River Rafting Fun at Rishikesh

On 18th May 2013, I started my first official trip to Rishikesh with colleagues with return on Monday 20th May 2013. Exhilaration and imaginative thrill of river rafting at Rishikesh was high on my mind, as I reached office on Saturday 2200 Hrs to board the A/C bus. On reaching office, I caught up with my 9 colleagues of the content team. While Varun Verma and Gaurav Roy were busy with their favorite alcohol drinks, Leena, Ranjeeta, Sachin Singh, Shrikanth, Rohit Thapa, Krishnendu Chaterjee and Ajit were all roaming here and there or resting (at least trying to). There were 2 buses scheduled to leave office by 2330 Hrs. or 0000 Hrs. but the time made us wait more. Finally the buses arrived and all the 90 members settled in the two buses. The journey to the challenging recreational activity - river rafting in Rishikesh began at around 0130 Hrs. in the morning. During the travel, we watched Bollywood Movie Jolly LLB and I managed to catch a nap for 30 odd minutes. This small nap refreshed me enough to proceed ahead with the trip, without any headache. With regular stops for license checking, toll payment etc., we managed to reach Phoolchatti Resort at 1130 Hrs on 19th May 2013.

L-->R Krishnendu Chateerjee, Ajit, Sachin, Shrikanth Mohan, Rohit Thapa, Deepak Mehndiratta, Gaurav Roy, Leena Bhatia, Varun Verma

Reaching There: 19th May 2013

Phoolchatti Resort – The name may sound ambiguous to many, but this is the resort where we were going to stay. As soon as we reached the resort, we had some non-alcoholic drinks and thereafter we were allocated huts by Vishal Sir. Shrikanth, Sachin, Gaurav and Rohit were together in a bigger hut, whereas myself and Krishnendu were together in 1 hut and Varun was scheduled to be with Ajit in another one, although things turned out to be different. Soon after settling down, we had light breakfast and we rushed to a waterbed near the resort. This elevated the expectations of the thrill of river rafting in Rishikesh.

This was the time when I said Bye Bye to fatigue/tiredness!!

I was with Leena and Varun enjoying the splashes of water, when Shrikanth, Rohit and Sachin called us a little back from our current spot. They shouted “yahan aao sir, flow bahut acha hai”. But actually, the flow of river was less there and very quickly all of us returned to our previous spot. Once all of us were together there, there was no stopping enjoying. The girls were floating like mermaid and guys were like fishermen. Every now and then, I tried to find a comfortable position inside the waterbed so that I could enjoy submerging in water rather than float with its flow. Splashing water at each other, all of us said good bye to the tiresome journey.

During this time, Gaurav suggested to let go all the frustration. His suggested to punch the flowing water as hard as can by shouting what frustrates you the most. All of us had one thing in mind – catalogs.

Clicking pictures was a common view in the waterbed. Everyone was enjoying himself/herself. We were scheduled to go for rafting at 1400 hrs but while flowing, time passed by fast and the whitewater river rafting was rescheduled to 1530 Hrs.

Deepak Mehndiratta in Rishikesh

All of us were wet from top to bottom and we had lunch in the same condition. Quickly we prepared for the rafting and boarded the jeeps waiting outside the resort. It took us to the boarding point for buses, which then took us to boarding point of rafts [Shivpuri (based 16 km from main Rishikesh)] where we received short training on the various commands we had to follow during the river rafting. Maximum of 9 people were allowed in one raft, so I teamed up with designing team colleagues in one raft (we were a total of 6 people in 1 raft), whereas rest of my content colleagues were together in the other raft. It was time to start the challenging recreational activity - river rafting in Rishikesh.

Whitewater River Rafting in Rishikesh

Before starting this holy and thrilling rafting, we chanted “Ganga Maiya Ki Jai” 3 times. Then we leap into the holy river Ganges. At this time, my heart was beating extremely fast. On one hand, I was scared but on the other hand I was all thrilled and excited. Very quickly, the weight of thrill & excitement took over fear and I was all set to raft the electrifying water of mother river Ganga. The rafting took around an hour and during that I was blessed with wishes and good fortune by Mother River as its water rinsed me all the time.

As we ended the rafting trip, it seem like a couple of minutes have passed by, but actually more than hour was passed. Then we had a group photo and returned back to the resorts in the jeeps. A light evening tea was waiting for us there. After having a cup, all of us parted into playing cricket, resting and enjoying waterbed bath, again. I choose to rest in cool and charming atmosphere of that area. Rest all guys choose to play cricket, while Leena was busy losing in badminton. It was announced that dinner will be served at 2200 Hrs. and next day morning, interested people can go to trek.

With the lively experience of whitewater river rafting in Rishikesh still knocking on mind, I saw the sun take his leave, leaving everyone in the lap of dark night that was somehow broken by the CFLs glowing outside every hut. In this peaceful environment, it was the first time I believed that I should have been at that place with my family. This feeling became stronger afterward, when the drinks started to flow and drunkards started losing their balance while walking, and talking. (I hate alcohol consumption and I will stay adamant on it. Since none of my family member consumes alcohol, I wished to be accompanied by them at that time). 

After accompanying the young blood of the content team for some time, I went to my hut and took a nap till 2200 Hrs. Hoping the dinner would have been served, I went back to DJ party but my dear team members were AWOL. After asking a couple of people, I found all of them in the big hut. Along with them I waited for the dinner, and again the waiting time showed no mercy at us... Finally, I had the food at 0000 Hrs. and rushed to my hut to complete my sleep.

Trekking in Rishikesh and Journey Back to Home on 20th May 2013

Early in the morning at 0600 Hrs the trekking-interested people got together and started the trek to the waterfall. I hoped that this experience will be as fun as the river rafting the previous day. People who preferred sleep rather than trekking were Ajit and Krishnendu. Also, Shrikanth was very near to join these two, but with a sleepy face he made it to trek. After the simple initial trek, the latter part became tough and sweating, as we climbed higher on the mountain. It turned out to be a tough task, but once again bathing in the cold body of water washed away all the tiredness. After enjoying a brief stint at waterfall, all of us started our trek back to the PhoolChatti resort. I reached there at 1000 or 1030 hours and had breakfast after getting fresh. At about 1200 Hrs. all of us were scheduled to start the return trip to office. At the last moment, Ranjeeta and Leena felt asleep as if they were determined to shed off all their fatigue in that single sleep. With some shouting by Gaurav and few of the girls, we were able to wake them.

Soon we boarded the resort's jeeps that dropped us near the buses that were ready to take us back to catalogs. On the way, we stopped for lunch and made it to Vaishali Metro Station at 1900 hrs.