::ThoughtFarm::

After completing Jungle Safari at Jim Corbett and Skiing at Auli, the next adventure on our list was was Rishikesh – white water river rafting.

We took a lift from a TATA Sumo that left Joshimath (Auli) at 5am in morning. At the outset I had almost given up on rafting. This was basically for two reasons. After speaking to a lot of tour operators in Rishikesh, I discovered that in February the Ganges water is very cold and plus entire India was in a grip of a severe cold wave in the period around Jan-end to Feb 1^st week. Secondly Amit was suffering from a severe cold and fever and it meant that I was alone for rafting and hence it was important for me to find a group who I can join for rafting.

One good thing that we did on the entire trip was solid planning and it helped us. We knew that rafting takes place along the Rishikesh – Devprayag road starting from Kaudilaya, followed by Shivpuri.

I had called up at least 5 tour operators the night before and all of them said that there weren’t any groups for rafting. Still I decided to take my chances and got down at kaudilaya. The sight was horrible – the entire camp was deserted.

We took a lift and reached Shivpuri. There all the tour operators had closed their shutters and were sitting near a small campfire. When I enquired them about rafting , again got the same reply. I was disappointed and we decided to head straight to Haridwar , just when one of the operators said that around 500mts from that place, down on the banks of Ganga ,is the starting point for rafters. It wouldn’t hurt to have look and try my luck there.
I decided to give it a last try and went and couldn’t believe it when I saw a group of rafters who were about to move the raft in to the river. I stopped them , requested, begged them to take me along and they agreed.

Puneet, Rashmi, Deepak, etc were from a Delhi and worked for Dabur. After the introductions , the instructor explained the basic strokes and we set along.

River Rafting is done mostly in imported rafts made of vulcanised rubber bodies reinforced by nylon fabric beneath an exterior of neoprene thus making it tough enough to withstand the battering it gets when it rams across the rocky boulders in the water. Rafting is done on rapids which is a white patch of foam on a flowing river caused by sudden gradient or by the river breadth getting constricted while flowing through a gorge between rocks or by a sudden increase or decrease in the volume of the water. Rapids are graded from 1 to 6 depending on the ease with which they can be negotiated, with 1 being the most easy.

Our stretch was of 20 kms in all up to Laxman Julla. We crossed around 5-6 rapids all of which have been given very interesting names like Golf Course, Double Trouble, Three Blind Mice, Daniel’s Dip, Sweet Sixteen, Marine Drive, Cross Fire and Roller Coaster.

Our instructor was also quite a cheerful fellow and before entering each rapid, we would shout “Ganga Maiya ki Jay”. After the 1st rapid, the instructor signaled to me and Puneet and asked whether we want to flip the raft. To do so, the raft has to be steered sideways in to a rapid instead of head-on and then one big splash of water and it over-turns. We tried it secretly in the 2^nd rapid, dint work out but we were able to do so in the 3^rd one.

One dip inside the river and I realized why there were hardly any rafts that day. The water was freezing cold and plus it was drizzling too.

After about an hour or so, the instructor parked the raft near a huge stone and explained to us that the stone was famous for jumping in to the river.

Jumping from a 30 feet high in to ice-cold Ganga river was the highlight of the rafting experience. Only me , Puneet and Deepak did the jump while the rest stayed back.

After completing the rafting which lasted for about 4 hours from 12 to 4pm, the instructor suggested me to take a dip in Ganga instead of going to a hotel and taking a hot water bath.

Contrary to me belief that Ganga is polluted at these places, I found it very clean. After the dip, met Amit at Laxman Julla where we had some food and then  roamed around the place admiring the beauty of the temples situated on banks of Ganga.

On 30th Jan, we took the afternoon flight from Pune to Delhi, had dinner at Amit’s brother-in-law place and took the late night train from Delhi to Ramnagar, which is the nearest railway station near Jim Corbett.

We were lucky since our train arrived at Ramnagar at 6am in morning and the booking for a day’s Jungle safari inside Jim Corbett starts at 7 am. Also there is a cap on no. of Maruti 4X4 Gypsies that can go in to the forest on a particular day. While I got passes made for the safari from the Jim Corbett office, Amit the master-negotiator , negotiated with the local travel agents for a entire day’s open gypsy, driver and a guide. We had a nice breakfast of Half-fry and tea , rented binoculars and started off for the jungle safari.Even though it was 7:30am, still both of us had our mufflers and hand-gloves on and it became even colder as we went inside the forest.

Situated in the picturesque Kumaon hills in Nainital district, Corbett National Park is the place from where Project Tiger was launched in 1973.The park has a core area of 520 sq. kms with picturesque hilly ridges covered by sal trees. Lower down are the grasslands and bamboo growth. A list of species reported from Corbett includes 582 species of birds, 26 species of reptiles, 7 species of amphibians and 50 species of mammals. The floral diversity is also extremely varied.

The Park is named after the famous hunter and naturalist, Jim Corbett, who popularized this land and its animals in his book “The Man-Eaters of Kumaon“. Corbett recounts many fascinating tales of hunting down man-eating tigers.

We were admiring the beauty of the forest while our guide started filling us on all the info. The main inhabitants of the park are the tiger, elephant, gaur, sambar, chital, wild dog, sloth bear, partridge, pheasant, jungle fowl and numerous other varieties of birds and animals.

There are four varieties of deer in the park, and spotted and hog deer can be seen moving about near the river and in the grasslands and the forests.. There are many opportunities for bird watchers in this park with over 580 species of birds. It is ideal to trek to one of the machans and sit patiently, perched high up, to view the animals and the birds. The Ramganga river flows through the Park and in it one can spot the gharial (fish eating crocodile) and the marsh crocodile.

In fact the deer becomes so common while going around in the forest that after one point of time you simply start ignoring them. Also it was surprising for me to see deers and monkeys ( langoors) together in a herd. The guide pointed out that the monkeys alert the deer in case a tiger is approaching.

The most beautiful of all deers we saw was the sambar, which moves around alone.
Elephants are numerous and move around singly or in herds. We saw a huge group of wild elephants near a lake.

In between we saw a lot of flatlands where forest was burnt down. The guide later explained that this was done purposely by the forest authorities to control forest fires.

After having a lunch, we requested to the driver to allow us to ride the 4X4 Maruti in the forest. He was a little reluctant at first but then okayed it. Driving a open maruti gypsy on a forest trail is an experience in itself. The entire forest route is full of water crossings, small climbs, some flatlands, some rocky patches. It was great thrill to drive on these forest trails.

The different kinds of smells in the jungle are awesome….smell of moss, smell of wild flowers, wild black berries, trees! And when the gold of the sun seeps thru the leaves….its a strange kind of warmth.

For visitors, the tigers sometimes prove elusive. I suppose we were very unlucky the entire day as far as the sighting of “Sherkhan” was concerned. However towards the end of our safari, we met another gypsy whose guide mentioned a tiger sighting a few kms away. Suddenly the entire day’s tiredness vanished and we started to follow the trail mentioned, picking up cues like blood of a fresh kill, the pug marks, etc., which instilled the enigma even more so.

The search lasted around 1.5 hours and at the end we were rewarded. Our guide stood up from his seat and drew our attention across a water body. There we saw the tiger – crossing the water and He vanished in to the forest. Honestly speaking the entire sight of him lasted for not more than 30 seconds. But we were so spellbound by a tiger sighting that none of us remembered to pull our camera out, focus and take a snap. However it was a view of a life-time.

Our jungle safari started from 8am in morning and ended at 5 pm. We had an option of staying back in the forest at night but decided against so since we had a late night (2am) bus to catch to take us to Auli where an another adventure awaited us.