Daniel: We woke up at 9am, after a delicious 13 hours sleep – best sleep I’ve had in months!

Feeling very refreshed.

We were halfway through our showers, when the phone rang at 9:30am, and we were informed that our taxi had arrived – doh! It’s a 7 hour journey from Rishikesh to Delhi, and our driver had left at 2am!!!

We told him we had to have breakfast, and then hurriedly finished our packing and had breakfast.

When we got outside, I was intrigued by the car sent to pick us up. The web site for the taxi company indicated that all the cars were less than 4 years old, but this car looked like a morris minor!

The car was an Ambassador, and we found out later (from Karin’s father) that they were all based upon the design of a car that the Indians had seen in the 1950s when the English were still a presence in India – and they hadn’t changed the design since! Well, if it works and is easy to build and maintain, then why bother I guess..

Still, the car was pretty new, although basic – our driver (Anil) was very sweet, but didn’t speak much English.

An indian Abassador car - made by Hindustan Motors

And off we set for our 7 hour journey to Rishikesh and then Laxman Jhula.

I was intrigued to find out why a journey of 230kms should take 7 hours… but as we finally left Delhi (which took 2 hours!) I began to realise why.. this is a country of no motorways.. and in a few places, the road disappears and you’re driving on a dirt track – and these are major roads!

What struck me on the journey was the driving – it was worse than I’d seen in Italy.. at first I thought it was just chaos, but then I realised that there was a basic system: just don’t hit anyone, and you can do what you like – as long as you honk your horn! After the first hour, my ears were smarting from the constant honking and general noise.

I always figured that once we left Delhi we’d be in countryside, with just a few villages on the way.

Boy was I wrong! I had forgotten how heavily populated India is.. there were always people everywhere.

Most of the villages we passed through seemed to be a collection of shops and houses made out of wood and corrugated iron – very temporary-looking structures.

And the trucks were amazing – all painted up into a riot of colours, with mirrors and beads and ornamentation hanging from them. And the loudest horns I’ve heard!

And they all, without exception, had “horn please” painted on the back!

Horn Please - Indian Truck

We stopped after 3 hours at the equivalent of a UK Motorway Services (we don’t have them in NZ, but basically a service station and restaurant beside a motorway).

These services were run by Nestle, and as such, everything being sold was made by them and branded by them (it was a bit of branding overload – Nestle signs were everywhere).

They didn’t really sell Indian food – only Chinese and Italian (guess it’s where the Indians come to get a taste of culture!) and we were the only westerners there.

Karin gets a bit of attention from the locals I think on account of her blonde hair – or maybe it’s because she’s prettier than me!

After a filling chop suey, we jumped back into the taxi, where we slept for most of the way.

We arrived into Rishikesh at about 5pm, just as it was starting to get dark.

My first impressions of Rishikesh weren’t that promising – it was another long dirt street filled with temporary buildings, and there was noise, people, and traffic everywhere. The noise was deafening.

We stopped at the offices of Triveni Travel, the people that we organised our taxi through, and met Harsh, the owner’s son.

Karin had warned me that because we’d been staying at a posh hotel, most people would make the assumption that we had money to spend and wanted to stay only in nice places – Karin was concerned that this was against the principle in which we’d organised the trip i.e. to keep it as cheap as possible.

With this in mind, we could understand why Harsh suggested that the hotel we had booked (Hotel Divya) would not be suitable, and that we would feel more comfortable at another, more pricey hotel. Harsh also suggested looking at renting one of the western-style apartments that could be had, on the banks of the Ganges (which is known as the Ganga up here).

However, we opted to stay at he Divya for at least tonight.

Anil drove us the extra 9 kms to get to Laxman Jhula.

Laxman Jhula is a little settlement just upriver from Rishikesh. Laxman Jhula is actually the name of the suspension bridge across the Ganga used to reach the village.

Laxman Jhula

There is another village between Laxman Jhula and Rishikesh, and another suspension bridge, known as Ram Jula.