Kumbh Mela from a passive perspective

From Rishikesh

Well it's probably best to start with, what is Mela? Great question indeed. If you really want see the info go to Wikipedia, Kumbh Mela, as they have the facts about when, what, and how many (that last being the most impressive). But I can give you the quick run down from a passive perspective and you can do with it what you please.

So basically there are 4 sacred towns in India (well there are really more than that,. but these are the most, most, most holy) which host Pilgrims from all over the sub-continent for the religious festivals called Mela. Every six year they throw a really big Mela as the stars align in some way that makes the Ganges water have a little more umph than the average day. Every 12 years though is the biggest festival or Kumbh Mela and yep you guessed it, the next one occurs in 2010. I guess I can keep that in the present tense since Mela goes on from January to March. The destination for this years Mela is Haridwar.

Haridwar is located about 20km sounth of Rishikesh. If you read the last post you already know that we stayed in Rishikesh so it should seem like a no brainer that we would travel the 20km south to the holy city of Haridwar; it's actually the official city sponsored by the Ganges River as that is where it flows out of the Himalaya. Anyway, after finding more out about that festival and the fact that astrologer's had predicted the "first bath" for 2/12, we thought that traveling a small distance to see some 20 million religion crazed Hindi's dunk themselves in flowing pollution would be a wonderful sight. Duh!

So we tried to book transportation to the city early morning of the 12th. Unfortunately it turns out that there was no good transport there. The travel agent could not guarantee that he could get us there; which i gotta say was the most honest thing we had heard form a travel agent. He said there were taxis but because of the crowds we may have to walk 5-10km into the city. Only 10km? No problem. We'll pass.

Well we didn't pass technically because we did the next best thing, we went on the 13th. Still the same fervor but with less people!!! Sounds good to us. We were definitely stopped before the city by the Indian army and general crowd control personel.

(not our photo)

We walked about 1km to the main entrance and got our first taste of what full bathing ghats really looked like (sorry Varnassi). Everyone is scrambling for space and tries to find something to hold onto as to not get swept away by an fast moving river.

From Rishikesh

The pictures show some of the queue that ushers these pilgrims into the area (look like an American Fair Grounds) as well as the bridges over to the Western shore where all of the action is.

To break up the day, we walked about 1.5km south to a ropeway, also know as a Gondola or Cable Car.



This little slice of India amusement park which goes to the top of the facing hill to the Maya Devi Temple had a 3 hour line fopr tickets and then you could get in the real line to wait for the ride. Must be a big mela if they're drawing line like that. We were figuring out what to do about the line ( I got in it), when Stacey met the acquaintance of a wonderful Indian family who had already been queueing for a while and offered to by us two tickets so we wouldn't have to wait.

From Rishikesh

So I guess a little pause here to express gratitude for this and expand it to the bigger concept of just how nice your everyday Indian is. I don't know if it is specifically to foreigners or if they do this for everyone. But after a month of challenging my very American sensibilities of being suspicious of people's primary motives, I was finally able to just let these people in as they were doing for us. What kindness!



Not only did they purchase the tickets for us but they ushered us along the 2 hour line by pushing their way through the crowd and cutting the line as deep and far as possible so that we wouldn't have to wait. So maybe kindness for some turns into frustration for others...glad we were on the good end this day!

After a solid bit of walking and some urges to bathe myself in the river, Stacey new it was time to head back to Rishikesh for our final day of relaxing; included in the schedule was Ayervedic messages, yoga, and a beginner's meditations class!!! Looking forward to coming home but not to leaving India...

From Rishikesh