Of playing Dumb Charades and going White Water Rafting.

Talk of intense planning!!

Mail sent to us a day before the trip was scheduled to happen :

"Here is the link of the personal checklist, location and testimonials of the Riverside Jungle camp at Rishikesh as provided to me by Camp Wildex. Please go through the same to pack your bags accordingly. We are leaving at 10 tonight so please be ready and steady by 9.30 PM. We shall be reaching Mussorie - Dhanaulti tomorrow morning at 5.30 to watch the sunrise from there and then enjoy the scenic beauty of this beautiful uncommercialised place. We shall than go to Mussorie for breakfast and local sight seeing and leave for Rishikesh camp post lunch. We can also stop at the famous Kempty falls enroute and shall reach our camp max by 6-7 PM. We can play volleyball and other sports at the camp and also booze by the bonfire at night. In the morning, after breakfast, we shall leave for the 25 km stretch of rafting from Marine Drive (not the one in Bombay :P). This shall be followed by lunch and a waterfall trek in the jungle for 2-3 hrs. We shall leave the camp after the trek by about 5-6 PM and reach MDI by night. We have booked a luxurious 9 push back seats + sofa, air conditioned with TV tempo traveller for the journey. So, please pick up some CD's having nice songs/movies for the journey.

See you at 9.30 PM. Adios!!!"

Now, when you see such a mail, you would normally go "Ah yes! Very well planned... Now I really do think nothing can go wrong." And you hope that nothing will go wrong.

So, did anything go wrong during the trip?? You betcha. Starting with the luxurious Air Conditioned TV tempo traveler.

A trip that was supposed to take about 5 hours ended up going to close to 10 hours, just because the driver kept stopping at random places in-between to take a break. We did keep ourselves busy by playing dumb charades. Me, of course, was in deep rest throughout the journey.

We finally reached Dhanaulti in the middle of the day. Fortunately, the weather was wonderful. The scenery, amazing. The place is usually covered in snow till January. It's a nice place to relax and just enjoy the peace.

We left the place in after about an hour. We had to leave early, given the way the driver drove. The idea was to reach Rishikesh at around 5 in the evening, so that we could camp over there at night and go rafting in the morning. But, did it happen that way?

Nope. We ended up reaching Rishikesh at 10 in the night. Talk about keeping time!!

Anyways, we spent the night camping. The experience was exhilarating.

We got up next day, only to find that some of the people from our group (A certain "triangle", for those who know what I am talking about!) had gone on a trek to some limestone caves nearby. After they came back, we packed up and left the camp towards the rapids for our white water rafting. Again, we were a good 3 hours late, and ended up starting the rafting at 12 in the afternoon. Bad time to start.

The experience, however, is out of this world. This is one thing everyone HAS to do atleast once in their lives!! The thrill you get from going through those rapids is outstanding. The highlights of the rafting experience are the two huge rapids, and the cliff jump right at the end of the ride. I am scared of heights, so the feeling when I took the leap of faith was an eye-opener.

Overall, it was truly an amazing trip. One that was planned meticulously, but executed badly. But still, the rafting made it all worthwhile!