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