Oh my God...

Yes, I'm talking about God because he is everywhere. Everywhere, but mainly here in Rishikesh. Yep, all the Gods come together here and have themselves a good laugh with their cup of chai. The enlighted spirits that wander the streets here are numerous, even more numerous than the holy cows. And they seem to float and wear white clothes and have white hair and think arrogantly that their inner beauty is amazing when all the Indians want to see is their tits. Pardon my language. Yes, after getting up at 5 this morning, spending 5 hours on a train and another hour in a rickshaw I'm a little sarcastic today. Don't get me wrong, Rishikesh is beautiful, with clean air and it has a really good vibe. I'll be hanging around here for a bit and apart from the enlighted, the other 50% of tourists are actually really nice. I found myself a room for 'one hundred pipty roepie' and it looks like a 'tree hundred pipty room', so I'm happy about that. Maybe if I do stay longer I will look for a 'pipe hundred roepie' room that looks like a 'one thousand roepie' room. Just wait and see how I sleep tonight. :-)
I'm happy to be out of Delhi because I started sneezing every 10 minutes. Since I got off the train, the sneezing stopped and I haven't used one tissue yet. Yep, must have been the air! Divali was nice, the lights and candles everywhere and fireworks and firecrackers. From a safe distance at my rooftop restaurant it looked all very beautiful.  A bit dangerous maybe when small flames seemed to fall on various rooftops and electrical knobs, but hey... that just adds to the suspense! Will it or will it not... burn?! Ha!

I don't know what happened with me, but I seem to have the Air of being an experienced India traveler?? Beggars don't even come up to me so much anymore, vendors smile but don't really hassle me and tourists come up to me to ask all sorts of questions. There must be something about me. Some Indians still try like at the hotel... the receptionist this morning wanted to get me in a taxi for a 1-minute drive, so I laughed. Then he wanted to sell me a bus ticket and again I laughed. (Yes, I laugh a lot these days.) So he told me that I know a lot...maybe too much. So I answered I know enough to keep men like him off my back. He didn't laugh. Wonder why?! :-D
Anyway, things are a lot more relaxed than last time and that changes my experience of India. It's different. 
But I'm glad this is not my first trip to India. I would advice everybody that comes here for the first time...don't do it alone. Not because it's not safe, it is, but because you need someone there to hold your hand and toughen you up! That was my lesson last time and now I'm so happy about it, because it's what makes traveling here a lot easier. I felt it the second I arrived, maybe that's what people are picking up about me? Let's hope I can keep this up!