This trip has a special place in my heart because from here I started my journey. The very first adventure of my life I did in this trip. I made so many new friends in this trip and found a true and best friend in this trip.
Rishikesh, I am sure most of you have heard this name. This city is in India's northern state of Uttarakhand in the Himalayan foothills beside the Ganges river and this city is popular for the study of yoga and meditation. It is known as a pilgrimage town and regarded as one of the holiest places to Hindus. This city is also famous for whitewater river rafting.
So, the blog is about my first trip and my first adventure. Four years back, in July, 2015, I started my Post-graduation. I went to Indian Institute of Information and Technology Allahabad to pursue my Master of technology. In starting of college, I had only 3 friends. So one day we heard that someone was planning a trip to Rishikesh and it was an open trip.
I and my one friend decided to join the group. Preparations, shopping and ticket bookings, everything was so fun and exciting. We were 15-20 in count. We booked tickets in train “Haridwar Express”. The train journey was superb. Our train was late by 8 hours, but we had a lot of fun. We played cards, antakshari and had lots of chit-chat. Since most of us were strangers to each other, that was the time when we made bond with each other and Hence for me it was one of the best time of the whole trip.
Day 1: We reached Haridwar in evening. We stayed in Haridwar for the night, and next day early morning we had to leave for Rishikesh. But when you are with a large group, It is impossible to be on time. So we enjoyed the night at Ganga Ghats, enjoyed the calmness of the environment, clicked lots of photos. That was the first time when I felt the river Ganga so closely and honestly speaking, for me seeing the flowing Ganga River so closely scared me. I agree to those who say that water is very calm and seeing water flowing, or sitting at river side is very peaceful, I feel the same but on the other side, it scared me too. I have aqua phobia, I can’t go inside water or can’t see water flowing in a large quantity. And therefore, those Ganga Ghats scared me.
Day 2: we had attended amazing Ganga Arti, and then we left for Rishikesh. It was a 2 hours travel from Haridwar. We had booked a private vehicle. Driver dropped us and after that we had to walk to our camps. So the plan was that we will reach to our base camp, will dump our luggage there and will start the trek, but we lost the way to our base camp and it was all day walking to find the camp, but we had fun. We stopped at Ganga side, played in water, clicked photos and the view was obviously amazing. It was amazing, walking at Ganga side, surrounded by mountains and forests.
Finally in evening reached the camp. There, not delicious but food was waiting and all were jumped to eat as we all were tired. We had fun that night, had bone fire, music, dance, games and lots of chit-chats. This was the third night of the trip and I hadn’t slept even for a second. Again that night I didn’t sleep. We played cards, and then after everyone slept, I and my friend talked whole night and now the day came for which I was excited and nervous as well.
That night first time I felt the calmness of the nature. You know, sitting outside in moon light, surrounded by mountains and forests, river is flowing, that was the scary as well as beautiful. First time ever, I felt the coldness of the wind, the beautiful sound of the silence, the musical rhythm of water and freshness of the trees. overall the whole environment was so beautiful and so touched.
Day 3: I didn't sleep whole night, and morning the Sun rise, OMG, was the beautiful sun rise I had seen till that time. Now after breakfast, we started for the next event. The first adventure of my life and that was a water sport – River Rafting. Rishikesh’s river rafting is famous for dangerous and thundering rapids of Ganges. For me it was a suicide and I found myself very lucky that I returned back safely. During the rafting, one moment came which was the scariest moment my till life. We were in raft and rapids and waves were coming from all the directions and they hit our raft at the same time, our raft stood at 90 degree, took a turn of 360 degree and back to water and this happened so quick that after back to normal state, we realized what had happened actually. The whole rafting was for, I guess, 3-4 hours and believe me, and those hours were the scariest but amazing hours of my life. And you all would agree to the fact that if you are with your friends and they got to know that you scared of something, you know they would intentionally does the things to scare you more. Same happened with me and I yelled a lot at everyone during the whole rafting.
After rafting, I took deep breath and relaxed now and finally I slept after 3 nights.
And I was happy that I did river rafting in Rishikesh. That is the biggest achievement for me. After rafting now, we had to decide one between the repelling/climbing and flying fox. Rishikesh is famous for many adventurous sports. River rafting and Bungee jump are the famous among all. We couldn’t do bungee jump because our budget didn’t allow.
So next we went to repelling and climbing and guys, never ever do this in Rishikesh. We all regretted for choosing this over flying fox. It was a very small rock that could be climbed easily without any ropes and gears. But decision had been made, so we did.
That was the last day in Rishikesh, and in evening we left for Haridwar. From Haridwar, we had train in next morning and we reached Allahabad with loads of memories and new friends. And here ends the very special and superb trip of my life. And the best moments for me were the night before the river rafting and immediate moment when I stepped out of the raft after completing the whole rafting.
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