Sunset on the ganges

The last night we spent in Tapovan, in Rishikesh our driver took us to a ceremony which takes place everyday as the sun sets. At this time Hindus, led by religious leaders go to the Ganga River which is its real name rather than Ganges as we know it, apparently the British changed its name at the time of the British empire because they couldn't pronounce it.

Hindus believe that the  Ganges has special healing powers and basically was a gift from the gods, the god Shiva is linked to the river, so you see many statues of him along the bank. The ceremony starts with the blowing of a conch shell, then the religious men, use fire and move it in a circular motion around icons or statues of a god as songs and prayers are sang. At the end an offering is given to the river, usually flower petals and maybe sweets and at this time, people watching can also give an offering, often flowers in a holder with a candle while making a blessing or wish.

This happens at certain points all along the river every day.

In the afternoon we spent time chilling in the hotel pool as it is so hot, David had a staring competition with a dragon fly. There are some beautiful dragonflies here, while I was in the pool though, a dragonfly the size of a remote controlled plane decided to dive bomb me. I squealed David jumped up, not to help but to get a camera, my hero! 

 Our driver walked us to the point where the ceremony takes place and we joined other tourists and Hindus to wait for the sun to set. It was lovely seeing the sun go down over the river Ganges. Once the ceremony is done, the crowd put in their offering and then they scoop some of the water up from
the river three times. They then go to a flame which has been used in the ceremony and put their hands in the smoke and then put this to their eyes and forehead .  There were lots of people and it was a lovely atmosphere.

Some  of the offerings being added to the river. 

We then had to walk back to the hotel this is a good half hour walk, through market places and over rough tracks which we managed to cover easily in the daylight. On the way back though there was a power cut, there are many of these in India, which people just seem to accept as normal. This though plunged the place into total darkness, thankfully we were with our driver and he had his phone on him which he used as a torch. All we could see were random dark shapes on the path, it was dodge the sleeping cow, wandering goat and random holy man time. More to the point it was try to avoid the cow pats. It then became quite magical as many of the trees and bushes around started to glow, they 

were full of fireflies and it was lovely with everything twinkling away. 

The next day we headed back to Delhi to join up with our new tour group. We started early as we knew it was a long and busy road. It was mayhem, so much traffic, badly maintained roads and crumbling bridges. On the way we passed a man who had been knocked down crossing the road, he was still lying there, there were people around him trying to help and shield him as traffic was still flowing around him. We also passed two lorries that had crashed into each other and at one point there was a traffic jam because there was a buffalo sale going on at the roadside, there were buffaloes everywhere. 

We arrived late for our meeting, but did get there, David was getting more and more twitchy as time ticked on, he hates being late. There are ten in the group including us, 2 Welsh , 2 Germans , 2 Australians, an American and a New Zealander.  After our initial meeting we headed out to see India gate and the parliamentary buildings. 

                                                

India Gate

On the road, this bus has two layers , the top row of windows is an area where people lie down, so there are people sitting underneath them. They did not look comfy at all.

Typical scenes we drive past, houses and shops. There is rubbish everywhere.