I've been meaning to write about my trip for the past several days. But one thing led to another, and I just couldn't bring up the enthu to type. Sunday afternoon is as good a time as any, I guess.
For the click-happy amongst my millions of readers - http://www.travelmasti.com/5elements-camp.html
The route we took is as mentioned in the website: Delhi - Meerut - Roorkee - Hardwar - Rishikesh - Shivpuri - Byasi - Sinthali - Kaudiyala, the name of the rafting camp is '5 elements'.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. We were to travel in two vehicles, my boss's Scorpio (neat vehicle, that) and an Indica. The cab was supposed to pick me up from my home at the ungodly hour of 5:30 in the morning. I thought for a while that it might be easier to simply not sleep that night so as to be awake in time, but gave that up since we would probably have some activities planned for later in the day. Managed to wake up at 4 o'clock and was showered and dressed and packed (yes, I always pack at the last minute) and waiting outside my apartment block at 5:29. Hadn't factored in that the cab driver would have to wake up and go through all this too. He didn't turn up till well after 6, which threw our plans out of whack a bit. Went around and picked up the other folks and finally we were all heading out of Noida.
The journey itself was pretty uneventful, we stopped at a place called the Cheetal Grand for breakfast and had some narrow escapes on the highway (not according to the drivers though). The road was interesting enough, as all highways are, and was pretty well used. It was cold in the morning when we started off, but became pleasant as the day progressed. After some debate and enquiries on exactly where we were supposed to go, and some hard driving up the hilly roads, we reached the rafting camp. Or rather, we reached that point on the road where we could no longer ride in a vehicle and had to get off and haul ourselves down a hillside, over a bridge (which I call the Bridge of Fate, UT2004 players will remember that one) and down another hillside to actually reach the camp.
It was afternoon by then, and there was some confusion among the camp people about whether we were supposed to have lunch or not. Some of us tried to play volleyball while lunch was being prepared.
The camp itself is situated at a wonderful place, on the bank of the Ganga, on a white sanded beach, with hills all around, and the Bridge of Fate hanging above (yes, it's a suspension bridge, and we saw quite a few of them). There is a row of tents, which are assigned to the visiting rafters, and not much else. There was a bunch of what seemed to be techies from some company, having what seemed to be a seminar, being presided over by what seemed to be a professor from some ancient university. In any case, they left quickly enough, presumably having finished all their "team building" activities. We, on the other hand, were left to fend for ourselves and fell upon a pretty good lunch.
A few people tried their hand at kayaking, which wasn't fun enough because the kayak was tethered to the shore and they wouldn't let it go into the main stream, and also because nobody actually fell into the water. There was a small inlet into the beach where the water was calm and that's where the kayaking took place. We wandered off to look at the other visitors in the camp, and tried to play volleyball again. The afternoon passed quickly enough, and it started getting dark as soon as the sun went out of sight over some hills. The air grew chilly with the sun's passing and soon we were all clamouring for a bonfire. It was duly lit by the camp people and we spent some time sitting around it, toasting our feet and listening to the silence. Broken every now and then by a vehicle passing high up on the road above us, headlights glowing eerily and briefly. Also broken continuously by the rush of the water nearby, bubbling over the rocks on the riverbed.
Dinner was served and consumed and it was off to the tents to sleep.
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