Having been in Delhi for several days, we decided to take a trip to the foothills of the Himalayas for whitewater rafting. We took an insane 7 hour drive from New Delhi to the Aquaterra camp just north of Rishikesh in the state of Uttaranchal in India. Having been sufficiently warned by Dushyant of the cold at this time of the year, we promptly ignored everything he had said and landed up at the camp without a full set of warm clothes.
Upon reaching the camp (situated about 25 kilometers above Rishikesh), we met Vikram (who is the camp manager), Eliana (who is visiting from Switzerland and helping out at the camp), Jai Singh (raft guide) and many others. At this time of the year (December), there are not many guests staying at the camp as it gets quite cold. The camp had a bunch of nice tents which we stayed in. All along the banks of the Ganga, there are several areas of white sand. The area is beautiful, with a clean river, nice camps and beautiful forests all around. The only things that is somewhat negative is the screeching sounds of the buses as they rumble by above.
Several rafting companies have leased this land from the Uttaranchal government. Contrary to our expectations, the government, in conjunction with the tourism board and the rafting society, ensure a good level of safety and professionalism in the rafting tours. Vikram and the guides were excellent in terms of professionalism, safety and hospitality - we would definitely recommend you to try this out if you are ever visiting New Delhi - a 3-day round-trip is all you need. In these photos, you can see Smruti and I at our fashionable best (not!) - we had to wear wetsuits (very kindly provided by the camp) in order to endure the cold of the river.
We went rafting in the afternoon, and then again the next morning. The river in this area has several pools and several stretches of whitewater as well, mostly of grade levels 3 and 3+. With names like Three Blind Mice, Daniel's Dip and the Wall, the whitewater is comfortably challenging. On the first afternoon, we went down an 18 km stretch of the river pretty comfortably, with nobody falling into the water. I went into the water (voluntarily) to swim along with the raft and also to bodysurf in the whitewater at times. The water was very cold but the wetsuit provided protection to some extent. Contrary to experiences that other people have had here, we did not encounter any dead bodies floating along with us!
On the second morning, we went rafting higher up the river. We were joined by 
two brothers from Delhi, one of whom was going rafting for the first time. Anyway, about 1 minute into the rafting trip, the raft plunged into Daniel's Dip and 5 people went flying overboard! Smruti and I were left in the raft as we had been in the center of the raft, the calmest part of the raft. We got stuck in an eddy, but then succeeded in pulling Lokesh on board and then Jai Singh, our guide, as well. With this crew, we beached the raft and waited until everybody else joined us. Needless to say, everybody must have been purified several times over by this dip in the Ganga. The photo here shows the crew from the second day, having lunch after a grueling rafting trip.
We were joined at lunch by a group of people who had just finished a rafting expedition on the Brahmaputra river in Arunachal Pradesh which is in the Northeastern part of India and borders China. The Brahmaputra flows into India from China, where it is called the Yarlong Zhangbo, and originates in Tibet. The Brahmaputra then flows through India and into Bangladesh. There are lots of other places in India to go whitewater rafting, including Himachal Pradesh, Kashmir (Ladakh) and various other parts of the Himalayas in India.
We had another insane and hellish drive back to Delhi - our driver, Jagdeesh, who was all of 18 years old, insisted in breaking all land-speed records on the way back. And this was during the night, when madness grips all highway drivers in India. Trucks full of petroleum and bullock carts piled high with sugarcane were minor annoyances to Jagdeesh who overtook from the left and right, and also right in front of oncoming trucks (this photo shows exactly what you can see when an oncoming truck has its headlights on full beam and is barreling toward you at breakneck speed with the truck-driver intent on doing damage to anything in its way). We narrowly avoided getting run over by several petroleum-laden trucks.
We also heard an interesting story about the bullock carts with sugarcane. Sometimes, there are convoys of 50+ of these bullock carts, traveling at night between cities. The bullock-cart drivers get the convoy going and then climb on top of the sugarcane and go to sleep. So now you have 50 bullock-carts on auto-pilot for a full night. Apparently, each bullock just follows the cart in front of it blindly. The front bullock follows the line of the road. Somebody once played a practical joke and turned around the front cart in the middle of the night without the drivers finding out. Next morning, the convoy found itself back where it had started! Anyway, I would like to suggest that this is the oldest form of auto-pilot ever used in the world - Boeing and Airbus must have taken their inspiration from this.
All-in-all, we had a wonderful time with Aquaterra and whitewater rafting. We'd recommend it to anybody who has a few days to spare in North India.
- Dev
Okay--you say you and Smruti were the only ones who didn't plunge into the river at Daniel's Dip? I dunnno...sounds fishy to me.
Glad you guys are taking advantage of India's extreme sports.
Happy Holidays.
Posted by: Camille | Wednesday, December 22, 2004 at 04:48 PM