Travel: Trekking around the Himalayan foothills in northern India

Hindu devotees fed long grasses to ribbon-adorned sacred cows as thousands of pilgrims bathed in India’s ultra-holy Ganges River to wash away their sins and cure ailments. Some soaking adherents tightly gripped iron chains secured to concrete stairs so the fast-rushing flow from the Himalayas wouldn’t fatally sweep them downstream. A young man with no legs determinedly rolled himself on a wheeled board to recite a mantra at the river’s edge. Frail elderly women, swathed in headscarves and saris, worshipped while sitting on puddled pavement near corroded metal changing lockers plastered with ads for Glow & Lovely skin cream. Men’s wet underwear briefs hung drying, an odd sight in this modest society.

Along the marigold-flecked river banks, white-cloaked Hindu priests conducted rites for families’ ancestors, whose ashes were sprinkled into the Ganges. Numerous vendors sold empty orange and clear plastic jugs that followers filled to take revered water home. Barbers, equipped with shearing scissors and razors, squatted atop mats waiting to give children their first haircut, a hallowed ceremony that eliminates bad karma of past lives and ends with the kids’ shorn locks tossed into the Ganges. Pilgrims also threw in coins as offerings, some later retrieved by impoverished people to survive.

Understandably, I had whiplash trying to absorb vibrant, bustling Haridwar, a prime Hindu religious mecca lined with ghats, which are steps leading to the Ganges River (known as Ganga in India).

“It is not just a river, it is a goddess in the form of a river,” explained my local guide, Subhash Dobhal. In Hinduism, the deity Ganga is an eminent mother figure who purifies, pardons, and provides moksha, the ultimate eternal bliss.

This marked the soulful start of an intoxicating 13-day Exodus Adventure Travels odyssey through northern India; admittedly I became enamored with the country on my initial visit 12 years ago. During this “Foothills of the Himalaya” itinerary, we’d be immersed in the Beatles’ zen, the Dalai Lama, contemplative Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh temples, captivating customs, buzzing bazaars and remote mountain hamlets. There were just four other travelers — an American and three Brits — on my small-group Exodus tour that journeyed by three trains (once a strapping macaque monkey jumped on a carriage’s open window but was scared off by screaming passengers), hired cars, motorized tuk-tuks, and our feet (periodically shoeless to show respect).

Mostly, especially for winding daylong road trips, our usual driver ferried us in a comfy Indian-built Force Traveller van, deftly navigating endless cardiac-arresting hairpin cliffside turns, head-on trucks and buses, and cattle, dogs and furry primates in zig-zagging horn-blaring mayhem. Fortunately, our van’s windshield sported a decal of cobra-draped, trident-wielding Lord Shiva, a Hindu god esteemed for his protective power. (Prices for the “Foothills” tour from $2,100, all-inclusive except for some meals; exodustravels.com).

One note about the spicy vegetarian food — it warmed the belly and heart. En route to the city of Shimla, we slurped lentil dal at the rural She Haat cafe run by 20 now self-reliant village women who cooked regional Himachali fare in a wood-fired mud oven and crafted earrings and baskets out of fallen pine tree needles to support themselves. Another occasion, in the spiritual hub of Amritsar, we witnessed a humble volunteer-manned kitchen at a Sikh shrine feeding up to 100,000 people a day 24/7 for free. The sheer goodness of it all brought tears to my eyes.

Enraptured in Rishikesh

After climbing a steep path, we entered grounds of the decaying, abandoned ashram where the Beatles famously stayed for a brief stint in 1968 and prolifically penned many of their “White Album” songs. The Fab Four came to the 18-acre forested retreat, known as the Chaurasi Kutiya Ashram, to reset and study the popular Transcendental Meditation with its charismatic celebrity guru, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

The Maharishi closed his ashram in the 1970s — it’s currently on the fringes of a tiger reserve — but ghosts eerily infiltrate decrepit lecture halls and other buildings spread over a jungly hilltop perched above the Ganges in the city of Rishikesh. Except for the ashram’s graffiti and striking graphic murals depicting or related to the Beatles — and painted by strOCR-L-TR-INDIA-0208eet artists and trespassers decades later — you’d never know the iconic band repeatedly uttered “Namaste” on the premises. Or that they created a remarkable slew of hits there including  “Back in the U.S.S.R,” “Blackbird,” and “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.”

These days, the multi-room private compound where the Beatles worked and slept still stands but it’s a wreck — paint has peeled, plaster crumbled, walls are mildewed, glass windows are missing, bathtubs are in broken pieces, and the carpeting and furniture are gone. Yet, there’s something strangely cool about letting it be; in America this might be renovated into some garish, overpriced, commercial Beatle Om Land featuring Nehru jacket-garbed lookalikes.

Paul McCartney’s then-girlfriend Jane Asher and the other Beatles’ wives were also at the ashram, along with Mia Farrow and her sister Prudence. John Lennon wrote “Dear Prudence” because the younger Farrow was so fixated on meditating she barely left her hut. When allegations swirled that the Maharishi made unwanted advances toward Mia Farrow, the disgusted, disillusioned Lennon composed “Sexy Sadie,” a veiled condemnation of the guru.

A couple miles away, I next strolled narrow lanes in “yoga capital of the world” Rishikesh; I didn’t see anyone doing the downward dog pose but I did dodge meandering bovines and speeding motorbikes by storefronts peddling sandalwood incense, wire scalp massagers, pajama-ish kurtas, mala prayer beads, and bronze statues of elephant god Ganesha. I also never spotted a Beatle souvenir although a sign on a dump site plugged The Beatles Cafe at another location serving chickpea sattu drinks; in Hindi the ad also confirmed “fodder for cows is available.”

That evening, on the crowded but calm banks of the Ganges, five Hindu priests mesmerizingly performed the daily sunset aarti, a beautiful ancient tradition honoring the river and expressing gratitude. Accompanied by ringing bells, ethereal music and chanting hymns, the priests gracefully moved their arms in unison, holding up various flaming brass lamps during the 45-minute serene and powerful ritual. “This is like your Thanksgiving. Only it’s done every night,” our guide Dobhal said.

Awed in Amritsar

Close to Pakistan’s border, in the village of Khur Manian, we laughingly bounced to loud, raucous Punjabi music while riding in the back of a tractor past goats and wheat and garlic fields. The farm vehicle belonged to our turbaned Sikh host, Jagroop Singh, and his family; joyful relatives joined us onboard, including Singh’s gleeful children and 5-year-old pigtailed niece. All this happened before, with the aid of a boombox, Singh and the little girls taught me to crazily dance Punjabi-style in their welcoming home occupied by three generations.

When we first arrived, Singh’s wife and a neighbor fried up yummy crispy onion and potato pakoras, presented with steaming masala chai tea. We learned about the Sikh religion which believes in one God and follows teachings of 10 deceased human gurus with an emphasis on equality and defending the oppressed. Singh, who would be our local guide, always wore the five traits of a pious Sikh man — uncut hair (symbolizing strength and holiness and topped by the identifying turban), a steel bracelet, wooden comb, sheathed dagger and a baggy undergarment dating back to the Sikhs’ warrior days on horses.

“I have turbans in 20 colors,” Singh revealed with a big smile. “Although I always buy a new one for weddings.”

The following day, in the teeming spiritual city of Amritsar, we sauntered by a McDonalds — surprisingly 100% totally vegetarian and promoting meatless Maharaja Macs. Then barefoot and heads covered, we explored the radiant Golden Temple’s sprawling compound, packed with pilgrims since it’s the most venerated religious center in Sikhism.

My heart swelled inside the temple’s “world’s largest community kitchen,” daily round-the-clock serving free communal meals to perhaps 100,000 people; in shifts they quietly sat cross-legged in rows, awaiting ladles of food dispensed from metal buckets. Hundreds of volunteers staffed different areas: aged women with arthritic fingers shelled peas and chopped garlic, older turbaned men with flowing gray beards cooked rice pudding in massive vats, and helpers washed countless stainless dishes and pots in a cavernous room echoing with nonstop clanging. In the bakery, as flatbread glided down a conveyer belt, a proud worker told me, “We make 6,000 chapatis an hour.”

Returning after dark, the illuminated GoldenTemple dazzlingly reflected on the adjacent sacred pool. We stood jammed tight with a claustrophobic crush of pilgrims snail-like inching into the breathtaking temple, where Sikh priests melodiously prayed under gilded inlaid ceilings and disciples pressed their foreheads to the marble floor.

Soon in an adjoining promenade, we observed how the Sikh’s most sanctified book, the Guru Granth Sahib, is nightly “put to bed.” Mystical men laid white sheets and a bright pink blanket and pillows inside a gold palanquin and strung it with marigolds and white jasmine flowers. “Sikhs consider the holy book to be a living person,” Singh had said. The bound, heavy scriptures were placed on the cot and carried off in a procession to its sleeping quarters. In the pre-dawn morning, another similar ceremony would commence to “wake it up.”

Divine Dharamshala

A crucial landmark beckoned at the end of a hectic street brimming with shops hawking singing bowls, lucky vermillion string bracelets and Tibetan momo dumplings.

But the history was heavy. To escape being captured or killed, the preeminent spiritual Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, fled to India in 1959 after Communist China violently took over his homeland Tibet. A year later, he settled in Dharamshala at the mustard-yellow Dalai Lama Temple complex (called Tsuglagkhang), which also houses the Tibetan government-in-exile.

The Dalai Lama’s residence is off-limits to tourists (he wasn’t in town when we were there) but in bare feet you can visit separate temple rooms where His Holiness preaches about peace and compassion from a saffron-clothed throne surrounded by intricate mandalas and giant statues of Buddha and patron saints. Devotees had left offerings — rupees, bananas, and sweets such as Choco-Pie, Oat Krunch cookies and digestive biscuits. The vibe felt so harmonious; although outside, near my surrendered Asics tennies, a sign warned, “Make Sure That Your Shoes Are Not Stolen By Someone.”

Elsewhere in Dharamshala, a life-sized photo of the seated Dalai Lama affably peered at more than 30 maroon-robed monks listening to two colleagues philosophically debate at the Buddhist Gyuto Tantric Monastery. The 90-year-old Dalai Lama occasionally teaches there; the monastery, practicing centuries-old traditions, was built  after His Holiness received the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize for advocating nonviolent solutions to the Tibet-China conflict.

Throughout this 13-day trip, there were so many touching everlasting moments: Against the backdrop of Himalayan peaks, the sight of hundreds of good-fortune red scarves fluttering from fences at Tara Devi Temple near Shimla; in the simple mountain village of Rakh, a middle-aged woman shepherd warmly grinning at us while weighted down by a colossal load of tree branches carried on her back to feed cows; and the solitude of Naddi village at 6,600-foot altitude where inhabitants spoke their Gaddi tribal language, tended to crops and amusedly eyed a few strange-looking — but very enlightened — Westerners hiking through their tranquil countryside.