KLL LL HPPS

Go to Rishikesh, they said. Good for hiking, they said, maybe extreme sports if you fancy....

It's the self-styled yoga capital of the world. And where there's yoga there's hippies - the first person I spoke to said they were "here for the healing" without any level of irony. Now this makes for a bit of a weird mix, it's clearly a stop in the backpacker trail - there's heaps of places selling ethnic tat and cheap massages - but there's nowhere selling alcohol or meat. It confuses me. I'm not aware of big signs saying "fresh grains" ever being used to get people to go into a cafe.

I blame the Beatles. They started all this nonsense. I went to the ashram that they made famous. It's deserted now. Weird to see something that was brand new fifty years ago completely derelict with jungle growing through it.

Still heaps of other ashrams about. Although most of them do look like a cross between a cheap motel and a prison, and are more oppressive than either due to chants being played through a speaker system at an inhuman volume. They seem to like it loud here. There's a festival going on at the moment which I don't understand. It appears to be an old man (a sudha? Although I think that may just mean day-glo beggar) shouting into an amplifier ratcheted up to just above breaking point.

Rishikesh's main landmark is a suspension bridge across the Ganges. Do you know how annoying it is crossing the Millennium Bridge with all the people stopping for view selfies, so you can't get past. Take that as your starting point. Third the width, add a liberal dollop of motorbikes (full throttle, full horn, obviously) and maybe a cow, just because. Then you have some idea of what its like. Forgot to mention the monkeys that patrol the bridge ensuring that no food passes from one side to the other.

I went to Aarti, that's the Ganges fire festival. Not sure I understood it but it looked pretty amazing. Lots of people waving fire and sending burning boats full of sins and flowers down the river.

I did a yoga. I think it's fair to say I was rubbish at it. I knew I wasn't that flexible, it's been years since I could touch my toes, but I didn't think that there would be poses that I just wasn't strong enough to hold. I'd say I should practice some more but I didn't especially enjoy it.

And I did make it into the Himalayan foothills for a bit of a walk. Good waterfalls, good butterflies and a good break from the bustle and the horns and the hippies.