Woke up to a sunny morning at Lohagunj. Off I went to make my tresses beautiful. Ah, the refreshing touch of cold water on the scalp! I came out enervated. Ritu was not very happy about what I did and told me so. I assured her that I would be fine and merrily set off in the Qualis. Ah, the lovely early morning breeze and the warm sun!
Vikrant wanted to sit in the front seat because he was apprehensive of the long drive. So Srini had no choice but to adjust his huge frame in the middle seat. And Raghu happily sat at the back, all by himself.
We passed the three prayags - Karanprayag, Devprayag, and Rudraprayag.
Breakfast was at a dhaba en route. Yummy paranthas with chole. Stopped at Srinagar (the Himachal one!) for lunch.
Gliding down on the road to Rishikesh, I was reminded of my trip there 4 years back. How times had changed. Then UK [Uttarakhand ;-)] was 6-8 hrs away. Now I had to fly to Delhi and spend a fortune to see the same places!
Ritu took the ride in her stride. She was better than the first day. Srini managed to squirm in the middle seat with dignity. He even devised some dance steps to show his predicament with respect to the curvy ride and his own height. Vikrant sat quietly for most of the time until Raghu joined him in the front seat and rattled on about work. Work? I had left it far behind! I managed to doze off for a while, much to the envy of Ritu to my right and Srini to the left. One was seat-sick and the other motion-sick. :D
We followed the Ganges till Haridwar, listening to contemporary Hindi songs on the stereo. When the tracks (typical Himesh Reshammiya numbers) progressively jarred the nerves, we requested for a change and got local fare instead! En route, we were stuck for a while at a spot where a mini-bus had rammed off the road. As Raghu stepped out in his characteristic gait to check out the spot, the driver Manoj quipped that he looked/acted like a typical South-Indian hero! Raghu surely took it as a compliment. :-)
The route from Haridwar to Rishikesh was smooth and easy. We were slowly heading back to the urban jungle. On the road parallel to Har ki Paudi, we paused for a few minutes to wait for the third Qualis to join us. Those of us who wanted to see the beautiful evening aarthi (prayer) should have got off here and sent the baggage with the others. For some reason, we all ended up near the Haridwar station, checked into a hotel, and then ventured to Har kiPaudi. Predictably, the aarthi was over while we were hurrying across the market. We saw crowds spilling by the hundreds into the market and knew we were late. We continued anyway, thinking that a dip in the Ganges was all that we needed then. The cold Ganges was a balm to our over-frayed muscles and nerves. We could have spent more time there if not for the crowd and a train to catch at 10:30 PM. After taking some pics and buying Ganga jal (water), we headed back to the market road. Had lovely kulfi rabri faluda (a typical North Indian dessert). Bid adieu to Benny and Abhinav. They went to the bus station to catch a bus to Delhi and Roorkhee, respectively. We got back to the hotel in time to have a good shower and a nice South-Indian dinner and then catch the train back to Delhi.
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To be continued ... :-)
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