Ganges River

On Thursday, Zahra and I hopped on the Shatbadi Express to Haridwar. We were off on our adventures rafting the Ganga (say: Gung-a) River. The train was great, it was a little hectic at the train station - but once we were on, it was a great ride. Four hours later, we arrived in Haridwar and our driver from Himalayan River Runners (HRR) picked us up for the 1.5 hr drive to the camp. Hardiwar and neighboring town, Rishikesh, are very holy b/c of the River, which is cleaner here than anywhere else in India (only 500km from the beginning). There are many temples & ashrams, and people from all over the world come to study sanskrit and get water from the holy river. You'll have to read on line why it's holy - the story is too long to tell. But in a nutshell: the last of 100 brothers wanted a place for their souls on earth, so he asked Shiva for such a place and from the part in his hair the Ganga river flow out and onto the earth.

So we arrive at HRR and it is a beautiful camp set up along the river. They have 'tents' with 2 cots, 2 chairs and a reed mat set up in the sand facing the river. It's absolutely stunning. The river flows an emerald green color with high mountains rising up out of it....beautiful. We get settled and find out that we are the only clients for the next few days! It was fantastic. There were 12 guides/staff and us! LOL Our guide, Ram, is an Nepali and his brother Vijay is the camp manager. We rafted for a few hours on the first day, just Ram, Z & I and did rapids like 3 blind mice, roller coaster and the wall - I know what you're thinking b/c I was thinking the same thing - holy shit. But it was so fun! Ram was telling us that after the monsoon season, the water level is like 10-15 feet higher and the rapids are crazy. I don't know if I could do much more crazier than we did. That night we had a campfire and all the staff came out to sing Bollywood songs and dance, I haven't laughed that hard in a while.
Friday everyone was asking what we wanted to do, since it was just us we controlled the schedule :) So we kayaked in the morning and then climbed up a rockwall, with just a rope for guidance and then repelled down. That was ridiculous. It's so against everything in your body and mind to lean backwards off a cliff! I've got a few good bruises from that. Then in the afternoon, most of the crew went rafting with us - 5 kayakers and 9 rafters. We had the time of our lives!! The rafting is hard when the water gets white, but having 4 guides in the raft really helped :)
We ate well the entire trip, and Friday night the catering manager/chef trainer invited us to dinner at the Himalayan Hideaway (it's part of the HRR camp). Saturday we got up early and rafted for 4 hours before we had to leave. I took a holy dip on the first of the three blind mice rapids, so I'm good to go for the rest of my trip :)

That was a great experience, and we really feel like part of the HRR family. I'm already looking to come back for more!