A trip to the mountains

The best vacations for me have been the ones, which are promptly decided and we pack the bags and leave on. This happened to be one of such breaks. I spoke to Shily bhaiya and he said ,he and Armaan are planning for rafting holiday and asked if I wanted to come and it was a "yes", for I really needed a break for this year has had me running to hospitals , for so many people, that I was jumping over it. And the most good part was this excitement spread on, Deepa added on and there on I checked with Parents and Nisha Chachi and Arun (who were here on a holiday from Canada) and it was becoming bigger family trip. That was good enough excitement for Aju, Leena and Natasha to join in and before we could close in. We were 11 people already. Keshav was to join in but his hospital trips were unpredictable and he could not predict the days. And since it was instant the tickets were difficult, but it fell in place. The best part in India is you can pay a little extra and get the needful reservations which don’t look like a possibility. We got 1st class booked for Mussourie express and with all set and done, we managed to catch the train in "Jab We Met" style. The flight from Bombay was a little late and the traffic to the way home was bad, we all ran barely letting the Bombay family grabbing dinner and we were at station just at the time when the train was to leave. Catching itself was so much fun and Natasha was so happy in the train and was jumping all over. I can also say the 1st class journey to rishikesh is the best way to reach there.
We landed there early in the morning and we had our hired cab there. We preferred a bigger van so that we all could fit in together and hence rented a tempo traveler for our stay, to take us around. While the cabbie was clearing the van, a few of them wanted morning tea and there on we started on our vacation venue, which was abt 2 and half hour drive. We landed there by 9 and chose our tents. Good part for the early break was the place was not occupied as the rush was expected on Holi season and that was the time, we would have moved on from there. We pretty much had the whole place to ourselves. We all had a breakfast and than it was time for rafting (the prime reason for reaching there early morning :). Mom and Natasha were staying back and Nattie is such an easy child that she was happy to be in sand with a spoon or a glass and mom could tell her “My friend Ganesha” story and she would be missing no one. There were a lot of rapids we covered, we floated in the water a bit and it was freezing. After floating a while you would start feeling numbness. We rafted all the way till Rishikesh and we all enjoyed it completely. We could not trace our mini bus and whiled our time a little, when we realized it was parked on the opposite side, as the area was no entry zone. We reached back in time for lunch. At camps like this the food becomes the grieving problem – the food is there but you can’t say its healthy and hygienic. The worst was the dry loo’s concept, which was a trouble especially in the evenings, as the place had no light!
Due to sensitive skin I wanted to take a bath and we girls went to the stream (it looked like past days for villagers). We had carried some mugs for our usage from here and nattie, while playing missed it in the stream.
We lazed a while and it turned rather hot and unbearable to be inside the tents. We went to see Ganga Arti at Rishikesh in the evening. Shily bhaiya highly recommended it and it was worth all the recommendation, he had put in. There were children in yellow dress and it was more like a planned and organized event. We sat on for the complete arti and then put the roses and the diyas in the river as our offerings. The place leaves a good feeling there that you like to come back again. We attended the whole arti, so we missed the last boat to cross the place and had to walk quickly to reach our bus. The connecting road is sealed in the evenings by 7:30 to avoid any mis-happenings from the mountain slides and accidents due to no electricity availability on the road.


We reached back and crossed the seal just on time. Had a bon-fire in the evening at the camp. Evenings tend to get pleasant and mildly cold in mountains and hence the fire was a warm welcome. We sat by the fire for a while and than headed for dinner and had an early night. Somehow most of the family has the tendency of being early risers so its early to bed for us all. Mornings started with tea – they had a good tea made, which everyone liked and pretty much the same we were getting ready for the rafting. Me and Shily bhaiya wanted to try ‘the wall rapid’ for a few of us. However the camp folks said the water current was too high and it would not be recommended.


We decided to take on the regular course, he had planned. This one was fun raft too as we were allowed to float in water while we crossed a rapid. There was a lifeline which we all cringed to and all of us were in water. We went past the place where Achla bua’s lasts was submersed, it was memories for all three of them. Coming back to the camp we had nattie come in the boat and there was a small ride for her near there. We all liked the raft experience that we were troubling shily bhaiya to plan it for the next day as well. We had a bath (again nattie let a mug in the stream) and after lunch headed for rishikesh yet again for the arti. This was the same experience yet again. We were back on time and had bon fire followed by early night. By next morning most of them backed out so the rafting was cancelled as it needed at least 5-6 strong people to tug it in the rapids. We headed for danholti straight on. More so the holi weekend was approaching so the place was becoming packed out and the more crowded it became, the more anxious we were to leave on.

Danholti is some 4 hours drive further up in the mountains. We stopped on the way to visit “KunjaDevi temple”. The temple is famous as a place where Shiva’s wife breast fell over. Shily bhaiya again was familiar to the place and he said he had come over there on his birthday early morning a few years back (when he was staying in Ananda). The priest told him this story that when Shakti had died and Shiva was wilding away with her body to have her come alive, Vishnu lord sent his chakra to make the body spread in pieces to make Shiva free. Her body dissipated in 52 body parts and once part fell in Kunjadevi.
Coming to the camp “Whispering pines” in danholti, it was pleasant as the tents were much better. We chose our tents and went for a short nap, after lunch. The travel up was exhausting. The guide “Shobharam” took us for a trek to the pines in the evening. It was an easy trek and we went through apple trees gardens (the apples weren’t visible as the trees were just flowering). The place is at 14000 ft above sea level so it was cold and not only cold it was freezing cold. We were in the common tent in the evening and everyone opted for a blanket to help the cold. Thankfully there was electricity so we could see around. Food was a consistent problem as some of them started to have loose stomachs. We all sat in a common tent and refused a bonfire as it was freezing outside. We took some blankets and sat with them and played card games, which was fun.
The next day was “Holi” and we were advised not to go out till afternoon as the villages around use even cow dung to play. We sat in the sun instead, laid some sheets over grass, saw the snow covered peeks. Nattie was fun as she was telling stories that she is in Switzerland and her child-like stories kept flowing. We also spotted a few Racoons around there playing over the hills. It was leisure spell , we played cards oiled our hair and had a hot water shower. In the afternoon we planned for rappelling, the place was abt 10 mins drive from our camp and we had to trek further some 50 feet up and tie a belt and rope it on and walk back to ground.


Good adventure it was, Arun was the slowest as he was scared all the time. Back from there we headed for Tehri dam, about 1 hour drive and there was a split in opinion if we wanted to leave for there in evening, but we went nevertheless and were glad that we did when we saw it on. It is a huge project and lovely to look at. It runs over 52 Kms of water preservance and many villages have been evacuated to make way for it. The project is run over last 45 years now and once up and running it shall be able to serve the needs for entire Northern grid electricity supply. The cabbie could add that there was a road to go across the mountain 6 months back and now it’s such a huge stream of Ganga there that one cant even measure the depth. To top it all it was a spectacular view. Way back was little uneasy with nausea for the travelling in the mountains, we stopped many places as a few puked on the way. We had bon fire on the camp as there were few others who added on from another group. Yet we moved inside as it was rather cold sitting out. It was a fun moon night and the sky was spectacular.
I took some unaware shots of Shily Bhaiya, next day early morning, when he would sit out to see the sunrise and I think they have come out the best of the complete vacation photo shoot. He wishes to use that as the back cover of the book he is working on and I am really glad it came worth that usage.
We had to leave the next day and we were contemplating to take the train from dehradun or haridwar. Shobharam was clueless and yet he added on and in spite of all that we decided we would take it from dehradun. Shily bhaiya, Leena and myself went for a morning trek to a temple called “Sarkhanda devi” via the mountain way. We took the guide from the camp and he said we were the fastest among all the people he had taken so far  It was a good cardio trek, we barely stopped on the way and when we did we used it for photo shoots break. We were there in about 1 hour. Once at the top one can see the snow covered peeks in china, Kailash parvat and other mountains. The priest let us go to the inside of the cave and after the darshan we headed to return via the stairs way. The so called mini bus was waiting for us down below to take us back to the camp. Once there we barely had time to have lunch, pack and leave for the train. Lovely holiday and it was an adventure, cum leisure cum spiritual cum family holiday. God bless us with more of such kinds. Amen !