Arriving around midnight, rickshaw-wallahs competed for my trade. I had to upset them all and walk. Everything is closed, it's dark, and a joyrider screeches his car up and down the road doing 180° spins. About 2km down the road, in the dark solitary alleys, I ask a couple of passing drunks for the location of my chosen hotel, overlooking the ghats. They point me down the same road I'm on. On arrival, waking the receptionist from his slumber, it turns out to be 6 times more expensive than I had hoped, so I continue my search, stopping for a chai to warm my hands in this cold night, many people sleeping covered by blankets by the edge of the ghats.
Luckily, 2 minute later I stumble past an open guesthouse, with doors open and lights on. The rooms are still too expensive, but they offer me a bed in a dormitory for 70 rupees (about $1.50). Weary and in need of rest, I take it, and sleep surprisingly well considering the cold, the barking dog and the snoring of the only other occupant (an Indian fellow) of the 20-bed dorm.
Morning arrives, I wash, pack and leave in search of superior lodgings. A bicycle rickshaw taking me to Sadhubela, a village a few kilometers out of town, instead of Sadhubela Road. I take an auto-rickshaw back and find the place, Hotel Deep, a room with hot water and Indian-style toilet for 150 rupees/night. Leaving my packs, I stroll out for breakfast (chai, toast and butter). Feeling energized, I walk through town towards the ghats and the giant statue of Shiva I'd spotted earlier from the rickshaw.
It's getting hot, at the ghats many people wash themselves and their clothes in the holy water of the river Ganga. Haridwar is one of the most sacred towns for Hindus, and location of the Kumbh Mela festival once every 12 years. After Shiva, feeling hot and grimy in the clothes I've been wearing for days (weeks?) I sit at a ghat, stick my feet in the Ganga water, and wash my sweater. People approach me, asking for money in a variety of ways (children gesticulating for food, a priest painting a yellow mark where my 3rd eye should be, a man with an ear-cleaning kit, etc). I hang the sweater over a rail and converse for a while with a 19-year old Indian student while I wait for it to dry. Half an hour later, my sweater is still damp, but I put it on anyway, hoping the sun will do it's magic.
Leaving the ghats, I have a thali for lunch at a nearby eatery, then set off up the hill to the Mansa Devi temple. Along the sides of the stairs up, a multitude of stalls play loud banging electro-Hindi music, and offer prasad kits for weary pilgrims to present at the hilltop temple. Near the top, I leave my shoes, obtain my prasad kit (a red plastic bag containing a coconut mixture, a tinsel ribbon and flower petals), and continue barefoot up to the temple. Here, many Hindu gods look out at me. Hanuman, the monkey god; Shiva, creator and destroyer; Parvati, Shiva's wife; Ganesh, bringer of prosperity, among others. The puja consists of priests paint my 3rd eye with variety of substances, in exchange for the contents of my prasad kit (and monetary "donations").
As dusk sets, I find new ways to redistribute wealth: listening to a blind man playing his sitar with a confident, handsome young boy playing along, rhythmically beating his drum, on the steps of a temple. A sadhu walks past and rubs a round fluffy thing on my clothes, magically generating some kind of sweet perfumed smell. It's dark, I take a bicycle rickshaw back along the main road to the cinema near my hotel. I miss the beginning of the "talkie", Salaam-e-Ishq, but seeing as I don't understand much Hindi, it probably doesn't matter too much. A glamorous, amorous, colourful, emotional, romantic musical. Fun!
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