The Shatabdi Express and the Holy City

Kalee Haywood, Shenetta Payne and Carl Lindquist pause along the edge of the

Ganges River  as it flows through the lower Himalayas at Rishikesh, India.

It's a long road from Jaipur at the edge of the arid Thar desert to Rishikesh in the lush forested foothills

of the Himalayas.

For us, it took two days to travel 700 miles by car and train to Rishikesh, a center of small devotional

temples and ashrams led by assorted, often self-proclaimed, holy men, called maharashis.  The most famous  resident

maharishi, Mahesh Yogi, founded the Transcendental Meditation movement in the 1960s. His ashram

drew all four Beatles, actress Mia Farrow, singer Donovan Leitch and others in 1968. While the high-living

yogi's presence has faded after his death a few years back, Rishikesh still draws pilgrims seeking enlightenment from throughout the world.

And the pilgrims are mostly Indians and other Hindus seeking to touch the sacred river, the Ganges, which

flows here through the gorge down to Haridwar 30 miles below, where the river meets the Gangetic Plain,

watering fertile croplands on the way to its delta in Bangla Desh.

We followed the Ganges upward for a time as we headed north by a train dubbed the Shatabdi Express

northward. We watched the parched, hot and dusty lowlands turn wet and lush.

Kate Zibluk watches the farmlands of north India roll by on the Shatabdi Express from Delhi

to Haridwar.  Passengers enjoy free meals, tea and coffee during the six-hour ride.

Shenetta Payne enjoys a chat about American education and its opportunities with an Indian

woman riding the Shatabdi Express from Delhi north to visit her husband, who works for a major

engineering firm.