When people hear the word “Rishikesh,” they picture ashrams, peace and monks in silence. But if you’re staying in Tapovan, the part of Rishikesh where most of the yoga schools and guesthouses are, it’s a different story.

Tapovan is not peaceful. It’s loud, chaotic and full of unexpected characters. It took me a few weeks to get used to it. After that, it just became daily life.

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The animals here don’t just live alongside people, they run the place.

At night, the dogs fight outside like it’s a turf war. I’d lie awake listening to them bark and howl, sometimes teaming up against a cow. One morning, I watched a bull charge at a pack of dogs like he was sick of the noise too.

Another morning, I got rammed in the side by a cow for walking too close to her calf. Later that same day, I saw a bull and cow going at it in the middle of the street like it was nobody’s business. Monkeys regularly walk tightropes across power lines. One of them stole a student’s clothes off a balcony.

There’s no real boundary between humans and animals here, you share the space and hope for the best.

If you’re walking around Tapovan, someone is always selling something.

There are Ayurvedic ear cleaners with little stools and metal tools, just waiting for someone like me with clogged sinuses. The guy I went to pulled a shocking amount of gunk out of my head right there on the side of the street while traffic whipped by.

There’s the fake honey guy with a bucket of syrup and honeycomb, trying to sell you “100% pure” mountain honey. I bought a bottle, took a photo and later found out from my teacher it was all fake. That scam is common.

You also get the constant stream of selfie requests. Indian tourists will come up and ask where you’re from, chat for a second, then ask to take a photo. Sometimes they’re shy and you can tell they want to ask so I just suggest it and they light up. One photo always turns into five.

Then there are the Haryana bros, groups of young guys from outside Delhi who come here on weekends. Loud, drunk and always up to something. They treat Rishikesh like Vegas and somehow, they always find me.

Tapovan is under constant construction. Hotels, homestays and guesthouses are going up at full speed. Workers live on-site and build with bamboo scaffolding, rebar and bricks. No steel, no OSHA, no building code. Just cement, labor and speed.

There’s no traffic light or stop sign. People honk to communicate everything. The smoke from fire ceremonies mixes with exhaust and construction dust and it’s thick.

At 2am, you’ll hear mules clopping down the road hauling bags of cement uphill. This is normal in Rishikesh.

In the middle of all this, you’ll get small moments of insight or absurdity.

There’s a 16-year-old kid who runs a pharmacy better than most adults. I’d go in with a problem and he’d prescribe me something, and it always worked. He loved when I talked to him in a southern accent. I’d say, “How much you want fer it?” and he’d repeat it back cracking up. Hopefully he is still there when i come back.

One day I saw a guy at the fruit stand frantically swinging a broom at something, turned out to be a huge rat. He calmly went back to work, and sold me some bananas.

If you can find peace here, you can find it anywhere.

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