“Holidays” being such a precious commodity for us, we spend days and sometimes months in just “planning” where to go and what to do. We typically keep a checklist to go by, just to ensure that we don’t miss out on making the best use of the “time and space”. Therefore, for our Durga Puja holidays:
- The overarching theme had to be thrill and adventure to ensure that we break our monotony of our everyday life
- It had to fit our bill of doing something for the first time for the year 2009
- And it had to be near “Nature” – far from the maddening crowd so that we truly return rejuvenated
- On an afterthought, given that this was Durga puja time, I think we also wanted to be somewhere close to our traditions and yet not miss out on the fun and adventure
And so we zeroed in on “White water rafting and camping” along the Ganges…
The next step was to find out who would help us in executing our holiday plans. After multiple calls to friends and flipping through the pages of Lonely Planet, we finally chose “Red Chilli Adventure” group. Along with the name, their red and black web page and the introduction of their team of experts gave us some amount of confidence that we probably were entrusting ourselves into “safe hands”, given that none of us knew swimming J.
We started our journey from Delhi – took the 11am train from Delhi to Haridwar and landed at Haridwar @5pm on a Friday. Our driver from Redchilliadventure was waiting for us with a placard at the station and together we drove down to Rishikesh (which was roughly about an hour’s drive). We checked into a hotel that was pre-booked by the Redchilli group, freshened up and were ready to gorge by 8pm. We went to a famous restaurant called “Chotiwalla” – over the last 40 years, it has earned the privilege of being visited by some of the most famous people in our film industry as well as politicians along with being the only ISO 9001 restaurant in Rishikesh. The food was simple and delicious and the service neat. Post dinner, we came back to the hotel and slept early to ensure that we start next day for our 3 day water rafting expedition at 9am sharp.
Next day, we started our day with finger licking stuffed aaloo parathas in a restaurant called “Tip-Top” and hit the road at sharp 10am. It was roughly a 3 hr drive uphill towards Devaprayag to a place called Bagwan. We were greeted their by the 3 member RCA team who would be our companions for the next 3 days – Bheem (our guide), Harwinder (our cook) and Baalam (our Kayakar)who would be responsible for navigating our second raft consisting of all our luggages neatly packed and sealed into water proof bags.
Bheem – our guide, gave us safety instructions along with rowing instructions – “forward paddle”, “back paddle” etc once we sat on the raft. With our life jackets on, we were ready to embark on a journey that is to be remembered for a lifetime.
What Lay Ahead...
Day 1 – We rafted for about 3-4 hrs, navigating minor rapids. Our guide told us to get into water – just to familiarise ourselves with this new mode of transport. Given that none of us knew swimming, it was quite a daunting task to get in the water but it certainly helped us in quelling some of our initial fears. On our way, we stopped to gather some woods to make a bon-fire in the night and finally stopped at a secluded 200 metre beach for camping. It was fun setting up our camps from scratch and we realised how quickly we made a secluded place our own.
Setting up...
Camping @ Private Beach 🙂
Day 2 – We woke up on a cloudy foggy day with dew drops on our tents and took some time to reorient ourselves to the fact that we were in the middle of nowhere. It was us, the sand, the gurgling sound of the river flowing by, the green mountains and the open sky. After a sumptuous breakfast, we started our journey again …of the unknown…
This day was comparatively quieter and easy in terms of the intensity of the rapids and the focus was more on “how to stay afloat” incase the boat flips. We took turns to jump in the water and float on our own. Bheem gave us some more survival tips as if he was slowly but surely preparing us for the inevitable without getting us psyched. We rafted for about 4 hrs and found ourselves a new home to set up our tent so that we could be physically and mentally be prepared for the big day.
Day 3 – We were told that we would be accompanied by four more people for Day 3 along with 2 safety kayakers. It gave us a huge sense of relief as we felt that a raft consisting of 8 people has far less chances of flipping compared to that carrying just 4. But the fact that we were accompanied by 2 safety Kayakers, also told us that we were in for trouble J.
Me n Bonu
With Bheem
The best thing was that there were two things common between all of us:
- All of us were doing it for the first time and
- None of us knew swimming
With that knowledge and our life jackets on, along with Bheem’s additional commands for the day, we started our final journey and quickly realised that none of us were in sync when it came to paddling. Before we could do much about it, we found ourselves in the middle of a rapid called Daniel Dip. It was an easy one and we quickly passed through it, congratulating ourselves that we had done a great job. But soon we were brought back to reality by our guide who said that going by the way we were paddling, we were sure to flip while crossing the “The Wall”- the next level 4 rapid.
We took it in our stride and it was a mix of enthusiasm tinged with lace of fear that we paddled towards “The Wall”. Even before we could realise, our raft was hit by huge waves with Bheem shouting “Right forward”, “Left Backward” and in a flick of a second we found ourselves being thrown in the air and hitting the water deep down with a splash. The only thing that kept running in my mind was – “Do not breathe while you are under the water”. It took me 15 secs to come to the surface and I could see all the heads floating in the water with the raft nowhere in sight. The other raft that had our luggage got into the rescue operation mode and I was thrown a rope that I clung on to with all my strength till they pulled me on the raft. Soon we were all on the raft except for my dear husband. Then someone saw a head floating about 200 metres back and I breathed a sigh of relief. Aunindo had got caught in a whirlpool as a result of which it took him 30 secs to come on the surface, by when all of us had been taken forward by the mainstream current. There was no way we could raft back to him as it was against the flow. As a result, one of our safety kayakers went back to him and got him near our raft. And we started our journey again… To say the least, we were all a bit shaken but Bheem gave us no time to reflect as we had another rapid coming up and we had to be “Ready”. After crossing “The Wall”, the other rapids seemed a bit easier and we crossed “The three blind mice”, “The Golf Course comprising of 18 holes” and “The Roller Coaster”. Surprisingly, after the flip, we had become synchronised in our paddling with an occasional reminder here and there from our guide. We finally reached a halting place for cliff jump – free fall… While the rest took their turns, I took 20 mins of waiting on the cliff before I finally jumped.
It was a befitting end to what we had embarked on – a journey of the unknown, fraught with twists and turns, where we had ourselves to bank upon and a guide who could rescue us only if we chose to remain calm in the face of all odds and not give up on ourselves. It forced us to first confront and then overcome our fear of the untried and the untested realms of possibilities and at the end of all be humbled with the journey we had traversed. And it reminded me of an old saying “The Journey is the Reward”.
We did it!!
And we couldn't stop celebrating 🙂
– Manoshi
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Of Our Walks... 
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