A weekend trip to Rishikesh from New Delhi

    We have an weekend trip to Rishikesh during mid June. I along with few of my colleagues went to Rishikesh for Camping and Rafting in the Ganga Valley.

    We board the bus from New Delhi around 9PM and reached Rishikesh around 5AM in a pleasant morning. On the way to Rishikesh, we had our dinner in a road-side Dhaba. From Rishikesh, we booked auto-rickshaw to Tapovan. We had already booked for camping at Camp Roller Coaster, but the camp check-in time was at 9AM. Hence, we decided to start walking towards the camp. It took us close to 3 hours to reach the camp site, which was close to 11KM a journey with ups and downs on the road. By the time we reach there, all of us were fully tired.

    The most challenging task for us at that time was to get down from the road on a sloped footpath, barely having any stair-case, to reach the camp on the river bank. I had a thrilling experience, as I was going down, my legs were trembling and still I was showing that I had sufficient energy to balance myself to reach the camp safely. Any way, we reached the camp safely and arrangements were already done. So we took little rest in the camp.

    After the breakfast at the camp, we went straight in the river. In spite of the hot sunny weather, we enjoyed the moment in the river, as the water was chilling cold. We played carom and volley ball. We took our lunch at 2PM and wait for our boat for rafting. The river rafting experience was the sweetest memory to remember during the whole camping time. We had our guide, who told us about the safety guidelines. It was my fast river rafting, I took the middle seat in the boat. During the rafting, we shuffled the rafting positions, so that everybody can fill all type of situations. The most thrilling part of rafting was there, when all of us went inside water and try to float in the water alongside the boat. We rafted for 10KM and finished at Rishikesh.

    Post rafting, all of us had lemon juice and went back to the camp. By the time reach the camp, bonfire had started. Though none of us sat in front of the fire, we enjoyed the snacks available and the beauty of river bank in the moon light. We also had our dinner in the river bed. It was difficult for me to sleep in the camp due to the roaring sound of river Ganga.

Panoramic View of River Ganga at Camp Roller Coaster Camp

    In the next morning, we enjoyed some quality time in the river bed in a cool weather. Few of us took bath in river Ganga again. We checked out from the camp around 9AM and went to Rishikesh. We had our bus back to Delhi in the evening. Hence, we decided to visit few more places. We booked a cab and went to Haridwar. On our way, we went to Chandi Devi Temple. The temple is situated at the hill-top of Neel mountain, which was close to 3KM from the main road. We could not visit the temple, due to lack of time and went straight Haridwar.

    In Haridwar, we visited the Dakshya Temple, where the Dakshya Jagya Dedi exists. We had our lunch and went to the main place of Haridwar, the Har-ki-Pauri. We spent some time there visiting the temples and went back to Rishikesh to catch the bus.