The first taste of the Ganga.

After 2 weeks working in Delhi, the adventurer inside me already wanted to leave. Bags where packed and we headed to the station to catch a night bus to Rishikesh. For our first overnight journey we decided to travel in Luxury and Outward bound booked us tickets on a "super deluxe" bus. Apparently all that means is that you get AC. The bus departed at 9:00pm Indian Standard time (around 9;45pm.) The plan was to sleep through the whole bus journey and arrive fresh and ready to work early the next morning. This did not go to plan, our driver made it his duty to beep his horn at every car, cow, person and pot hole that we passed along the way. Needless to say when we arrived in Rishikesh I had managed to get a grand total of 0 sleep. A quick call was made to Rency who would pick us up and take us the rest of the way up to Bulls retreat. Unfortunately he proceeded to tell us it would be another 2-3 hours until he would be able to get to us. Fill had a moan but after that we headed over to a 24 hour chi store to wait it out...

After less than 5 minutes Rency turned up with a big grin on his face... I was too relieved to be angry. A quick drive up to Bulls and I was happily tucked away in bed by 04:45am. At 05:45 my alarm went off and I very begrudgingly pulled myself out of bed and forced a smile on my face. Im not sure what really happened yesterday as Im pretty sure I went through the whole day half asleep. However I hadn't realized how much I had missed the blue sky until I lay back and looked up at the sky. Rishikesh was good and the air was clean! We also met a group of people that where just about to attempt the first source to sea descent of the Ganga, with the aim to be home in time for Christmas dinner. This incredible bunch are undertaking the expedition to highlight to levels of pollution in the Ganges. To follow them and keep up to date with there incredible journey they can be found on both facebook and instagram at GangesSUP. Its not the first time that the 4 of us have come across these guys either. Both JP and Fil first met Spike last year at the Royal Geographic Society Explore more conference and it turned out he also did a presentation at Ellies school when she was only in year 7 about a previous expedition that he had undertaken. Circumnavigating the globe following the 50th parallel.

Fil Catching up on his lost sleep.

Ellie Checking out the helmet selection at Adventure Axis in Rishi.

The plan for today was already decided a couple of days before, but we had learnt to take everything we where told with a little pinch of salt. The original plan was too run a short section of the Ganges so that we got a feel for the water and our boats and the guides got a quick refresher before they took clients out after the rainy season. Instead we found ourselves doing a 24km run from Marine drive to Rishikesh with a group of clients too. Getting ourselves kitted up at the put in I turned around to see Sam sat in his boat and sorting his kit out. Sam is an ex UCLan student that has just started a rafting season out here in Rishikesh, it was great to see him on the water for what was both his and our first run of the section. Its hard to put into words how incredible this river is and even harder to explain to somebody that has never paddled a high volume river before. It was huge, although the rapids never got to technical or challenging, never going above grade 3 the sheer volume of water and its force was something completely alien to me. My jaw actually aches because of how much I have been smiling today and of course I am also very sun burnt. Ellie is working on a video of today's adventures and I promise I will get it shared as soon as it is done. It does contain a reasonable amount of carnage.