Camping in Rishikesh!- A photoblog June'12

                                  Delhi- Rishikesh- Delhi

Day 1:

Assembling at Connought Place at 7:30 am- the Scooby doo van heads towards Akshardham to pick rest of our friends- Music, cards and the Bluff masters- Quick Aloo parantha n Shikanji breakfast at Modi Nagar- cross Meerut- Everyone’s buzy bluffing!!- Soon cross Mujaffarnagar- Still bluffing- About to cross Rourkee- everyone’s asleep- Crossing Haridwar- debates over which one of surrounding ghats is Har-ki-pauri- mass hunger inside mystery machine- Soon the morning leftover paranthas get many takers- Entering inside Rishikesh- passing the Laxman Jhoola behind- still some 30 km left to kill- All 30 eyes glued to ‘Bayasi’ milestone- its 4:30 and finally we reached the ‘stop- in- front- of- few- continuous- speed- breakers- near- a- few- shops- in- queue’ landmark- We get ‘picked up’- 10 (full) minutes of FUN(!) downhill slope (with 100 kgs of luggage with every woman and yeah 40 Tuborg greens distributed among men) gets us to an enchanting piece of land ( enchanting x enchanting + enchanting x 100 times enchanting!!!) (Well this one definitely deserves a paragraph- imagine a beach of white sand in a completely isolated area, imagine stunningly shaded and chromed natural river stones around- more beautiful than the bestest diamonds n opals in the world, imagine the mighty Ganga roaring next to you, imagine no one else can see you, just you and your loved one, imagine andamans, imagine the scenes of Hollywood thrillers where people get lost on an enigmatically quiet and bewitchingly beautiful island!! Well, THIS place was just all that!) 10 minutes’ further walk while admiring the white beach where a person is waiting for us to take us across in his raft- Wow! Wondered what more this trip had for us in its kitty!
Soon we came to know what more was left!- climbing the same height which we had just come down from across the other side of the river- Ha!- Wondered what was more difficult carrying the Tuborgs downslope with slippery chappals or carrying them while trekking uphill crossing steeper slopes!- Yeah the forced trek wasn’t done yet- trekking- trekking- trekking- Tired- Sweaty- Smelly- We reach the top!- Waiting for us is the welcoming drink!- Yeah the much needed- much cherished- much enjoyed- most discussed- WELCOMING DRINK! (Picture attached :D)

Relishing the five minutes of coming back to life and being the first one to climb the location of the camps- Self Allotment of camps further 20 steps up- Relaxing tents with 2 single beds each tent and most importantly the attached toilet- Soon we freshen up only to go all the way down the slopes to soak ourselves in water- and yeah to soak the Tuborgs in cold water of ganges thanks to no refrigerator (these camps have practically no electricity except for a single bulb they manage to put on over generator only from 7:30 to 10:30 pm!)

Some much needed drenching in the waters of Ganga and suddenly everyone’s so relaxed!- (again) imagine a small white beach for urself and pals- evening time when the sun has just set- everything around so amazingly dull (trust me dull could be amazing sumtimes- this was my first experience too)- sipping on golden liquids on shores of sparkling waters of Ganga sitting on a parked raft- Someone’s staring at water unendingly, few trying to capture it in their lens and some busy demanding  their rights on the sand…….

No later followed the games of handball- some throwing, some catching, many missing, some falling, some hugging the sand, all enjoying…all rewinded back to their babyhood.

Day swiftly moved ahead and the darkness took over.. and so did the game of dumb charades .. Like every dumbcharades session, new movies were ‘discovered’ by the creative minds… Jalte huwe tawe pe naachti hui bhootni, Howrah bridge pe latakta khooni khanjar, sookhe nadi pe tairti laash and so on n on…………

Post dinner it became pitch dark..just a single bulb inside each tent! And the tents surrounded by jungles on 3 sides.. then started the ‘nature walk’ suggested by the camp guide.. a narrow slippery and slopy footpath created by the villagers who passby everyday was our route tonight..thats not all.. this barely 1 metre wide path in the middle of jungle around a cliff atleast 50 metres above the roaring Ganga on the other side also made sure one wrong move and the foot slips..n ur gone forever… to add to the horror of this situation were 12 drunkards, tipsy on tuborg.. a creepy 30-40 minutes’ walk to and fro got us all safely back to few metres before camp location.. a casual focus of a torch over a random direction in pitch dark and ! there it was the worst thing that could happen then…an old lady in white saree with white hair left open sitting in the middle of jungle and meditating!.. Needless to say what followed next.. but difficult to say if she scared  us more or we with our cries petrified her more!

Day 2:

A day full of rafting! The rafting that started around 10 in the morning from Bayasi finished only well past 4 near Laxman Jhoola 36 kilometer far! Ofcourse only after – the first few warm up rapids, a skipped rapid – the wall apparently too dangerous due to its difficulty level, few terrified faces and their prayers, the desparate swimming in the middle of Ganga, flashing smiles for facebook dp’s even in the freezing cold water, the ‘all forward- all backward-(and the most soothing) relaaaaaaax’ orders of the Nepali guides,  the amazing rapids of- 3 blind mice, micky mouse, Kal Ho Na Ho that followed, a maggi n colddrinks break at Shivpuri, 5 mins from Shivpuri starts the real action! The most amazing ‘Rollercoaster’ rapid! The cliff jumping at Brahmapuri- soon reaching Rishikesh and hungry tummies hogging on Bhelpuri, shikanjis n cold drinks. Our van was already waiting for us uphill where we reached by what can be termed ‘the most unneeded physical activity’ post the gruelling 6 hrs rafting!

Only when everyone seemed almost dead out of exhaustion, were we told we have a further ‘forced’ 3-4 kilometer rafting waiting for us if we wanted to reach the campsite! The already tired lifeless us were compelled to carry double the load this time since the whole group was accommodated in the single raft! I wouldn’t wish so much rafting  in a day even to my worst enemy! L

When we finally reached our beach, it felt like all 15 of us were done with the rafting for our entire lives!! ~ ~ ~

The aloo n vegetable bhajiyas n garmagaram chai felt like heaven to our tummies since we had had to skip the lunch due to rafting.. 

Again today the dumb charades succeeded in throwing everyone’s fatigue away with a lot of Kamasutra, prostitute, Jawani, pornstar, garmi, josh, khooni atma n old at!

Such camps are just incomplete without ghost stories told in the dead dark….something that was happening outside tent number 6..and yeah not to forget the wind supposedly running only outside tent no.2………

Day 3:

A quick breakfast and quick hisaab kitab and a lot of climbing uphill got us to the mainroad…and left for Delhi at 11!.. but reaching only at 11 in the night thanks to traffic of rishikesh, haridwar, rourkee, Muzaffarnagar, Modinagar and Ghaziabad…