Jun 3, 2011

Rafting Trip - Part Five :: The Last Day

Needless to say, the next day was hard for all of us. Rafting is fun, but a taxing task. Someone was having headache next day, someone’s arm was aching from rowing the oar, someone had other problems, which meant that none of us were in the mood for tackling THE WALL next day. So, we did the next best thing we could. We sat around on the shore, chilled, ate, splashed around in the water and had an awesome time in all. 


This was sunday and the day to go back. We left in afternoon. Said bye to everyone who managed the camp. Mr. Ram told us to come back next year to tackle THE WALL. When I shook his hand, I knew I’d be coming back next year. For sure.

We left the camp and reached Haridwar on the tata sumo. Long-ish, hot journey. From there I was to take a bus for Chandigarh and rest of the gang was going back to Delhi. There were no buses for either of the places at the Haridwar bus station. Hell of a place. Rest of the gang took off for a nearby place that people said there were buses for. I waited for a bus to Chandigarh. None came. So I found a plug point and charged my phone. A man's gotta make the best of the situations. Finally, after waiting an hour or two, found a bus that was going only till Ambala and took that. It was a long journey. Tired, reached home at 1. There was office in a few hours. That’s life for you.

In all, the best parts of the trip were the rapids, three blind mice. They really affected me on a very deep level, a spiritual level, if I use that term liberally. I felt chaotic, mind numbing fear, the likes of which I had never felt before. There is one thing to feel afraid when some animal casually walks in front of your bike when you’re doing 100kmph but its totally another thing, getting slapped by water, in a raft with just a rope to hold on to. It gives you a new perspective on life and the things you are so used to, the things you take for granted in life, like land under your feet. 



While in the bus on my way back from Haridwar, I opened twitter after two days. And the things people were getting excited, angry, happy, sad, fucked up about, they all seemed so insignificant. It was a strange experience. I've not been able to collect my thoughts enough to tweet something since then. I mean, you get slapped in the face by a fucking river, you can't surely tweet about that. You blog about it! :D


I dreamed about the sand and river for the next few days. There are still few grains of sand in my bag which I took there. I don't think I'll clean it.


Hope you enjoyed my experience there.


Thanks for reading.


(And there are no sharks in the river.)


Serenity

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