Yes Rishikesh was my all time favorite and I can go there how many ever time. Though I had been there last May I always get attracted to Himalayas. I love travelling to Himalayas over and over again.

So floated my idea of travelling to Rishikesh, Jim Corbett, Kausani, Binsar and Shimla to my friends and there were daring few who were interested. Why I say daring because I decided to hire a self drive car and drive myself for all 10 days in Himalayan roads.

The holy city of Rishikesh, in the base of the Himalayas, holds deep cultural and spiritual significance for local Hindus. Sacred rivers and mountains set the scene for yoga and reflective hikes, and rafting here is an absolute must. It was said The Beatles wrote several songs during a 1968 stint at a local ashram.

So finally we are the team who decided to travel in the Himalayan adventure road trip. These are my college friends Jayalakshmi, Suchitra, Anu and Deepa. Three of us landed a day prior and had a quick visit to India gate and the famous shopping place Dilli Haat. Dilli Haat was an interesting place to shop local authentic items.

Next morning 2 others joined us, and we had hired Myles cars for 10 days. We booked a Scorpio for 10 days, and the car was dropped in our place at 7 am in  the morning. The Myles cars company was very proffessional and it took only 15 mins for the handing over procedure.

Though I have hired a car and drove arround in Malaysia, this trip I was little tensed for first 2 days thinking of the Himalayan road condition. It took 2 days for me to get comfortable and normal.

This was the Day 1 in Rishikesh, Ganges. The water was so cold even in the Month of May, yes it is glacier melted water how else would it be? There are few Ghats were the Ganga aarthi is done. We went to Triveni Ghat which was suppose to be the best.The Ganga aarthi starts at 6 30 pm, and it starts at the same time in all the places where Ganga flows like, Gangothri, Rishikesh, Haridwar…

My favorite click on the Ganges…

This is the Shiva statue in Parmath Nikethan Ghat, and here also Ganga aarthi happens, we were lucky enough to see the aarthi in both the palces. We finished the aarthi and roamed arround shopping in that area, and by 10 pm the whole place was deserted and we just 5 of us sat in the Ghat and were gazing at the Shiva statue with the sound of Ganges flow. That was an experience by itself.

I think this you can enjoy people with like minded, I think I would have not enjoyed that moment with my husband too. We were lucky to have such like minded people and we were there till 11 pm and still dint feel like leaving the place.

It was told in 2013 flash floods the water was flowing till Shivas neck level, and so many building collapsed but still nothing happened to the statue. Some things are beyond explanation.

This is the aarthi in Triveni Ghat, what an electifying environment during the aarthi time. It was wonderful feeling to be there to watch the aarthi.

Day 2 :  We decided to do river rafting in Ganges, after all they say Rishikesh is the best place in India to do river rafting. There are hundreds of Rafting companies in Rishikesh, to get the best one went through the trip advisor for best reviews and contacted this company called ‘White World Expeditions’. They had sent a van for pick up and 3 guys accompanied us.

This was in our room in Rishikesh. I remember being like this 25 years back in College hostel, feels lucky to get back those moments. This was just after we reached Rishikesh hotel.

It was a nice feeling of sharing our clothes, jewellery, commenting on each of our dressings etc…

We got to know while discussing with each other how each one of us had issues in getting these 10 days for ourselves, and finally could make it happen. And when you give importance to your personal interest, how good you feel about it.

This was the team who helped us with the rafting. These guys were awesome, for the reason they gave us the confidence to just jump into the Ganges and we went floating for a Kilometer. I would have never done that if not for these guys. Also I feel when you are with your friends you get empowerd.

Here we are ready for the adventure in the gushing Ganges. It was an amazing experience of rafting and I agree people say no one should miss rafting in Rishikesh. It was a 4 hr rafting, and all of us enjoyed to the core to the extent we thought we will do it again the next day.

In the afternoon we decided to visit Ram jula and Laxman jula and the temples around these places. This is the picture standing on Ramjula.

This is the place where we stayed in Rishikesh called Aloha on Ganges. This is one of the best places ever I stayed. I insisted for a room facing Ganges, unless one insists they don’t give Ganges facing room. This was the exact view from our room. This place also had an infinity pool extending to Ganges. If anyone planning to visit Rishikesh I would strongly recommend this place for stay.

After finishing Rishikesh, we started our trip to Jim Corbett. Thinking of Jim Corbett, anyone will get this picture in mind, as if Tigers keep crossing the roads very commonly like a Cat. I too had that thought until I went there. The reality is there are 4 different camps in Jim Corbett,

  • Dhikala Zone.
  • Jhirna Zone.
  • Bijrani Zone.
  • Durga Devi Zone.

 

For staying in these places you need to book 2 months before. These places are well inside the forest area. Apart from this every day there are 200 jeeps allowed from outside into the forest for site seeing. We took one of such Jeeps. It was not a good experience. The area was good to see, but you need to see the review before booking the jeep safari company. I did a mistake here and was a good learning for my next trip that never book without good reviews from people. The whole area runs around this Tiger spotting thing, and it’s over exaggerated. We dint find any tiger, but at least spotted a Tusker and few Deer’s.

This is a picture on the way to Jim Corbett. Sometimes you don’t plan anything but good  things comes on your way, this was like that. We never knew we will come across such beautiful place, but this scenery was there for 2 hrs of our drive to Jim Corbett. We drove along this river for 2 hrs. When I write these comments, the picture is still in front of my eyes. That whole day we dint plan for any site seeing since it was a long drive from Rishikesh to Jim Corbett, and we wanted to reach before dark.

This is what we saw in Jim Corbett. These sites were common I should say.

In Jim Corbett we stayed in a river side resort. Kosi was  flowing just behind our resort. River View Retreat is the place where we stayed and it has the best review. There were around 40 villas and the day we arrived we were the only guest in the whole resort. It was like the whole resort was working for us. We enjoyed that loneliness of being only and only us.

We went for a 2 hrs of bathing in the river, and walked out and went straight for food with a huge spread of food. The food was amazing in this place. This resort is known for its good food.

The whole Kosi river was ours. No one there except us.

Picture of Kosi river from our Resort.

Also one thing to note here is they don’t allow you to walk outside after 7 pm due to Tiger roaming. It was such a nice area and I really wanted to walk around in the night but it was a stict No No from the Resort people.

Next our destination was Raniket, it was suppose to be a nice hill station. This view of nanda devi peak is suppose to be seen from here if you are lucky enough and the sky is clear. We were very lucky to get this view from our bedroom. This place was a quick stop by on the way to Binsar. But it turned out to be a nice stop over.

This is again the view from Binsar. Nanda Devi peak can be viewed from Binsar town too.

We stayed in Binsar Mahindra resort. Generally all Mahindra resorts locations are very nice, this was exceptionally good. There were 2 locations of Mahindra resort one down and the other one on a peak of a mountain. We took the room on the mountain top and this is the view from our balcony. It was so peaceful to sit out and watch the humongous maintains and the life style of the villagers living there. This was my relaxing time after 6 days of driving. Sure I needed this break.

 

This is the picture with our Scorpio. It was a nice vehicle and dint gives any issues in those 10 days. I enjoyed riding it. But the maintenance was not that great, I can understand when many people handle it you can’t expect anything more than that.

In Binsar there is a trek to Binsar Wild Life Sanctuary. We decided to do that. It was a 2 hrs trek up and 1 hr trek down. It was a nice experience to trek in that wilderness. There was a magi spot where we finished our trek, so stopped over and ordered for magi and relaxed celebrated the completion of our trek.

This is one more shot on the way of our trek. With this our Binsar Kausani trip was over and next day we planned to move on to nainital just for a stop over and then to Delhi next day.

This was a place where we stopped on the way to Delhi. We stopped for fruits and sugar cane juice that was our food that day.

Finally it was end of our 10 day trip and with a heavy heart reached our Hotel in Delhi and handed over the car to Myles guys and we dispersed in Delhi.

In this trip we got our college hostel days back. All of us felt this and now waiting for another experience like this…