Hi again,

Nice to see you after a short time:D. I will give you a live e-description of my Rafting Hike in Ganga for which I went from my College(RIMC).

We all boarded the bus for Srinagar, a small town in Garhwal Himalayas some 270 kms from Dehradun. It is the place where Ganga is suppose to have less flow velocity and no 5+ grade rapids. It was a day’s journey on serpentine roads of Himalayas which makes me sick but somehow I managed to reach that place unscathed: D We reached in evening and pitched our tents on a school’s ground. We were to leave that place next day. We played some football and volleyball, gossiped about some military tactics and then fell into our world of dreams (though I never got any) L

Next day we got up early in morning, packed our tents and then filled up air in our rafts. Our rucksacks were sent by bus and we got ready for our course. There were three groups of 10 ppl each who will sit in one raft. There were three instructors, one for each raft, who looked amazingly stud and our PT “sahabs” as we used to call them.

Before I go forward, I would like to tell you about some terminology of rafting and its general overview. It is one of the toughest and deadliest adventure sports. All rapids are divided into 6 categories. 1+, 2+ and so on. 4+ rapids are very dangerous but the probability of dying in it is very little. 5+ rapids are called suicidal and include small waterfalls. 6+ rapids have the same probability of coming out alive as 4+ rapids of deaths. We came across two 4+ rapids – Daniel Dip and Wall rapid. Both were awesome.

There are also some body surfing rapids where you can jump into the water and feel the waves for 1 km or so. Our raft was the lucky one to jump into the water. Others dint have the chance because they had to stay on board to save if any of us fall into some dangerous whirlpool or get stuck or get unconscious. Anyways, me and my best friend Sharyf , we both were good swimmers in our class and swam away to glory in that body surfing rapid and still remember whenever we meet. Roller Coaster Rapid was among the finest of all rapids with a cascade of ups and downs and the water was soooooo white there that at first we were extremely frightened and were finding the easiest way out but waves carried us into the heart of the rapid.

So in the first day we met some small 2+ rapids and a few 3+ rapids. We stopped by some arbit village and slept on rooftop of a school. It was my first time when I slept under the open sky and we were looking at stars directly. Next day was again filled up with small rapids and a few challenging ones. Third day was awesome when we met Wall rapid, the dangerous of all rapids and it has taken toll of many lives before. It was fun anyway and we were the first raft to cross. Now the funda of first raft is that it is dangerous to be in first raft because there is no one to save you if you get caught. Second and third rafts are always the safest. But we cleared it without much problem and it was one of the most wonderful, cherished, and thrilling experience of my life. Then we halted on the bank of river Ganga and took bath in a flowing stream nearby. We played volleyball in the evening and prepared for the final day.

On final day we again had this awesome Roller Coaster rapid which I said was a series of ups and down. When we approaching it, the world seemed to halt and we were extremely excited though scared. The first rapid threw our raft into air and we were rowing in air for quite a long time. It took 1 minute to cross the whole series of rapids but it seemed a lifetime. When all the rafts safely cleared all the rapids then we cheered and had some biscuits. :D We again met some wonderful rapids on our way to Hrishikesh, our destination for the hike.

It was a wonderful experience with too much of thrill and a test of our courage and guts. Better go for some rafting experience in one of the summers. I will definitely go for it once again in my life.:D