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Tag: Ganga

  • The 28 hour Recharge

    Just around midnight on Saturday, me and Tushar leave home for somewhere… During our walk on the road, while looking for an auto to ISBT, we discussed our options to go in all possible directions, but froze on Rishikesh … His responses to a 24 hour trip to Bharatpur, Agra, Jaipur were funny, keeping in mind the Gujjar agitations happening around these areas 🙂

    And it was interesting how our families let us go… with a disclaimer that we had lost it !!! and that nothing could be done !!! what else would you say about two guys, who just pack and go somewhere at midnight !!!

    Just then, an auto stopped, we hopped on, reached the ISBT and took the bus after a few difficult choices of a bad bus, a not so bad bus, a not so good bus, the UP Roadways or Uttarakhand Roadways bus stared at us in the face… We finally took a decision and took the UK (Read UttaraKhand) Roadways for Rishikesh 🙂

    Tushar did overhear a small issue when we boarded the bus, but too bad that we did not take it seriously… We realized after 15 minutes that one of the twin tyres at the back of the bus had a puncture and we could not move at more than 30 kmph till the time it gets fixed…. Which was a major disappointment as this clearly meant that our plan of reaching Rishikesh around 0600 hrs was fukked up pretty bad !!!

    Li’il that we could do, but laugh at the situation 🙂 for some reason we did enjoy the slowness on the road… Every vehicle honked and passed us while we were cruising at a top speed of 30-40 kmph on the HIGHWAY !!!

    The first pit stop was at some Nataraj Restaurant, in front of the Cheetal Grand, Khatoli ( some 40 odd kms ahead of Meerut)… This is where the driver found a Puncture Shop and decided to give the tyre for a repair… It was around 0415 hours that the guy removed the tyre, and though the conductor said we should be good to go in some 30 minutes, I had a feeling it was not going to take anywhere less than 60 minutes, maybe more !!!

    Me and Tushar walked around the place, discussing the entrepreneur skills of the guy at the tyre shop, who was managing the operations, the finances, and infrastructure etc etc all by himself !!! I had a cup of warm sugar with bits of coffee in it !!! We also discussed taking a different bus to Haridwar just to save sometime, but did not do it thinking that it would make a difference of about 30 odd minutes only… the slower part of the journey was already over… We finally moved at 0545 hrs ( as expected ) and dozed off almost immediately.. All I remember was that the driver suddenly had changed the entire tempo of the journey… It was his turn now to honk and pass !!! and he made a full generous use of the pressure horn in the otherwise not so quiet bus 🙂

    The Laxman Jhoola…

    We reached Haridwar around 0800 hrs and had to wait for another 20 odd minutes before we got another bus to Rishikesh… We reached Rishikesh, and then took a Tempo to Ram Jhoola… Breakfast was planned at Govindji’s Prasadam (one of our favorite eating places in Rishikesh, for its hygiene and tasty food at decent prices, but extremely slow service and a strange combo of Tea, Lassi, and Curd in the same combo breakfast)… Unfortunately the quality has deteriorated over the last 3 years… Anyway… this is where Uncle God decided to start playing a few games 🙂 and it started raining… Our entire plan could have been washed out, had it not stopped raining in a while… It thankfully did, and we were now ready to move too… A long walk and we were on the other side of the Ganges at the taxi stand for Neelkanth Mahadev Temple…

    The Rains left us with some lovely pearl like momentos ready to be captured 🙂

    A very interesting door I saw while walking around… this ladder is the only way to reach the door…

    Buddhist Prayer Flags on the Laxman Jhoola

    Neelkanth is about 25 kms (drive) and 14 kms (Trek) away from Rishikesh… The taxis are available near the Ram Jhula and Laxman Jhula, near the Choti wala Restaurant and Trayambkeshwar Temple respectively… It’s a little tricky to get a taxi here, because the drivers/operators are not keen on any empty seats and because a lot of people travel in groups, it’s tough to get the exact number of seats in a cab… We were lucky and an operator helped us get an Amby shared between the two of us and family of 3… The travel time to and back from Neelkanth was not much thanks to the good quality car and very efficient driver…

    Pooja Thalis at a shop near Neelkanth Mahadev…

    Pooja Thalis at a shop near Neelkanth Mahadev…

    Tushar’s Thali… The Plastic glass has Gangajal, Honey, Gulab Jal and Milk mixed in it…

    We however were stunned to see the amount of people who were there at the temple… We took the pooja thalis and moved towards the end of the queue, walked for about 10 minutes before we saw the last person in the queue… And this meant that there were at-least 200 people in the queue ahead of us…

    A part of the loooong queue….

    Just a tap… nothing specific… I click leaking taps…

    It was already pretty hot by then, and I was in no mood to stand there… Tushar did not either, and we turned back towards the temple where we offered our prayers at a different Shivling, lucky us that we realized there was a view of the main temple and Shivling… and offered our prayers through that window 🙂 smart US 🙂

    The place for Incense Sticks and Dhoopbatti…

    Another view…

    A lady tying the Holy Thread (Kalava) on a grill…

    A Lady looking at the interesting roof of the Neelkanth Temple… Though it’s in the north, the temple’s roof and top resembles the temples in the South a lot…

    Kids need Papas and Mamas to ring the Temple Bells 🙂

    Friends of all ages were around too 🙂

    Tired, and yet managed to smile a bit 🙂 Tushar must have said something cheap 😛

    We moved back from Neelkanth, got down at the Laxman Jhoola, took a few pictures and walked for about a km or more in the heat looking for a Tempo towards Ram Jhoola… we finally got to enjoy the best ride of the trip with our bags inside the tempo and we standing outside with the cool breeze whooshing past our faces drying up all the sweat and fatigue 🙂

    The Trayambkeshwar Temple, near Ram Jhoola, has 11 floors in all, here is a list of all the Gods you can meet there 🙂

    A view from the top of Lakshman Jhoola

    The motor boat near the Laksham Jhoola… The same As#$%#le had hit our raft head on at full speed on one of my rafting trips… It’s only Gods grace that I am alive right now, otherwise he had made sure that the people on the left of the raft had their heads ripped off from the bodies… No idea how we managed to survive… Thank you Uncle God 🙂

    We reached the Ram Jhoola, and spent sometime trying to figure out which beach/Ghat we could go to take a bath… It was not a very difficult decision, however once we were there, getting inside the water which seemed freezing cold was tough !!! took us a while before we decided to give up all our fear of the current, and cold water and just jumped in !!! spent some gooood 45 odd minutes before we decided to leave…

    I could try some splashes too after clicking some on the recent trip to Kurukshetra 🙂
    And I emerge a winner 🙂 against the current and the cold water !!! Omie you rock !!!

    Some relaxing time pass too 🙂 By this time I was ok with the water 🙂

    And then I made Tushar do some chapaak chapaak 🙂 He is lighter… you can see his head going in… with me being atleast 100 kgs heavier than him 🙂 my fall was quicker 😀

    But the two brothers were very happy after the 20+ dubkies, the throwing water at each other, the running out of water because it was cold, and the chapaak chapaaks 🙂

    Had good food at the Chotiwala… waiting for a bus at the bus stand… thought of coming via Dehradoon for the charm of AC buses running between Delhi-Dehradoon, but finally took a decent Pawan Gold to Delhi… slept most of the way in awkward positions on the seat 🙂 just to wake up at times with a painful lower back, or a pulled musled in the neck, or legs 🙂 change the position and sleep again 🙂 This time as well the journey took much longer than usual, thanks to the freaking jam at the border near Dilshad Garden… must be about 2 kms long and it took about 100 odd minutes to pass !!! We managed to reach the ISBT, Kashmiri Gate around 0400 hrs and then home around 0445 hrs….

    The Ram Jhoola…

    What a trip it was !!! just the perfect 24 hour recharge that my mind required… I can now wait for some 10 days before I start getting itchy about another travel 🙂 hehehe…

    I did not know that Lakshman Jhoola was this old… Now I do…


    Some more information, not necessarily about this trip but for the Delhi- Haridwar- Rishikesh Route:
    1. Distance
    Delhi – Haridwar : 208 kms; Delhi- Rishikesh : 230 kms
    2. Approximate Time :
    Delhi – Haridwar : 4-5 hours, Depending on the time of the day you are driving
    3. Best way to travel:
    Hire a cab or drive yourself…I would say hire a cab, its better to be driving around on the bad roads instead of punishing your own vehicle… The 4 lane highway is under progress for good on the stretch, however it would take a good couple of years before it can get fully operational..
    4. Eating options enroute and on location:
    Cheetal near Khatoli, Moolchand just before the Muzaffarnagar bypass; Mohanji Poori wale near Har Ki Paudi, Chotiwala Restaurant near Ram Jhoola, Govindji’s Prasadam near the parking in Rishikesh
    5. Bus Tickets and other fare : Rs. 150 per person (Delhi Rishikesh in the UP Roadways bus); Rs. 5 for the boatride one way near the Ram Jhula; Rs. 5 for Tempo per person from the bus stand to Ram Jhula in Rishikesh; Rs. 600 for the Amby ( Seats 5) for Rishikesh-Neelkanth and back
    6. Staying options: Many hotels ranging from Rs. 500 per night for a double occupancy to Rs. 2500 double occupancy

  • Dilli-Rishikesh-Chamba-Dhanaulti-Mossourie-Dehradoon-Dilli

    Steering wheel in the hand for two days…. and now the keyboard of this laptop… trust me it reeeeealy does not feel good… I am already missing that cool air… something that could make you shiver in the hottest of sun as well… something that tells you what being pure is really about… umhum….. what awesome two days these were….

    16-April; NOIDA; 0545 hrs….
    8818 kms on the dash !!! Me, Aro and Martina leave NOIDA… we had not planned anything for the next two days..and were in a mood to take it the way it was coming…. though we were a good 2 hours late then the planned time to leave.. the early morning sun was still not there to greet us…. moving from noida towards haridwar at an easy 80 kmph i was realy enjoying the morning breeze… while listening to the Mahamrityunjaya Matra…Drove for about three and half hours before all three of us decided to stop and have tea… so there we were 8978 kms on my dash, 0930 hrs in my watch.. and about 60 kms before Haridwar we took a break….. Sat on the “charpais” in the Mansarovar Restaurant , surrounded by thick trees and a sweet smell of wet soil (the owner had just sprayed the entire area with water)… it was good feel… this is when i am usually in the office.. working on something or other.. and today i was walking around with a Nikon n65 thinking where should i take a few pictures from… what a striking difference between friday and saturday :)I think we were there for about 45 minutes… and then moved to Haridwar… instead of going to Har Ki Pauri, we decided to take a different road and try reach the banks of the actual river in the car itself.. and managed to do that too 🙂 the flow of the river is actually diverted towards the bathing ghats and that is why the river itself did not have a lot of water flowing.. which made it really easy for us to just pull up our pants and walk inside the water for sometime 🙂 :)…. and then take a bath as well… ummm… the water was reeeeealy cold and once out of the ganges.. i was as fresh as ever.. not at all tired… ready to drive !!! took some fotos around the place.. and finally moved out of haridwar around 1130 hrs…

    Driving from Haridwar to Rishikesh is a good exp. The road is good.. and is between the rajaji national park.. so you can ( if you are lucky) can see some deers at times…. monkeys lotsa them :)… sometimes inside the cars.. and sometimes outside …. reached rishikesh in about 45 min… the plan was to stay in rishikesh overnight.. and do some rafting in the morning on sunday !!! Aro checked out a couple of hotels.. but i decided to move ahead.. and see if can get some better options… and this is where things changed.. I saw this booking office for rafting and all and decided to check out if we could go for rafting righaway… and the good news was that we could… from Shivpuri to Rishikesh… checked two places.. one wanted us to pay 450 bucks per head.. and we would be picked up from that office around 1500 hrs and start rafting by 1600 hrs… we were fine with this arrangement.. when I decided to walk into one more office and see what he had to offer… and here was the offer : 400 bucks per head..Shiv Puri to Rishikesh… and we had to move rightaway 🙂 Aro reeeally was not keen on this.. but me and Martina forced him to go.. and we paid the guy 1200 bucks and sat in the Amby which was to take us to Shivpuri… Martina was kinda suprised when we told her that for about 20 odd years Amby was the car which was driven on Indian roads…

    anyway… we had to take a sumo from some distance ahead.. and then reached shivpuri… Aro was shit scared and me and martina were enjoying the looks on his face while was busy looking at the Ganga and the rapids that he would actually get in… hehehehehee.. it was a good drive….
    finally we were at the banks of Ganga in Shivpuri… Three rafts… 24 ppl… 4 different groups… i was kinda uncomfortable with this.. coz on a raft its always good to have ppl who you know a li’il or more…. coz rafting is one “team” exercise that I have seen…. however the raft we took was a good heterogeneous mix of ppl… Me, Aro and Martina… Two more german girls… two guys from somewhere in India…makes it a total of 7 ppl and our instructor…. I took that front left space… martina behind me on the left.. and because Aro was really scared… he took the last place on the left just next to the instructor !!!! Aaaaaaand there we go… finally in the river.. did some small warmup exercises… Front Paddle.. back paddle…left front right back… left back right front… and STOP !!!!

    Went through rapids like Return to Centre, Roller Coster, Club House, and finally “No more Rapids”… back in rishikesh at 1745 hrs… wat a water trip this was… awesome… changed our clothes and had food in Madhusudan Restaurant.. this was something on the lines of ISKON… they had a temple and a small restaurant and a guest house as well… good food.. and very very cheap… 219 was the bill for the three of us… and me and aro as usual were really hungry and ate as if this was the last time we were getting food 🙂
    Time to decide what we want to do next… we asked a couple of ppl as to where could we go from there.. and out of the many options that we got we chose “Chamba” as our next spot… 60 kms and about 2.5 hours away.. considering that I had never driven on the hills, we decided to move to Chamba… started at 1915 hrs… distance on the dash at this hour was 1915 kms… It was dark, it was hilly and it was my first drive on the hills… so a lot of excitement… and exactly 2 hours and 60 kms later we were in Chamba.. the small hilly town was already asleep and we had to find the Garhwal Nigam Bunglow to sleep… on our way to that place.. we saw this small but ok sorts of a hotel.. and decided to stop there… we were not hungry… coz we had great food back in rishikesh about 2 hours back… so we decided to call it a day !!! Aro as soon as got inside the bed got up again… saying that he was feeling as if he was still in the raft 🙂 and was moving like that.. hehehehehe… but we convinced him that he was very much on a bed which was on firm ground and could sleep as well.. so he went off to sleep, snoring away to glory while Me and Martina decided to take a walk around the place for a while before we get into our beds….had tea at 2230 hours.. and then finally got inside the rooms and slept.. We took a single room and got an extra bed for her inside that room.. and her bed was right next to the window from where could see the valley, and the small lights here and there !!! good view..

    17 April:
    Some disturbance in the room wakes me up at 0600 hrs.. and look out of the window to see the sun just about to come up from the hill in the east.. so even though i wanted to sleep more.. i got out of the bed so that I do not miss this view !!!It was chilly outside… there was no sun so far at the point where I was standing… and the air was very cold.. and i did not have any jacket or anything… enjoyed that feeling for about 15 minutes before the sun was there in front of us… we decided to have a quick breakfast and move from Chamba.. the route that we had to take was go to Dhanaulti and then to Massourie on our way to Dehradoon… We had to decide that we want to go back to Haridwar from D’doon or straight to Delhi once we reach there… so we moved outta Chamba at 0830 hrs ( 9118 kms)…. Only a part of the road between Chamba and Dhanaulti is good, most of it actually is in a bad shape… we stopped at quite a few places to enjoy the surroundings…there were no sounds except the air… cannot decribe that feeling in words… no way possible…the hills were full of Buransh… a deep red flower, the juice of which is supposed to have a high medicinal value… at a lot of places on our way… the red petals of the flower were there.. which had fallen off the trees at higher mountains…. Drove past Dhanaulti, as we did not feel that it was any more beautiful then wat we had seen in the past few kilometres…. though i was driving very slow enjoying the cool breeze and the scenic looks of the place…..

    Reached Massourie at 1200 hrs ( 9176 kms) and I did not like that place.. too crowded… not the kinda hill station i would like to be in… reminded me of Nainital which I really hated when I saw it for the first time…. we thought we would go to Kemty falls but it was a good 15 kms away.. and we would have to be back on the same road… I was in no mood to drive to that place after having a look at this town…. it for sure would be full of tourists and families… who would never take a chance and go to a town which most do not frequent !!! anyway… we parked the car there only.. and walked to the market… had some food there… and some mango shake… on our way back.. bought some grapes and bananas.. so that we could eat them on our way back !!! and finally managed to leave Massourie at 1325 hrs…

    The road to D’doon is very well laid…. and it was real fun driving on this road !!! though I was careful about not picking up speed which I cannot control… though it was the first exp of hill driving.. i was enjoying it like anything… tooooooooo GOOOD !!!

    Once we reached D’doon, we were not in a mood to go to Haridwar again.. so we took the way to Roorkee from there which goes through the Rajaji National Park and managed to get on that highway at 1430 hrs ( 9210 kms)… As soon the hills end there is a road for about 50 odd kms which is a straiiiiiiiiiight road… managed to touch 120 kmph on this road without any problems and was driving b/w 100-120 for about 15-20 minutes… too bad the traffic started building up soon.. and had to get back to a comfortable 80-90 zone !!! Reached Roorkee.. took a turn towards Meerut, stopped at Khatauli for a quick bite and was in Delhi by 2115 hrs (9475kms)… Thinking about another day in office.. and how bad i wanted to be back in Chamba 🙁
    Anyway….here i am today…. writing about whatever happened in the last two days…rafting from Shivpuri to Rishikesha total of 40 litres of Petrol used and 650 kms covered. No refuel needed on the entire trip thanks to the huge 48 litre petrol tank of the car.about 120 kms of driving in the hills which was fhinomenol !!!the way my car worked on this trip is something that strengthens my trust in Fiat… it was absolutely effortless.. and I was not at all tired when I reached home in the night !!!

    Here is something that I thought of right now:
    40 litres of Petrol : 1500 rupees
    17 kms of Rafting : 400 rupees
    Food for three in Rishikesh : 219 rupees
    The feeling of not being tired at all at the end of a two day 650 km drive : Priceless 🙂

    Oh yes.. did i forget writing that we managed to take over 70 fotos in these two days? Thanks to my dear friend Rupak who was kind enough to give me his NIKON N65 🙂