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| Ganges and the Tents |
After the eventful journey to Auli and awesome time skiing, we wanted a quiet time in Rishikesh. This quiet little town on the banks of ganges offers you solitude and activities as you want it. Its unique because nowhere in India you can choose what you want to do without locking yourself up in your room. But in Rishikesh, you get to be outdoors and still dictate terms about what you want to do which is a luxury in India. Rishikesh is a popular weekend getaway for the folks at my business school. We had contacted one of the rafting tour operators before we arrived and met him at his rafting office that afternoon. After brief introductions we were taken to the camp site, 7kms from the main city of Rishikesh and right at the banks of the mighty Ganges on which we were going to raft the next day. For the evening, we were to settle down in our tents and go on an easy hike to a nearby waterfall. The entry fee to the waterfall was INR 10 as we were Indian students :) The waterfall was amazing and we had a cool dip in the pristine water. I had a few more crawling moments while going up hill. I was like po from kung fu panda in this regard. But my amazing friends almost carried me to the top and simply refused to move ahead without me - *sniff sniff* ;)
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| Discussing Life, Sports and Such |
We came back from the waterfall and had snacks waiting for us at the banks of the river. It was barbeque near the river and we were missing our rum & coke combo! With the cool breeze caressing our faces, playfully disheveling our hair and kissing on our cheeks, a fire was now started to help us brave the chill and the sound of the gushing river few feet away with only your friends and nature for company - this was paradise! After snacks and some more general talk about life, sports and such we had our dinner and reitred to our tents. These are very basic tents with no fan or A/C or attached bathroom but the very fact that it was right next to the river was more than enough for us boys. However, next morning we faced the first uncomfortable moment of such tents; there was no proper rest room and it was a sand pit in which you have to relieve yourself. All the pressure that was built was gone and our bowels made a timid retreat! But what is adventure without sand pits and cleaning with stones/leaves!? Also we did not want to raft with people farting all around. So we went through the motion.
Between sand pit and breakfast we played soccer on the beach of Ganges and I gloriously sucked at it. But the real adventure began after breakfast, we were briefed by our guide for the day about the safety precautions. The only glitch being he came across like the "10 second" Tom from the movie 50 first dates. He briefed us for 5 minutes and suddenly in the middle of a sentence would go about securing the dry bag to the raft. Then continue for sometime and then go back adjusting the dry bag. This continued for at least 30 minutes by the end of which we were laughing our heads off thinking about the crazy guys we had met in this trip and he had no clue why. We were coupled with a few other friends from our college (a shocker for us, we would have preferred girls. But such is life!) . We started on our rafting and it was fairly simple with grade 2 and grade 3 rapids. The names of the rapids were fun too - washing machine, butter fly, double trouble etc. We started a little farther up from our camp and reached our camp for lunch. After lunch, our guide told us it will be easier than pre-lunch session as we just had lunch. But we all missed the naughty smile that accompanied the declaration.
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| Cliff Jumping! |
The next few of the rapids were easy, grade 2 and 2.5. Then we anchored off near a cliff where every raft seemed to be stopping by to allow its patrons enjoy the exciting cliff jump. i am not sure about the height of the cliff but it was exhilarating! It was super fun and pure adrenaline pump! After cliff jumps and making fun about how the other guys were scared to death, we resumed our rafting. The next one was actually a grade 4, for which none of us was ready and were pretty laidback about it, and the raft partially capsized leaving everyone one my side of the raft smack at the eye of the rapid.
One of my friend was lucky to have caught the safety rope and was immediately rescued. The soccer captain and I were a little farther away from the raft by now. He lost his paddle and I had to retrieve and hold on to my paddle and his paddle while being battered by the rapid. This was not easy at all and a lot of ganges water was swallowed in the process. Just then I look back and see that we are actually being propelled towards a cliff by the rapid and this just pressed panic button in me. The soccer captain was oblivious to it and was asking me to remain calm and just go with the flow! I shouted back and signalled the cliff to him which made him pee a little, I am sure, though he will not admit it. I missed the "T-rescue" move as well and was further drifted from the raft. Luckily they somehow managed to get to us and save both of us before we smashed into the cliff! I love adventure, water related especially as I am a strong swimmer, but this was too much for me as well. Rest of the rafting was pretty easy but still we were a little shaken by the previous rapid and were alert at all times.
We passed Ram and Lakshman jhoola, the two suspension bridges that connects the town with the other side of the bank and reached Rishikesh. We got ourselves dried up and it was time to bid good bye to our guide and leave Rishikesh that night. We went into the city, had a cup of coffee and snacks before we booked our ticket to Delhi. We left our bags at the transport office and went to cross the Lakshman Jhoola and spend sometime watching the sun go down from the Ganges. We spent the evening at the banks reminising the entire trip and video recording each of our fun moments as video logs. Basically it was four guys in a serene environment having some guys time :) When it was time to leave, we finished our dinner at the famous chottiwala restaurant and left Rishikesh with some great memories.
Categories:
Experience,
Ganges,
India,
Rafting,
Rishikesh,
Uttarakhand
