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After volunteering in Pondicherry, we went north for more adventures.
Our flights strangely prohibited the transport of dry coconuts (we get it, they are highly flammable but who would transport coconuts anyway?)
Even stranger, it happens in India. Just before us at check-in, someone handed over the coconuts they were carrying in their luggage at the check-in counter!

Volunteering in an Ashram

Living for 2 weeks in an ashram in a remote village 60km from Rishikesh with 100+ boys and girls was a delight. The ashram was run on the principles of Arya Samaj, a 150 year old Hindu reform movement which prohibits the worship of idols and promotes making the world a better place, with spiritual, physical and social prosperity for everyone. Exactly our cup of tea! The ashram is home to orphans, abandoned street kids and the intellectually and physically challenged, young and old. They all receive free board, food, education and care. Some receive training in special skills like this young talented flower maker who cannot stand or walk but is so agile with nimble fingers and a wonderfully creative mind.
We spent most of our days gardening, here with the inspired and beautiful founder of the ashram. As the ashram is quite poor, most tasks were done with bare hands and a good dose of ingenuity. Here, we were mixing the heavy local clay soil with barely rotten cow dung before filling the mix into grow-bags made out of the sewn up legs of discarded trousers.

The kids were so energetic. Even after lots of gardening, learning and football, they would hand wash their clothes, which involved a lot of vigorous (and we suspect competitive, from the noise) beating of the fabric. The ashram has a washing machine, but this activity gives the kids another way to release their pent up energy. It was also nice for them to take a refreshing break in cold water when the weather got too hot. The water had to be hand pumped from the ashram’s bore hole…which used up even more energy!

We also were drafted into making hundreds of pooris (fried breads). Here goofing around with some of the dough. It will happen after the first two hundred rounds, made one by one!
We also tried our hand at milking cows for the first time ever, to the amusement of everyone as it didn’t come easy to us. We now know that baby calves have an awfully strong grip and are not at all tender with their poor mother’s udder, and that the udder may look all satiny but it feels so leathery when touched.
Most of our food was grown organically at the ashram.
Breakfast on one occasion was sugar cane…
…picked straight from the fields.
We sometimes served the community with their meals.
We were impressed by how everyone waited to eat until the last one was served.
Our leisure time was spent drawing with the kids…
…playing football with them in the courtyard and…
cuddling puppies just born in the ashram.
What we will miss most from this place are the smiles. Everyone treated us with enormous warmth and love.
Always smiling despite countless hours of hard work in the gardens and kitchen.
Always laughing especially after winning endless games of thumb war.
These sisters don’t have grandparents and adopted us into that role. We happily obliged.
We felt privileged to be included among the guests of honour at the celebration of International Women’s Day
Lots of the children celebrated with different acts. We even did a performance for everyone – singing Summertime and dancing to Michael Jackson! We are too embarrassed to upload those here!
The ashram is in fact a community of young and old but always young at heart. We really clicked with this charming couple.
We were moved to tears by the hand drawn card we were given when it was time to leave the ashram.

Joy and Pain in Rishikesh

While at the ashram, we took a short break to Rishikesh. Our visit coincided with Maha Shivaratri, a festival which celebrates the marriage of Lord Shiva and the Goddess Parvati. The road to Rishikesh became a route for pilgrims who walked all day carrying large decorations for their temples. Some of the streets in Rishikesh, as seen below, were also filled with revellers demonstrating their fervour.

Rishikesh, the yoga capital of the world, is a holy town being situated on the Ganges, and a place where countless gurus – and the Beatles – have meditated over millennia. The town is deemed so holy that non-vegetarian food, including eggs (as recently ratified by the Supreme Court), as well as alcohol, are prohibited.

We took part in a few aarti rituals, where a flame is waved for the veneration of deities to a backdrop of water, singing and joy. It is said that whoever takes part in the aarti shows love for the person with whom they share it. By extraordinary luck, our visit to Rishikesh coincided with the International Yoga festival week that our sister was attending. So, our biggest joy came from being reunited on this trip for a few days.

The aarti is streamed live every day on YouTube: @parmarthniketan
Rishikesh didn’t give us a spiritual or religious awakening but we thoroughly enjoyed the rituals of the evening aarti prayers by the river Ganges…
…early morning fire ceremonies…
…and we were mesmerised by the brilliance and grace of the guru Sathviji at her Satsangs – Q&A about life.
People bathing in the Ganges – named after Ganga, the Goddess of purification -to purify themselves in the holy waters.
The river was lined with vendors selling bottles for tourists and worshippers from all over India to fill and take home.
Filling a bottle for a friend and bathing too for good measure.

Sitting by the Ganges and observing the holy rituals was fascinating. For over an hour, this devotee repeatedly filled his pot with herbs before dispersing them into the water, as he recited mantras. We learnt that he was performing ‘Shaadh’, a Hindu ritual which pays homage and offers spiritual sustenance to one’s ancestors on the anniversary of their death. The purpose is to ensure their well-being, normally through the offering of water and their favourite food, in the afterlife.

The only sunbathing was done by cows, who also roamed around the centre of town and even on motorways.
No need to visit zoos here!
Rishikesh is also famed for its ayurvedic treatments which sometimes felt like torture. This Kati Basti looks like a nice dish of hummus and olive oil…it involved pouring boiling hot oil onto the spine.
Having a great schvitz in a pre-historic steam bath, although we always feared the dial would be turned up until we talked, like in the James Bond film Thunderball.
But we had a soothing session in a ‘sound bath’, meditating to sounds which filled the room and our bodies.

Volunteering for a Women’s Empowerment Charity

Our final volunteering in India supported women in Delhi’s slums to earn an income. They produced beautiful products, upcycled from sari silks, which can be purchased on this site sakhikunj.org
Our tasks were varied: quality control, preparing a catalogue and a volunteering guide, and offering ideas for growth.
The area in which we lived was a bit squalid but full of life. Some of Delhi’s quarters feel like the bourgeois parts of Paris, but we felt more alive near the slums. We stayed in the charity’s stockroom overlooking this yard, which in the early morning was filled with a scavenging menagerie of cows, street dogs, cockerels and chipmunks, and replaced by late morning with boys playing cricket and men playing cards. The sounds we heard, other than the occasional ‘Howzat’ and ‘Catch It’ – surprising given how few spoke any English – were from the rubbish truck playing music to announce its arrival, vendors selling their wares and neighbours playing the tabla.
With the help of our NGO founder, we bought our veg from a mobile stall which came next to our apartment…
…but opted not to buy the dung pies made by our neighbour (for use as fuel for the pooja, not for eating).
Every time we turned a corner, something took us by surprise…
There were so many characters in the area, human and non-human.
Our only scary moment was not finding our apartment on the very first evening. We found ourselves in alleyways at midnight in a dodgy area with 3% phone battery. Just before the phone died, we managed to book a hotel room nearby and an Uber to take us there.

Adventures in Agra and Delhi

While in Delhi, we saw some classic sights like the Taj.
We bought tickets online before we left Delhi and on the day of our visit discovered we could have bought them online at the site!
Another mausoleum, the ‘Baby Taj’ was tiny in comparison but more beautiful and delicate in its ornamentation. Also, there were fewer visitors!
While in Agra, we took our meals at a café ‘Sheroes’, run by acid attack victims. It is a really inspiring venture.
We were joined for a while by our family. It was so wonderful.
Visiting Delhi’s Red Fort
…and just enjoying being together
Delhi’s Bahai Lotus Temple, which reminded us of the Sydney Opera House. surpassed the Bahai temple in Haifa in terms of its stunning architecture but definitely fell short in terms of its gardens, although not much can stand up to Haifa’s Bahai gardens.

Taking in some of Delhi’s culture, we saw this amazing classical dancer at a tiny venue called Red House. The paved stage was minuscule to start with. Her dancing was so intense that some of the stones broke under her feet. Unfazed, she continued using the whole of the by now hugely diminished space as if nothing had happened. She owned the space and enraptured us with her dance. We had such an interesting discussion with her after the representation. This is when we learned that the anklets of little bells she wears above her feet are called ghungroos.

The Wedding: The reason we were in India to start with.

We came to Delhi (and to India in the first place) for the wedding of our lovely young friend , here making a confident and sensational entrance under a beflowered canopy.
Playfully, stepping back from the bond of the garland to signify the empowered woman our friend is!
The wedding ceremony was beautiful. Although the ritual felt familiar, the fact that it was a love match rather then an arranged marriage shone through every minute of the proceedings.
The ceremony, unlike the weddings we had so far attended in India, took place in the early evening in front of all the guests and not the early morning just in front of the closest family. We spent the rest of the evening sampling the delicacies of the buffet and dancing the night away.
We were really thrilled to share the moment too with our sis and nephew.
One of the most thrilling aspects of this wedding, apart from getting to know and appreciate the groom, was our reunion with old but young friends. We had volunteered in Rajasthan in 2018 with both the bride and the beautiful young turbaned man: the wedding was the first of hopefully more happy reunions.
The day before the wedding was the Mehendi or henna ceremony. The artists were really gifted and, unlike in the South, they were all men.
They even took requests. Can you spot the butterfly on Jeff’s hand? We loved their artwork on us.
The bride’s spectacular henna with the name of her husband hidden within the artwork

Bangalore

We love using Bangalore as our base in India to catch up with old friends. Familiarity can be dull, yet so comforting when you have been without it for a while…even just knowing where to find the best chai is great. In Bangalore, we rent the same beautiful apartment, we have our favourite restaurants, cinemas, theatres, supermarkets, etc and even our preferred hospitals, dentists and physios, and unlike in other parts of India, where people cannot or will not speak English, in Bangalore, our language is not an issue.

We are going to miss our mid-day thali on a banana leaf constantly being filled with delicious food at Hallimane.
We adore roaming around supermarkets and finding surprises, such as this array of after-meal mouth fresheners – Mukhwas – The colours and textures and sheer variety… so impressive.!
Some of the charming friends we’ll surely be returning to see soon.

Next

After a few weeks in London to see family and friends, we’ll be volunteering at a refugee centre in Greece.

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5 comments. Leave new

Audrey Brent
March 28, 2024 3:04 pm

Wow!!! Your blog posts get more and more fascinating. This seems like a more enjoyable experience than the last one, just joyous from start to finish.

Hope the UK isn’t too much of a come down after that. It’s cold, wet and very windy right now. Very much looking forward to seeing you soon

Reply
James Curtis
March 28, 2024 4:24 pm

First I’m hearing the “getting lost in a dark allley” story! And I get it, this is exactly the kind of story I would never have told you during my travels.

Reply
DEL CAMPO Peggy
March 30, 2024 3:20 pm

C’est incroyable toutes ces aventures ! Je suis admirative ….
L’Inde est un pays fascinant et vous vous régaler de vos expériences …
Bravo à vous deux et bonne continuation.
Je vous embrasse .
Peggy. .

Reply
admin
April 1, 2024 7:52 am

Bonjour Peggy, c’est un immense plaisir pour nous de recevoir ton message et tu as tout à fait raison dans ce qu’il exprime. Est-ce que toi aussi tu as voyagé en Inde et a fait des observations similaires aux nôtres? il me semble qu’il est impossible de visiter l’ Inde sans avoir d’ aventures. De ce point de vue là, c’est comme un pays des mille et une nuits (surtout dans le nord du pays) et on peut aussi bien imaginer Simbad sortant sur son bâteau de Mumbai que de Bassorah. Grosses bises et à bientôt (nous espérons)!

Reply
Nicole
April 10, 2024 3:43 am

Well you are both inspiring, I love your photos and videos and how you present them. I love reading about where you have been and your journey. Enjoy catching up with family and friends

Nicole xxxx

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