I'll follow the sun

Location: Rishikesh
Country: India

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The last night in Manali was absolutely freezing. I slept with every item of warm cloths I have on me, and was still frozen. I took it as a sign that my decision to leave the north was right.
Left Manali on a tourist bus (comfortable enough) to Chandigar, which took 10 hours. Arrived in Chandigar at about 04:00 in the morning, pitch black, not quite understanding where I was. Hooked up with another 4 Israelis and got a local bus (yes, the very uncomfortable one) to Haridwar, that took about 5 hours. From there got a rickshaw with the Israelis to Rishikesh.
So left Manali at 18:30 and arrived in Rishikesh at about 10:30 in the morning, which as quite good time.

For those of you who are less acquainted with the wonderful ways of India, here are a couple of stories I heard, that thankfully this time did not happen to me.
* This girl was wanting to go from Manali to Spiti valley, after about 5 hours of driving, they had to turn back to Manali because a truck had over turned and was blocking the whole road, so there was no coming or going.
* Leh is a very north point that people go to that is supposed to be very nice, I didn't go because it was too late in the season already and the roads back could get blocked. This one girl told me that on the way back from there to Manali one of the bridges was collapsed, so the bus brought them to one side of the river, there people had to wait anywhere up to a week and a half, then pass with an omega to the other side to a bus waiting there. This girl had frostbites from having to wait there in the freezing cold.

Rishikesh is quite nice, though the first 2 days, it did not stop raining. There was a big improvement, as it was not cold.

Did have a minor crisis - At some point in my journey the front part of my bag got covered in muck, that smelled like fruit that had gone off, it went through all the front part of the bag, the result being that my sheets and towel stunk. I had to give them and the bag to be washed. It took 3 days till it was ready, it hadn't dried because of the constant rain. So I had to sleep on the shawl with no cover (lucky it is warm) and I bought a crummy small towel to dry with. But I think I handled the crisis well, did not let it break me.

Yesterday after 2 constant days of rain, it finally stopped, so I managed to walk around Rishikesh a bit, quite nice, with the Ganges river flowing in the middle.
In the evening hung out with some Israelis who taught me how to play wist, I think it may take a little while till I manage to play it well, but looks interesting. Definitely a huge improvement to the regular stupid card games here - taki, shithead and yaniv.

Today was really hot, spent a couple of hours on the bank of the Ganges, though I found the water too cold to go in.

The most important thing I have learnt in India so far - the vegetable pepper is called capsicum. They told me that it was the English word for pepper, I had never heard of it, but looking it up in the dictionary I discovered that they were right.

I am craving for some form of meat, and thought that finally being in the same place for a few days I would risk it, as luck would have it, Rishikesh is a vegetarian town. Such a waste seeing all the cows walking along freely and happily here.