Rishikesh is about a 6 hour drive from Delhi. But somehow, we made it in just under 8 hours...
About 3 hours into the trip we get stopped by several trains. In typical India traffic fashion, once the gates go up, everyone gasses it to tracks, creating a HUGE gridlock traffic jam. Another train comes and again, everyone rushes, including big buses, mopeds with families of 5 on them and cars, and no one moves.
We finally make it up to the tracks, still in a gridlock, and another train starts to come, and there is no where to go in the car. We immediately jump out and make a run for it away from the tracks on the side of the road. Talk about an adrenaline rush. Of course, the drivers smartened up and got themselves out of gridlock before the train came. A near death experience and a car accident later, we arrive at our hotel. We call it an early night since we have to wake up early.
DNA was the rafting company that the last crew of expats used so we booked them too. Eddie was our guide and he was the reason we survived. He owns DNA and has been a guide for about 13 years (I was sure to grill him about all of this before I stepped foot on the boat).
We conquered the notorious 'Wall' rapid and several others over a span of 6 hours with an hour break for a delicious lunch on the beach. We made it through without tipping, but had the privilege of watching the raft behind us tip. We couldn't have made it through without the following: muscle behind our rowing to power our boat forward, listening to Eddie for directions and team work.
Rishikesh is known for it's yoga Ashrams. All along the Ganges river there were brightly covered ashrams built and designed for yoga and meditation. We woke up early on Sunday morning and took a yoga lesson from a yoga guru in an ashram, overlooking the Ganges. It was a great way to end our adventure packed trip.
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