Rafting….just the name thrills me.

This summer I finally went for rafting. I went with my cousins it was real fun. We went to Rishikesh for the thrilling experience. We reached Ram Jhula around 12 and from there hired a raft. We opted for 16km rafting from Shivpuri to Ram Jhula. The tour operator took us to Shivpuri in a mini truck “chotta hathi”. The road was bumpy and it was hell of a drive. Getting there first we stretched and geared up for the thrill. After putting on the life jacket and the helmets we got in the raft. My cousin and I sat on the front facing each other and rest of my cousins occupied the vacant spots. Our guide first taught us how to hold the paddle and then told us about the commands that he will issue during the course, they were forward, back, stop, right side forward or left side forward and left side backward or right side backward. He also taught us what to do in case anyone falls off the raft in the water and also if someone gets stuck in the whirlpool, how to rescue at such times. He told us to drink the water of the Ganges and we were off for the 16km downhill…hell of a experience.

He shouted all forward and we started to row the raft in the forward direction. I thought that going downhill would be easy but I was wrong, we had to apply all our energy. We tried hard but we moved just a little. We were disappointed but he told us to practice a bit and then we were off and this time with a bang. We just had gone a 100m only when we heard the sound of gushing water and our guide told us that this was our first rapid. There were a total of five rapids in the 16km course and their magnitude ranged from level 2 to level 5. This was a level 3. Wow was the word that everyone said on hearing this. He told us to remain calm otherwise we wont be able to hear his commands as the rippling water made quite loud a noise. We followed his command and we were out of and the raft did not flip. Yipeee….. He told us that if we successfully pass the rapid we should say “ho baby ho baby ho” and should put our paddles together in the air and then in the water. We did exactly what he said. Now the water was calm so he told us to jump in the water. Without even a second thought we jumped in the water and though it was May the water was really very chilly. We stayed in the water for 5 minutes or so when he told us to come back as our next rapid was coming. It was a level 4. We held on tight to our paddles and followed his commands. At one place I was about to fall but I held on to the rope around the raft and jumped inside the raft and again started to follow the commands. It was awesome. We had come down around 7km when we halted for our first stop. At this place there was a 20 feet high cliff and if you wish you could jump from there inside the 40 feet deep water. I wanted to that but as I didn’t know swimming I didn’t get the permission to it and neither of my cousins tried it. So we started again and after a kilometer he told us to get in the water again and be there till we feel like. It was photo time. The guide clicked our pics and as we were getting late we got back in the raft. At this time another group crossed us and challenged us for a race. There were some heated words that were exchanged and the race was on. Now we didn’t pay much attention to the rapids we only concentrated on the race. As they were more in number and big in size they had an advantage and they went quite ahead of us. We did not loose our morale and gave them a good fight. When we crossed our last rapid we overtook them and were really overwhelmed by this. We were about to reach Ram Jhula when we saw them coming. When they reached near us we stood up and jumped into the water celebrating our victory. As all of us jumped so no one could capture this moment. The other group didn’t even look at us. We reached the final point where our parents were waiting.

It was a hell of an experience …. rapids…race but we missed only one thing that our raft did not flip. We seriously wanted it to happen. We were all tired and after an hour’s drive reached our home. We were all planning for our next trip to Rishikesh again. This time we are hoping to take the tour that offers camping, rock climbing, rafting and jungle trek as well.