Row, Row, Row Your Boat

The train ride to Hardwar from Delhi on the Shatabdi was a pleasant surprise for someone accustomed to the slight dementia of the second class. Hot tea, biscuits, breakfast, bottled drinking water... the works. That's not to say, however, that the second class is no longer my preferred mode of railway travel. We arrived at Hardwar and watched with amusement the astonishment displayed by a couple of Japanese ladies at the sight of a goat lying on the stairs to the over-bridge. From there it was a ride in a jeep up to Camp Silver Sands past a host of temples on a series of craters masquerading a road.

Before we had a chance to look around the camp, we were shepherded to the lunch table and treated to a delicious vegetarian lunch. And those that know me will tell you that this is not lightly said! I only paid slight attention to the apologies about the fact that the camp had been moved up into the forest to get away from the river swollen from a week of unseasonal rains. Perhaps, if the food hadn't been as good, I might have been more prepared for what happened that night.

The camp is about twenty kilometers upstream from Rishikesh, and our initiation for the expedition was to raft down from the camp to Rishikesh. Most of the rapids were washed out because of the level of the river, or so the guides told us, but it was still a fun ride down the river. And that is what we did on our rather full stomachs.

It drizzled enough when we got back to bring the barbecue into the kitchen. But by the time dinner was served, the stars were twinkling cheerfully where the almost full moon wasn't overshadowing them. (Overshadowing? Moon? Really?)

Bring your own poison, they said. Manik, Dileep and I sat and watched the clouds roll in. It had started to rain by the time we hit the sack. The sack was in tents on the sand bank about twenty feet from the water's edge. It seemed safe enough until the sand below my head and my feet fell away. Manik takes a look out the tent and says, "It's a bad dream. Go back to sleep." A shove and a kick later, both of us are standing in the pouring rain at midnight watching in amazement as huge parts of the sand bank that the tents were on started collapsing into the Ganga! The path to help had disappeared under a raging torrent. We scrambled across, and then came back to get Dileep from the other tent which seemed to be on more stable sand. His answer, "Take whatever you want!" Another shove and kick later, he shuffles out with his bedding straight to the corner of safe tent, plonks down and starts snoring. Anyway, after collecting our stuff, and the collapsing tents, we got some sleep.

I awoke to bright sunshine streaming through a gap in the canvas, and the disorientation that comes from waking from the first night spent anywhere. Manik's exclamation came to mind; maybe it had all been a bad dream. Then I stumbled out of the tent and saw the destruction. It was exhilarating. I just wanted to scream and dance!

Due to the heavy rains, the expedition down the Alaknanda was postponed by a day, so the day was spent rafting down past the camp to Rishikesh from another twenty kilometers upstream. The rafting cheers were getting louder as we got more familiar with the people on the trip with us. The comfortable floating down the river in our life-jackets was interrupted by the presence of a semi-decomposed corpse floating down along with us. It had us all scrambling to get into the raft and out of its way. The highlight of the day was the Changeable Hawk Eagle that I spotted when we got off the raft just before Rishikesh.

And then finally, we were on our way. It was supposed to be a four hour drive to Rudraprayag, the start of our trip, but there was a landslide just a little before preventing us from getting all the way to the put-in point. So, we let all the gear down from a bridge across the river, ate lunch and set off.

The first stop was the camping spot for the night, and I can't imagine a more perfect place to pitch tent. It was this stretch of sand hidden from the river by a little hill. We could see that this hill would have been an island just a couple of days ago because the sand was completely untouched. There were just a few tracks of birds on the sand. The other side of this stretch of sand was a sheer cliff from top of which, every now and then, would peer a ghooral, a wild goat. The guides warned us not to pitch tent on that side, and the reason was soon apparent. There were langurs and macaques and barking deer and ghooral, all disturbing loose rocks at the top and dropping them onto the sand.

Antakshari by the campfire with songs in Hindi, English, Danish and Nepali thrown in. We learnt some part of a rafting song that night:
Resham phi ri ri, resham phi ri ri,
Sometimes I'm rafting, sometimes a trekking,
Resham phi ri ri.
Resham phi ri ri, resham phi ri,
You are a monkey, I am a donkey,
Resham phi ri ri.
There's a whole lot more to the song, but it's in Nepali, and I can't remember it any more.

Curse the guys who left the vodka bottle along with the water bottles! I tried to rinse the toothpaste from my mouth with it. That did wake me up in a hurry though. We saw a pair of pine martens make their way across the cliff face going about their business without seeming to notice our presence.

The hills on either side of the river were wearing their sparkling new clothes after the monsoon. Everywhere, there were the beautiful White-capped Water Redstarts. And every now and then there would be a deer grazing on the slopes. Sixty kilometers down the river that day. It would not have been possible had the water levels not been so high. We passed Devprayag, the confluence of the Alaknanda and the Bhagirathi rivers and really, the start of the Ganges.

Another night spent on a sand bank. Puzzles this time. And the morning was brightened by a game called Dizzy Sticks. A description will never do it justice, but if you're ever out in an open space with a group of people and in need of entertainment, this is the game to play.

And finally, after negotiating 'The Wall', 'Deadly Duo' and other such interestingly named rapids, we were back at the Silver Sands. That afternoon, after the rest of the group had left, I sat by the river and looked back at the expedition, the camping, the bonfires, the amazing food, and I nodded my head. Yes, life should be this way!