The Trip - by Great Lakes Institute of Management, Gurgaon.

When I was in Bangalore, long before I stepped foot into GLIM, we received an email saying that we're going for a trip to Rishikesh. Considering that its land that I've never been on, I decided to go. Moreover, only the stupid would say no to river rafting and rappelling?

Come 24th May, 2013 (Happy Anniversary Mom & Dad), we were scheduled to leave Gurgaon. We did, in most congested thing that was claimed to be a bus. My Dad was in the travel business, I don't know what that is called but it sure wasn't a bus. A little box which was the only negative of the full trip. Undoubtedly, the guys sitting in front of me weren't comfortable as well.

After a tough night (negative connotations unintended), we reached Camp Alpinestar where we had a tiny trek just to enter the place. Just when we were wondering about the place, we saw the Ganges (Popularly known as Gangaji or Ganga)flow right in front of us with our tents by the riverside. Yes, it was awesome.

We were split into two groups with three teams each. Group one (with me) went for rappelling and Group two went for rafting.

Wow! where do I start about the trek? I'm contemplating on whether to start with how unfit we all were or how super fit the guides were. With temperatures burning your face off, we started climbing from some random point on the way up. a few minuted into it we were like "Dude, this is not a trek. This is easy." Clearly, we spoke too soon. It was like in the video games. It got tougher and tougher and TOUGHER on the way up. Long breaths, frequent breaks, gazillion liters of water later, we reached or destination. Instantly, we jumped into the icy water. "The climb was worth it", we said while the guides were setting up the stuff for rappelling. It took us close to two hours to finish the rappelling. The most difficult part of rappelling was the start. After that, it was a (not so gentle) breeze. I enjoyed every bit of it. Then we headed back to the camp to grab some lunch and prep up to river rafting.

On the way to Rappeling. Rishikesh (25th May, 2013)

Stepping out right after lunch. A difficult choice to be made but that was our only choice. We were off for rafting. As we were closer to the evening, the currents were pretty fast (that would make us go faster \m/). After the safety speech by our very own "fake Brit accent Rishikesh guide", we had the time of our lives. Strong rapids, continuous rowing and a dip in the Ganges. It's something one has to do before they get old and start having joint issues. FACT!

Just before Rafting. Rishikesh (25th May, 2013)

"Bunta", a popular drink in the region was available everywhere. Its basically masala lime soda in Bangalore but had a slight twist to it. A must have if you go to Rishikesh.

Rohit, Yogesh, Abhinav and Bunta stand. Rishikesh (25th May, 2013)

A night that ended with a lot of laughter with our very own guitarist Tiwari who had some fantastic chords to play is a born entertainer. We called it a night where we did not have to switch off lights or switch on the cooling as there was no electricity. You read it right, no electricity. We survived on the full moon and few torches in the darkness.

6 AM, a refreshing meditation session by the Ganga was much needed. If you did'nt get up by then, you surely missed out a great deal. Prof Palhan explained to us the benefits of meditation and I said to myself "Eight minutes a day can give you this much?! Let me do it everyday". We moved on to a few really fun team building exercises. Although "The Phoenix" did not win anything, we sure had spirit."PHOENIX KA TEMPO HIGH HAI!! PHOENIX KA TEMPO HIGH HAI!!"

We left to Gurgaon at 12:30 pm to hit the God of all traffic jams. It took us over twelve hours to travel 300 kms. Go figure!

Reached my room at 1am. YOGESH BABU. OUT!

-Yogesh Babu
(www.fb.com/yogesh87)