Roadtrip and Rafting - Rishikesh

Essel Towers went on a road trip this weekend up north to Rishikesh. Known for its whitewater rafting, beautiful mountains, Ganges river, and yoga ashrams, we were ready to escape Delhi for some peace and quiet. First things first, a five hour car ride together in the equivalent of a minivan. Megan, Heather, Elliot, Louise, and I revisited our youth playing car games and switching iPods for the perfect tunes. We made our way into Rishikesh in the evening and got all of our plans ready for our upcoming rafting trip the next day.

Fast forward 12 hours - after swimming in the pool, wandering into town to buy some assorted items, we waited for pickup at the top of our hotel's huge hill. About 20 miscommunications and 20 kilometers on windy roads later, we were without a raft and without the Ganges. Apparently we had been literally chasing our own raft, when they might have just been 2km behind us. We're not really sure, but we drove up and down the river (backwards then forwards then backwards again), and got to know our car very well.

Defeated, we chowed down at the Choti Walla restaurant across from our hotel and got a good laugh out of Louise's cheese mashed potatoes and Elliot's mac & cheese. Who orders mashed potatoes and mac & cheese at an Indian restaurant? Well apparently Elliot and Louise do. We lined up another rafting trip for the following morning, early at 7am. Luckily, our ride was there the next morning and we went 26km up the river for our Marine Drive launching site. The Ganges was awesome - rapids were probably Class 2+/3-, and it was really beautiful. We all got to swim and float downstream for awhile, and even do some 'cliff diving'. Thank you Rishikesh.

Blog Photos - Here's a link to my photos of Rishikesh in Google Photos (also links from the slide show below).