Rishikesh Things to Do Tips by David&Pauline Top 5 Page for this destination

Following the Beatle trail

A must for children of the Sixties, like Pauline and I, is a visit to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Ashram. It was such a glamorous destination in 1967, where John Lennon enticed, "Dear Susan (Farrow), to come out to play" and Donovan found his Sunshine Superman. Today, it's almost a ruin, with one remaining disciple who chases off Beatle memorabilia collectors, with his staff. If you squint really hard, over the wall and into the grounds, you can just see the shades of those four young men from Liverpool, who changed the music world. This is probably the subliminal effect of almost every cafe in Rishikesh playing the music of the Fab Four.
The Ganga does have its beaches, surprisingly, though many stretches have been claimed as the front garden of long stay Sadhus. What passes as the public beach is just north of the Lakshman Jhula Bridge, though this is where the Ganga is deepest and strongest. There is however a dry ice like mist on the grey sand, as the holy river is Himalayan ice cap cold. It's much more relaxing to take a walk along the river to the most isolated ashram, about four kilometres out of the town. The road there is pretty isolated, so it's not worth any beggar's while to wander up there, as tourists are thin pickings. You might see the lone Sadhu, singing to himself or practicing a ritual dance with a few acolytes but most are in an otherworld of their own.
We can't give any advice on yoga or meditation classes, we intended to sign up but there is such a bewildering choice of disciplines and locations, that you'd need more than a week to find a class to suit you. The whole place has a meditative feel; we just got high on the ambience and the tranquillity, rare in modern India. Rishikesh is a far cry from the truly intense noise of Indian's holiest city, Varanasi, where we had been a week earlier. Hopefully we'll get around to doing our review of Benares, a very intense but nowhere near relaxing a destination.

Directions: The very end of the road in Swarg Ashram, past the colourful Ved Niketan Dham