First Impressions of Earth

I'm sitting at the window seat of a "cybertime cafe", with a view of the Ganges, attempting to recollect what how I've been operating. From the beginning,

Delhi, 25th February.
Delhi is a numb explosion.
Understanding a rocket bomb is easy, it's physical attributes serving as evidence to it's destruction and form. But a culture, it's labyrinths, flowers and dangers have to be learned. Never have I so much understood the force of freedom that a hometown can give, and has done to me for all of my life up until this very point.
This is a world, more specifically the world, in which I can draw on near to nothing to explain. How to walk, where, how to eat, how to talk, how to avoid talking, when to trust. Just about the only thing I am sure of is when to sleep, and again to wake. Even this proves difficult, as tough air conditioning and full flung blinds block out all natural light, and all natural darkness. From the moment of my departure, I've been kicked onto the other side of the jigsaw of centre and self. Bristol, normality. In London I was nobody. In London I was the most meaningless person in London, in Delhi I am the single most examined specimen in my eyes sight. This, of course, is because I am new.
Minority, the way this word sounds, the way it reads and speaks, makes sense only in Delhi. That is, except for the millions of Indians who live in it's realms.

Delhi, 26th February.

We leave Delhi tomorrow at 3pm, to Haridwar briefly, then swiftly to Rishikesh, which in Ringo Starr's words was "just like Butlins". That piece of information, admittedly, was discovered in my Rough Guide.
Today my head became a working vessel and I began to understand. This was the consequence of a hard days workand a huge, well-needed mwal. This morning saw recieve back 8,500 rupees, (around 100quid) which was robbed blindly from us yesterday with hard persuasion, quick tounges and a GOVT OF INDIA TOURISM sign on the door of the office. It is incredible how well politeness, when served with a cold glance, can aid matters of lying. We were dealt this art yesterday, and used it ourselves today to get our money back from the theiving bastard.
After the great moment of justice I found my way inside New Delhi train station, filled out a numerous number of forms and sucessfully reserved our seats on the 15.20 to Haridwar. We read, then ambled down the main Bazaar past interlocking lanes of Rickshaws, Auto-Rickshaws, children, sleeping dogs, cats, innumerable motorbikes and a beautiful selection of cows.
Sonu Chat House presented us with healthy amounts of Vegetable Thali, with the heat of the spice on the magic cusp of unpleasentness, but actually tasting delicious for the self same reason.
Today is my first day in India, although my body arrived a good 36 hours previous.

Rishikesh, 28 February.

It is morning in rishikesh and the the Swargashram town reveals itself to be a very beautiful place. I open the expensive curtains of our room at the Green Hotel to modest surburban settlements and large Ashrams decorated with intricate simplicity. The background to this is a platter of dense, green mountains. A monkey is loitering on a rooftop as the distant sound of music rolls over this still picture, only interupted by occasional motorcycle horns, indistinguishable voices and the continuous roll of drums.
The journey from new Delhi to Haridwar was an easy one, and the train class we took (CC) was very much like that in England, with the added bonus of the ability to adjust the seat right back into the cigar smoking American football coach position.
While the journey from Haridwar to Rishikesh, I'm sure, nearly lost me my life. Hari, myself, a controlled but lovely Finnish man and a quitely confident, yet quiet Japanese woman from Tokyo with an endearing nervous disposition to smile when spoken to, had met on the train.
We had established the wasiet option was to share a taxi together, and soon enough we found a man eager to drive us, and eager to charge us 700 rupees for doing so. Now this driver had a look so funny that in hindsight it fills me with dread, but nevertheless we had jumped in.
Haridwar was full of light, colour and the smell of roadside nut-cookers. We skirted around it's Friday night traffic and began to realise that we were to be victims to sod's law, namely: pick the driver that all the other taxi drivers hate. Halfway through the centre of Haridwar, our driver stops the car and begins an argument with a motorcycle driver. This is while traffic racks up both behind and infront of us (our car is in the middle of the road) and we begin to recieve piercing looks from the rightly impatient drivers around us. The argument ends, and our driver throws his arms up, and mutters in Hindi as if to say "They should all be made to take their test again."
Outside of Haridwar we are on the long roads to Rishikesh. These are mostly populated by huge multicoloured vans, with neon like triangles above the windscreen and BLOW HORN written in bubble writing on the back. All of the trees are to the side of the road are painted with red and white stripes. Glastonbury comes to mind. Taking the liberty to narrowly avoid colliding with both the trees and the vans, our driver moves a good 20MPH faster than anything else in sight.
There are only two lanes on the road to Rishikesh, the left hand lane (for driving) and the over-taking lane (for near death experiences). As if the last thirty minutes of the Blues Brothers, the chase intensifies, at which moment our Finnish friend looks into the back and shouts "Do they serve double-whiskys at your hotel?!". The woman from Tokyo has been shaking the whole way with her scarf placed over her mouth. To make matters worse the driver, who has now picked up on our concerns, has taken to repeating "no rules, no rules" with a laugh far to similar to that of Ed, the mad hyena from the Lion King. Restbite is given when he drops off for petrol, and eventually we're there. Having already given him 200 ruppes for his petrol, we leave him screaming for more with 550 ruppes in hand at Ramjhula bridge. We then walk our hotel, as I begin to laugh again, through quiet streets and animal filled alleys. Hari cuts my hair, and then we sleep.

* * *

Rishikesh is an amazing, relaxed and kind place. The last few days here have been like the sort of holiday in which when asked what you have done, you might reply that you finished your book.
The food is beautiful, as are the people. It is such a pleasure to be in a vegetarian country where the menus are endless, the streets full of extraordinary animals of such calmness and the sky dotted with rare, but authoritive birds.

I'll right again before I travel back to Delhi.