The evening finally came and I got the tank filled to the brim for the long drive ahead… Deepak reached home… we had food and then surrendered to sleep around 0030 hrs, Saturday… not before we gave the women a strong challenge in talking about everything and anything under the sun… The funny thing is that I had said no to a movie Friday night because I wanted to sleep early looking at the long day on Saturday… but then.. Men will be Men…

Saturday started pretty early… around 0300 hrs… with a few phone calls, packing ( yes yes I am a last minute packing person)… picked up Tushar from near his place and reached the Radisson, NOIDA where we were to meet the rest of the Gang from Aseem’s company… Aseem was delayed by 10 minutes, but we were still not late… He had his share of drive in the morning… Faridabad to Gurgaon to NOIDA… I think we can call it another “Golden Triangle”… What say?

Anyway, a total of 11 people, in two different cars left NOIDA Radisson around 0445 hours. For some reason, this Qualis was SLOW… though it left like 10 minutes before yes, and because we had to turn back to get Aseem’s jacket we took another 10 minutes… I managed to cover these 20 minutes and add atleast 45 another minutes to my advantage on the entire route with two breaks… I like it & Radha ROCKs…

After Meerut, thick fog welcomed us, and I was forced to drive very very slow for a long time… it was only after Muzaffarnagar Bypass that I could pick up some speed… Oh and two things worth mentioning here…

1) Anjie spent a good 15 minutes in the bathroom in the morning… When asked, she told us that she had done everything possible in the bathroom 😀 Please ask Anjie for a reason why this information from her is so important 😀
2) I remembered Aseem where he had Pee’ed away his 6600 to glory… this is the railway crossing on the Bypass !!! And the incident happened on one of our rafting trips only !!!

A quick pee break near Khatauli, a tea break after Muzaffarnagar… no traffic jams… thick fog… ensured that we were in Rishikesh around 0900 hrs… in a li’il over 4 hours…

What followed was some chitchat… and a lot of wait!!! Aseem and party come around 0945 hrs… some of them were not adequately dressed for rafting , but were enthusiastic enough which more then made up for the rest of the things…

Next I had to wait for Anand and his two friends; meanwhile we changed our clothes, called Pradeep (our rafting guy), roamed around, and had breakfast…

Around 1130 hrs, we finally left for Shivpuri… The water was cold, but the weather great !!! And finally we started… and here is what happened:

• The best rapids in the last 3 years that I have faced…
• Roller Coster was the best !!! I was in the front left and I tried my hell best to row through the damn rapid but then the force of nature is something that leaves you nowhere !!!
• I was in the front of the raft not rowing for two rapids and atleast 1000 litres of water hit me in both these rapids on my face… This is when Tushar also got slapped big time by water 😀
• AWESOME fun it was…
• One of rafts in front of us flipped in Roller Coster…
• I did not get out of the raft for swimming this time, however picked people up from the water and got them back to the raft…
• Angie tried to jump from the cliff, and was really really brave to climb up, but she could not gather enough courage to jump from there… But she more then made up for it by being one of the best rowers on the raft… Kudos to her for the kinda effort she made…
• Some of the best pictures on the lunch break… We did not notice but the four of us were dressed in primary colours… ->Angie – Blue ->Deepak – Green ->Tushar – Yellow ->Me – Red ( as usual)
• Surprisingly the water was not that cold this time… and it was the cleanest in all the trips I have made so far…

Got off the raft and decided to retire in a hotel near the Parmarth Ashram… The Raj Palace is where we stayed… Good rooms they were… once in the rooms we did not really feel like getting out checking anything else Conversations followed… And then dinner… very very nice Italian Restaurant…

Anjie was the first one to sleep, followed by the rest of us.. And was the first one to get up on Sunday…
And here is what she managed to do that Sunday morning:
~ Bug all the three guys…
~ Make unsuccessful attempts to wake all three of us up…
~ Roam around Rishikesh and sit next to the Ganges for an hour before coming back to the hotel and try to wake all of us up…
~ Take a bath early morning before 0700 hrs… Phew!!!

We finally got up… and then pondered over the idea of trekking to a waterfall… and because Tushar and Angie pushed the idea with a lot of force, Me and Deepak agreed!!!

And AM I HAPPY OR WHAT!!!

We had breakfast at Chotiwala, and then moved to NeelKuddu, from where our trek was to start…

We walked for about 35 minutes on a way which was steeper then most of the treks I have done… and then reached a place which was amazing… a nice clean waterfall, which a made up hugggggggggggge bath tub… and Angie again was the first one to enter the water… Tushar followed and then me and Deepak… we spent a good hour and a half in the water playing around… clicking pictures taking videos… and some of the pics are worth sharing… the rest I rather keep it for public viewing… 😀 we managed to dry ourselves in about 30 minutes, walk back to the car, and then drive back to Delhi…

Two pit stops…
One @ Haridwar to get Ganga Jal
Second @ Roorkee, which included some fantastic Lassi and Chole Chaat…

A long drive with music followed… the music genre shifted from Rock to Hindi Happy to Retro !!! and that kept the tempo up !!!

Dropped Deepak @ 2130 hrs at the Welcome Metro Station
Had a quick bite in Dilshaad Garden with Anjie, met Rohit, talked for a while, and then rushed to NOIDA to quickly grab a bite again with Tushar… Thankfully, the sector-25 Rolls-wala was still open and we could eat…

Finally reached home around 2300 hrs and surrendered to sleep…

I am sure I was smiling all night with the happiness I brought with me…