Team Karan

Om, Om, Om. Shanti, Shanti, Shamti.  We have started each day in Rishikesh chanting these sacred words during morning yoga.  So far, Rishikesh has been my favorite place we have visited. The city is situated at the foothills of the Himalayas, and the scenery is absolutely breathtaking. During our first day, we explored the Ram Jhula marketplace.  Shopping for clothes was highly disappointing though, because most of the shops had fixed prices.  No matter how hard you tried to bargain, the shop owners would not drop their prices by even a rupee.

Rishikesh is a very religious city.  There are temples and sadhus on pretty much every street you walk.  We visited the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, which is well-known as the Beatles Ashram. The Beatles stayed in the ashram for a short period of time and wrote most of the songs for their White Album.  The ashram was not preserved after the Maharishi died and is mostly in ruins now.  However, there is beautiful graffiti artwork dedicated to the Beatles that was really cool to see.

Rishikesh has provided me with numerous once in a lifetime opportunities.  Yesterday, I felt like I was on an adrenaline rush. We went white water rafting on the Ganges River, which was AMAZING! I've never been white water rafting before and I'm not a strong swimmer, so I was really nervous.  Our raft guide, Karan, was very helpful in calming my nerves.  He would make us play games in the raft, like standing on the edge of the raft and spinning the boat around really fast until we fell.  Karan would also just randomly throw us off the raft into the Ganges.  I took three "holy dips".  I also did a cliff jump into the Ganges. I don't know how high the cliff was, but it was a long hike up the mountain. I was extremely nervous.  I kept chanting "Ram, Ram, Ram" the ENTIRE time, which was really funny to Karan for some reason. Dr. Maher said I was so nervous that my legs were shaking.  Karan had to do three countdowns until I jumped.  But when I did, the rush was incredible! I'm so happy I had the guts to do it.

White water rafting and cliff jumping into the Ganges - Rishikesh is definitely the place to be!