Purola to Haridwar; May 15

Photo of nightly fire puja on the Ganges at Haridwar (Photos by Yveline Gobil)

Photo of a funeral group at the Ganges in Haridwar.

Photo of my long awaited first bath in the Ganges... one part of the plan that did work out.

We left the Mountain House in Purola at about 9AM. The driver still had the daily puja incense burning in the Jeep for the first half hour of the drive.

We drove for about 5 hours to Dhera Dun; and stopped there for lunch. A couple of hours later we arrived in Haridwar and made our way to the City Heart Hotel. After a quick check-in, the four of us set out to see the city. It was a massive tangle of tourists winding through the narrow streets... We saw some amazing sights... including many funeral groups shaving their heads... and many different sects of Indian population.

After wandering around for a couple of hours we found a hotel restaurant for a quick dinner. We then headed back to the main temple on the Ganges for the fire puja. We joined tens of thousands of Indian families and pilgrims for the nightly fire puja. I am guessing that there were 50,000 people lined up over that stretch of the Ganges. We bought our puja offerings (large leaves filled with offering fruit/flowers plus a wick and wax to light before launching them into the Ganges).

Chris got seriously hassled by a kid who wanted to sell him some matches and this spoiled it for him. Elisabeth scolded the kid and eventually he got so frustrated that he burst into tears. I was able to ignore the beggars and enjoyed the ceremony. Yveline took some beautiful photos of the puja ceremony. Afterwards we all worked our way through the crowd and back to our hotel.