Trip to a land of Ganges

souvenirs non captées

We a bunch of people who happen to share the common work place, in desperate need to break the monotony of our lives and jobs were looking for a vacation and hogged the first opportunity that came by.

A gang of some naive people whom we came to know, were organizing a tour for Rishikesh.
Rishikesh:- A popular tourist place in Uttaranchal; India, enthralls the seekers of spirituality as well as  adrenaline admirers simultaneously.

It was sounding very tempting trip which included few of the much sought adventure sports, stay in semi- outdoors by the river side, a visit to the Haridwar; the land of holy dips and wonderful food.

The next weekend, we had to leave. We packed the backpacks and reached the common spot.

It was a smooth journey, well I hope as I hardly realized about it. I prefer to sleep then to gaze outside the window.  Trust me I am the most boring person to travel with as I either sleep or read or in rarest of rare cases, keep silent and go to a journey of my own inside.

It was a hot place, we immediately realized as soon as we disembarked.
Our smartphone apps showed 38degrees  of temperature in the region. The sound of gushing Ganges was absolute music to the ears. It was definitely very humid. Well, no problem. Our semi- outdoors nest for next two days were only about 20 feet away.
Let's go!

'Don't tell me that!' I almost had such a loud thought that I hoped the person next to me didn't hear when I saw the real place where we were supposed to dump our stuff and start ourselves on day 1 of 2 of our much awaited weekend.

It was hardly a semi- outdoor fancy stay by the river side we have imagined over so many times .
It was a grey-green, camouflaged tent ( fit to be a military bunker) from outside. When we entered  inside it had two joined beds with off white or yellow colored quilts with matching unkempt pillows. Another perpendicular bed with similar bedding was there on the south of the previous beds. I could hardly make out the color of the sheets and bedding given to the dingy interior of the tent. It smelled of the rains and its previous occupiers.Although I slept during most of the journey, but I could have used little more with my neck and back not twisting. One can easily notice that the temperature inside the tent was higher than the outside, probably because of the green house effect.

Ajay came shouting. He  ripped the supposed door of the tent( which comprised of a long zip ), apart.

 'A group is going off on a trek to a wonderful water fall about 5 kms from here.We can reach to the point where the trek starts. See us in the thatched cottage in ten whosoever is interested! '

'What about the Rafting? It was part of the day 1 plan.' Nidhi asked.

While Ajay was already on his way to repeat the announcement to the occupiers of another tent, one of the tour guide told us, the level of Ganges is too low to do rafting. We have arranged a trek in place of it.

'Sounds perfect!' I sneered.

 The idea of not having to stay in the tent for at-least for some time was appealing, plus the shower in the waterfall could be a good reward at the end of  a mere climb.
I was definitely in for it.



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'Bhaiyaji! Why did you lie its a 1 km climb? We already  have climbed about 2 kms on a steep wall like hill, and I don't hear any waterfall nearby.'

'We should be there in about ten minutes.'

I and Shivani exchanged surprised looks, and pushed a little harder to make the next supposed 10 minutes shorter.


The sun of three was scorchy. The waterfall was glaring but pleasantly cool.



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The chocolate ice-cream following the dinner was the second best thing in the whole trip so far. First was the  waterfall.

Count of worst, if I start the list it would go long. One of biggest loss that beats the rest was songs by Rishabh, that we were all forced to listen.

"Shut up Rishabh! My ears are hurting. " I scooped the last spoon of ice cream from the container. "Lets go Shivani to our honeymoon suite. The rat smelling beds are calling." I laughed at my own joke.

"After you baby!" sound from ice-cream filled mouth reverberated from somewhere behind in the same joking manner.

"And I will see you girls in while at the bonfire.It is going to be beside the big rock near the banks."
said Rishabh.


"Bonfire! Now that sounds like a plan. Who is behind this brilliant plan by the way."
I was hoping that he did not recognize the sarcasm in my words.

"It was part of the Rishikesh package. I was looking forward to it for the entire time. I have some special songs ready whose beats I have twisted and ...."
Rishabh's voice trailed off as I reached my tent.

Bonfire! That was the only missing string in this perfect summer trip.

Wait, I heard something! It was coming from my bag. Something is making loud inviting sound.
I opened the zip and pushed aside my skin care kit on one side and my clothes on the other.
Oh! There it is.
My idea of a perfect evening. Be it a riverside or a desert, be a sweaty summer evening or a chilly winter night. It never fails to drown everything out.
Its my book, this time its from Robin Cook.

Next morning it was mostly about how to plan the latter day of the trip. Is it the holy dips in the river Ganges at Haridwar or another trek to a promised undiscovered lands.  It would be great for my readers to know, they have this latter trek also planned in the package. So you can imagine how much undiscovered this land would be. They would be offering this to their every client.

 While all this planning I was sitting at the corner of the dinning table in the thatched cottage with plate full of fruits, porridge, bread, butter and fruit jam. The dilemma I was having  right now was bread with butter should be eaten first or bread with fruit jam. While I deciding and taking big bites of water melon, some one from the other corner of the table shot,"So P, which plan sounds better is it the holy dips or trek to a Hot Spot."

I started to wonder if they were providing us the free wi-fi( Hot- spot as in a wi-fi setup) also for our cell phones and laptops as the part of the package. I shook off the thought by putting down another mouth full piece of water melon and realizing its the biodiversity hot spot he is talking about.

Before I could offer my valued recommendation, some one from the next table replied. "Let her eat. We should go for the Holy dip. If we come to Rishikesh, our trip wont be considered complete if we don't go to Haridwar."

Not having to answer the question was a bit of a relief and I meanwhile decided to put butter and jam together on my bread.

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To my lovely readers:-

Well, the idea of this blog is not to defame any backpacking planners, but sole humor.
You must have read many travel blogs about how wonderful a place is and how great the author's experience is.
This blog is with a twist. Even a tour turned out bad can bring an experience of a kind.

I also wanted to give a message that if we plan a trip its onus is on to us to do proper research about the place and not depend on the paid planners wholeheartedly .

I hope you guys had a good laugh reading it as much as I had while I was writing.
As I am new to writing, perhaps. If you do constructive critique or leave a comment it would be much appreciated.