River Rafting and Cliff Jumping @ Rishikesh Ganga Ji

Lots of speculations about water temperature and cold windy weather in Ganga River, five of us, excluding Prachi G, encountered 26KM Long River rafting. Water that day was extremely clear with green colour like a wide sheet of green grass. Since I had done river rafting earlier, I was not much worried about it other than cold freezing water.

I sat on right front, Sudhir on left front and Prachi K (Birthday Girl) in middle front holding rope tightly. We crossed first rapid and I sensed that low water level will make our rafting easier and less thrilling.

We encountered second rapid. Water took the raft up from left side and Sudhir could lock his feet and fell on me with force. It was unexpected and I fell off the raft in the middle of solid rapid in seconds. Sudhir was able to hold the rope on my side. The moment I fell into the water, freezing water made it very hard to breath. I saw another raft on small distance and moved towards them. I waited for our raft and jumped immediately into it. Water was around 5 degree C and there were only two rafts in entire Ganga River.

River was very calm and our raft moved slowly. All of us were quietly enjoying the calmness of river and beautiful valleys around Ganga except me who was shivering and my teeth were creating small noise for me like stain gun.

My dive into River

In some of the places clarity of water and sun rays helped us to see the surface of river.

We crossed few rapids and then our guides allowed us to jump off the raft. They clicked lots of beautiful pictures for us.

Cliff Jumping was an agenda on the way. So we stopped at the place. I opted for first to jump. I went up to the Cliff and looked down. The entire fear of Bungee Jumping got restored. Moreover this is free fall into the water. Paused for few seconds, looked straight and jumped. Water hit hard on my hands. Rest was thrill to do this. I could not think of doing this again because my hands were paining. Second went Sudhir, as usual jumped fearlessly. All others did not opt for this.

My Cliff Jump..deep into Freezing water of Ganga ma

Rapids like roller coaster, marine drive and golf course seemed less thrilling because of low water level. But sitting in front and watching each and every moment of water was an experience to count. The best thing was Golf course with small ups and downs. And view looked like a mesh of countless small hills spread over river.

The rafting ended unexpectedly at a strange place. But we thoroughly enjoyed this experience.

We reached back at Resort, ate Lunch and headed towards Delhi. All of us were quite in cab and driver asked curiously “Is River rafting so tiring?” But I think the quietness was because we were ending a great trip. All of us would never want such trips to come to an end.

After a small stop over at Rishikesh, we drove back to Delhi and reached Delhi midnight.

I wish such trips come again and again wherein I overcame the fear, encountered new things and above all I made new friends forever. A big Thanks to Anurag, Sudhir, Jason, Prachi K, Prachi G and Tanay, you all are superb company to make such trips lifetime memories.