The Demise of Rishikesh ...

... At least as a weekend get away option. Don't ever do it to yourself.
 I insist. Go in an off season maybe. but never dare to go there during the weekend. The whole delhi is going to be there. The rude men staring at you. The nosy aunty from the neighborhood. The overpriced and full guest houses. Even that ananda spa visit won't be worth it if you are struck in delhi traffic in rishikesh.

On the positive side, the freedom cafe pancake was still worth the visit. The view is without a doubt one of the good ones in rishikesh. And it had drizzled when we sat there...

The fruit nutella pancake :)

Freedom Cafe, Rishikesh 

The little Buddha cafe was also very good, but too crowded. The roof top most outside chairs were a good spot to sit. Ganga at nite ...

The Little Buddha , Rishikesh

Seeing this picture makes me realize how I badly want a DSLR ... hmm hopefully soon, now that I am employed full time.

But I still want to go to the place called Moon dance near Ram Jhula (The above are near Laxman Jhula). I hear its good food. So that might just take me back to rishikesh. Also, the long wanted never daring baba massage center's massage :)

So guess will go back to rishikesh for this and maybe to find less mean spots and timings. 

(p.s. It is more of an adrenaline rush to cross the laxman jhula on a heavy bike at evening than rafting)

Some more Rishikesh... Tapovan .

I don't have any supporting photographs for this post .... thanx to Shubham , told her to get batteries for the camera and hence this ....

One place you will miss in Rishikesh ,and you should not is 'Tapovan' . Its somewhere on the way from Laxman Jhula to Bhrampuri (around 3km from Laxman Jhula) .
There is nothing much to do here ,but you still love it here. We decided to stay at 'Tripti' (Highly recommended). The place is owned by a really good-at-heart man ,who teaches local children for free and loves talking about his own children . He lites the beautiful lamps in the main hall ,which can be seen from the road too and it looks beautiful. Also ,the small unkept garden in front of the rooms adds to an interesting view.

Without a doubt the best place to eat is 'The Garden Cafe' of The Green Hills cottage ,just opposite to Tripti . Don't be disappointed at the entry ,find your way into the garden and you will love it.
There is a common hall where one can sit and do anything ,watch a movie on the TV, listen to the music and noise of the fellow travelers.....or you can sit outside the hall ,in the garden. Its is decorated with light strings (the ones we use at diwali at our homes) . I ordered a pancake (do i ever order anything else ??) ,shubham a sizzler and rupinder went ahead with just a coffee (she lost her appetite after falling off the raft ! ha ha !).
The food was really good but the service was slow owing to the huge crowd at that time.
But whos complaining ... I like places where they take their own sweet time to prepare food for you, so in the mean time we always have food for thought :)



That was Rishikesh for us.
But there is still a lot explore in rishikesh ,a lot .
Hoping I get the time and money soon ,together .

Rishikesh...Just a land of ganges ????

It was very very rickety bus , anddd we were sitting on the last seat. 

We had taken the bus from ambala at noon (a bus leaves for 'Haridwar' every 15 mins from there ) and we reached Haridwar at around 7 pm ,took another 'more' rickety bus for rishikesh ,which went through a very rickety route. 

Now , no one of us intended to go any religious places at all ( we had just been to every possible temple and gurudwara at Katra, Jammu and Amritsar !!! ) . So we intended to just have some fun in rishikesh . 

Since we were late and we had not booked with a camping site , we decided to stay back in rishikesh, main city and look for an accommodation in market itself .

Shouldn't have even tried this . Any decent accommodation was very expensive and moreover they gave weird reactions when we said we were from delhi (they seriously have some problem with that !!!) . It went over the top when one of the owners refused to even show us a room because the time was around 9:30 pm and we were from delhi !!!!!

So we decided to cross the Laxman Jhula and then we found ourselves at a gurudwara which wouldn't again take us in because of the time and the place we were from ! !! 

So Finally we found ourselves standing in front of a line of 'closed' adventure sports/camping shops/offices , calling anyone and everyone we knew ,hunting for any kind of help . ANY. I seriously didn't think of spending the night outside Iskcon temple as fun or even adventure .  GOD heard us (after all we were in rishikesh !) , Shubham spotted a half closed shutter at one of the shops. 'The Dream life Adventures' . The owner was sitting inside ,a nice plump dark man , he said 'yes' , he could arrange it . THANK GOD . We tried to negotiate on the already very affordable price (I think today ,how short of money were we ?? ) , he did lessen a very meager amount. He arranged for his taxi to take us to the camping site (a blessing in disguise,how did we think we would survive,we didnot even have our own vehicle to go there) .

So the fun finally began ! We had a very tasty dinner at Iskcon temple's restaurant ,it was clean,tasty,affordable and fulfilling after the ordeal.

While we were waiting for the car to come , I saw a lightening!..The journey to camps was thrilling too. The driver thought he was Michael Schumacher ,and the rain ,thunder ,narrow mountain roads ,construction going on these did not bother him at all. 

We trekked down in our mobile lights to the camp , just saw a little bit around and went off to sleep.

I opened my eyes . Rupinder was shouting on top of her lungs .... 'Whats her problem now????' Shubham muttered . I decided to find out . I stepped out of the tent . It was morning ! It was beautiful ! and Rupinder was shouting at the passing rafts ,abusing them. Thats her idea of fun you see . stupid . But I decided to join . 5 mins later we three were howling at the top of our lungs ,and the camp caretaker and cook thought we had lost it !

The last raft we howled at in rishikesh.

Its a good time to tell you that there is just one main area called 'Shivpuri' where the main camping site is. We were not there . We were at 'Bhrampuri' , not at all commercialized and very peaceful . The best part was , since we visited during weekdays ,we were the only ones at the camp. 

It was like having our own private island. We roasted in the sun , hit each other with sand balls ,danced in river , imitated King Julien from movie Madagascar ,especially the dialog "god give me water ,I give it to you..".

At our camps ,at Bhrampuri 

Our Camp at Bhrampuri ,the corner one with bottles outside

We had a lavish breakfast at the camp ,made just for three of us . Then we fooled around and slept and fooled around and slept... and then late afternoon , after another lavish meal , went for rafting. Again we met 'The Michael Schumacher ' and god knows why our rafting instructors decided to sit on the roof of the car with the raft . Real Adventure !

Had real fun rafting , but was not much of an adrenaline rush , until Rupinder who had done rafting before too , decided to not listen to the instructors , didnot 'lock' her feet , and fell in a degree three rapid. NOW , it turned to adventure.

Our adventurous Instructors !

Our raft

Next day we shifted to tapovan....