The Search for Adventure

I have been in Rishikesh for 2 days and spent most of it hiking in the hills and reading on my balcony overlooking the Ganges. I decided to splurge for a room with a view and it has been worth every rupee. Below the balcony is a long suspension foot bridge with cows, monkeys, holy men, and motorbikes crossing throughout the day between the various temples and Ashrams perched on the steep hills on either side of the river. Prayer bells and sanskrit chanting can be heard throughout the day.

As beautiful as it is here I have the urge to move on. This is a vast improvement on Delhi, but I am still feeling dissatisfied. There are numerous tourists here (mostly israeli for some reason) and I have yet to escape the same redundant continental restaurant menu, which has plagued me since I got off the airplane. I am under the growing suspicion that this is the culinary situation in every town listed in the guidebook. Thanks Lonely Planet! Although the breakfast omelettes and hashbrowns are surprisingly good I cannot help but consume them with guilt. This is not what I came for.

In my abundance of down time I have been reading an autobiography of the impressive adventures of Sir Edmund Hillary (the first man to summit Everest), which has lead me to instantly realize the obvious missing component - my perpetually insatiable desire for adventure.

I was under the naive assumption that after taking a 14 hour plane ride to the other side of the world into a vastly different culture than my own that adventure would be waiting for me once i cleared customs holding a sign with my name on it, but not unlike my driver it failed to show up. The search for raw life experience shall continue and i think it may prove to be more difficult than I anticipated, which should only make it all the more worthwhile once i find it.

Initial Observations

I arrived around 830pm. My driver was not at the airport (i had anticipated this) so i took a taxi to the main bazaar, which is the backpacker/budget tourist area of the city where my hotel is. I failed to locate the hotel as it was somewhere in the network of un-named alleyways off the main road. I proceeded to walk around dodging low hanging awnings, vendors, rickshaws, cows (who get treated like royalty so they walk anywhere they please knowing people and traffic will part ways for them), a stray dog fight, cowpies (poop), tourists, motorcycles, ascetics, etc and found a hotel, which although out of budget (33$) would do for the first night. It was only 930 and i passed out quickly.

Today i found a did some effective shopping and bargaining and found a place for 300rs (6$) a night. It has been pouring and the streets are flooded since there are no sewers to catch the rainwater. On the way back to check out of my hotel i was looking for a way around a flood in the road and wandered off the main road into the labarynth. Alleyways and unbelievably tiny passages darted every which way. Eventually there were no tourists, guesthouses, or shops - Just residences and small shrines. In passages only 3 feet wide more people seem to live than in acres of suburbia back home. Children were playing in the water of the flooded alleys, women washed clothes, men talked, and everyone smiled and said hello as i walked by. Eventually an amiable man holding a baby came up to me, asked where i was going, and said it was a dead end up ahead. He accompanied me and we had a nice conversation then parted ways. I walked back on to the main street already soaking wet and followed everyone else walking casually through the ankle deep street water.

This is a particularly chaotic and dirty area of the city, but still im enjoying it. The touts and vendors are less aggressive than i anticipated. Everyone says hello and smiles. Sure it serves their best interests to be nice to the rich white tourist, but I have been to areas in other countries that are not as poor as here where the people are very aggressive and much more prone to violence when it comes to trying to get your money (Jamaica and any US city for example). Off to find a cell phone and some outlet adapters and maybe some food....

Ready for the Unknown

With a little over a day to go before my solo departure to Delhi, people keep asking me if i am ready to go. I have worked out all the details of travel logistics and preparations such as insurance, visa, and shots. The question of whether or not i am mentally prepared is a difficult one to answer. Having never been to India or any of the Asian side of the world, there is no way to truly prepare myself. I will have my patience tested constantly, be continuously overwhelmed, and often confused. I recently discovered some feelings of apprehension towards what I am doing. What rational person would voluntarily throw himself into this kind of situation?

I then remembered the last couple years when predictability was the very reason i lacked the motivation to get out of bed early enough to make it to work on time to a job that wasn't even that bad. I would lay in bed and envision the entire day before it happened. The only changing variables reduced to what i would eat for dinner and if there would be more/less traffic than the day before. I felt as though I was living the part of Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. I'm just not cut out for routine.

Having already had an amazing trip out west this past August, I am full of excitement and energy again. I was reminded that new experiences make you feel truly alive. Just four weeks travelling and climbing in the northwest has done so much and that was barely the beginning. I can't wait to see where this journey takes me.