Last night I landed in New Delhi airport. Today I'm sitting by the sacred river Ganges between the sister towns of Ram Julha and Laxman Julha, a little upbeat hippie villages few kilometers away from larger town of Rishikesh, that everybody just calls Rishikesh anyways.

India always stuns me. And knocks me out. And surprises me. In both good and bad ways, but who really cares about that since "good" and "bad" is just so subjective. But yes, New Delhi is still just as stinky and hazy as always, in case you were wondering.

5 min out of airport, trying to make my way to the hotel by walking (it was meant to be close, or at least so it seemed on the map, but that was before I realized the shere size of New Delhi Indira Gandhi International airport), I got attacked by 3 fierce dogs. That was a good start I thought to myself in between the rush of adrenaline and chuckles that I just could not suppress when the irony of the whole situation hit me: bitten by dogs 5 minutes after leaving airport...

I made it out safe and sound, mostly because of an Indian gentleman who rescued me.

I changed strategy and took the metro, just one station, to get closer to the hotel. YES, New Delhi Airport has now a metro that goes to the city for something ridiculous like 20 rupees. It's brand new, airconditioned and puts the shabby looking NYC metro at shame.

I only stayed at the hotel for 4 hours and went back to the airport to catch my 6am flight to Dehradun.
And I was blown away at the modern look of New Delhi airport. It has progressed so much over the years. Right now it just shines with modern looks, cleanliness and fancy shops. Really impressing. Especially when remembering how it used to look a decade ago.

The flight to Dehradun is an hour long and it's the closest airport to Rishikesh. It's the first time that I flew there, before that I always took a train from Delhi, but that's more time demanding and honestly it's not that simple to buy a train ticket in India, especially for popular destinations/trains, so I saved myself some trouble.

I fetched a $10 cab ride to Ram Julha (some 25km away) and crossed the bridge to the town basking in the glory of rising sun.

First look at the ghats and temples and the bridge and the houses and yoga schools scattered along the steep banks of the holy river Ganges always trigger emotions.

Some people say that you can only love or hate India, never anything neutral. I think that in my case I hate it 5 times and hate it 10 times in one single day. That's how intensely mirroring and triggering and MAGICAL is the ancient land of subcontinent to me.

Today, when I was sitting by the holy river, a boy came to me and wanted to sell me an offering to Ganges. I told him that I don't want to buy an offering, but that I have 10 rupees to give him as a gift. He gave me a flower and left. I put my feet in the river and made a wish and tossed my flower gently down the stream.

My wish was the same as always:

MAY THE HUMANITY AND AWAKEN AND PEACE COME TO EARTH

With love from Rishikesh (you know that I mean Ram Julha...),

May you be blessed,

Jan
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