Jim Corbett to Rishikesh - A drive through Elephant prone Jungles

The day started with Tanay’s leaving back to Delhi in the middle of the trip due to some urgency at work.

Few pool table games and we moved towards Rishikesh. The plan was to attend evening Aarti at Haridwar and then leave to Rishikesh. But our as usual habit to start late made us unable to attend Aarti. So we drove towards Rishikesh.

Lakhan waiting for us outside a Dhaba
during Lunch

We reached Rishikesh at 7:00 PM. We had to cross Rajaji National Park which has lot of elephants. At the entry, we were warned by guards about elephants and were advised not to cross that area in dark as there are more chances of encountering elephants, but we had no choice than to drive through. Everyone was looking at road continuously out of fear and hilly terrains made it more thrilling as nobody knew what is there ahead of us. Our driver (Lakhan) drove Innova carefully and he was very much afraid, infact more than anyone else.

Three buffalos were sitting on the side of the road. The moment they came under Innova’s headlight, everyone for a while was stun. Everyone thought of Elephants sitting on road but thank god it was not.

We reached at Resort by 8:00 PM. Weather was extremely cold. The Resort Phool Chatti, around 15 KM away from Rishikesh town, is situated on the bank of a small tributary river and is a very calm place.

All of us stuck to bonfire because of extremely cold weather. Anurag and Prachi K left to Rishikesh to receive Jason, another friend and Birthday Boy from Mumbai joining us for rest of the trip.

The day ended with lot of gossips and funny things while sitting around bonfire.

We all slept in a wait of the most thrilling day which was just few hours away from us.