With the long weekend at our disposal and the fact that the next weekend, most of us would be busy or out of town, with our project work, we decided to go to Hardwar and Hrishikesh. The planning started with all of us planning to go and ended with 9 of us finally agreeing to go.
The day started on a not-so-auspicious note with Veena conveying her inability to come. I was apprehensive about Anuja too, but she confirmed that she would come.
We started from the Guest house at 7 am one hour behind schedule. Then followed the arduous and tortuous journey of abt 8 hours to reach Hardwar. A small debate whether to stay back or come back in the evening followed and we decided to stay back and finish it off.
Vikram and Karthik decided to have a swim and came attired with all the necessary stuff. They even got down into the water, but, seeing the flow of the water, very wisely decided against it and just took a few dips in the water. The rest of us were content with washing our feet in the water.
We had lunch in a hotel called “Asli Pracheen Chotiwala-Since 51 years”. An explanation is due I guess. Over there, most of the restaurants are named Chotiwala. We started wondering whether the choti means ‘mountain top’ or ‘pigtail’. Don’t know abt the others, but our hotel meant the latter.
We then went for the darshan of Mansa Devi and Chandi Devi. We had to take the respective ropeways to reach the temples. The view from the top was amazing. We had a panoramic view of the small town. We also had a little thrill when the power supply failed and we were hanging in the middle of the valley!!! However, the backup kicked in pretty soon and we were on our way.
At abt 7 o clock, we left the town and started towards Hrishikesh where we were supposed to put up for the night and go white water rafting the next morning. We reached the hotel in abt 1.5 hours. The rooms were not that great but were okiesh. We freshened up and went for dinner.
What followed was a disaster. We went to a place called Rajasthani Hotel which had a tagline of Ghar jaisa khana. It looked decent. However, what was served was something totally out of this world. We had a chocolate milkshake which was white in colour…The veg handi was full of cabbage, the chole were tasting like no other thing on planet earth. Even the cold drinks served were past their expiry date…
The icing on the cake came when we were given a bill of Rs.1200!! With this amount, we could have had decent food in one of the best hotels in any city. I was so frustrated and hungry that I went to a bakery and got some biscuits for us.
We came back to our hotel. Vikram and Karthik slept off immedieatley while the rest of us started a game of cards. We played till about 1 o clock and then I decided to call it a day as we had to wake up early the next day for the rafting.
The day started on a not-so-auspicious note with Veena conveying her inability to come. I was apprehensive about Anuja too, but she confirmed that she would come.
We started from the Guest house at 7 am one hour behind schedule. Then followed the arduous and tortuous journey of abt 8 hours to reach Hardwar. A small debate whether to stay back or come back in the evening followed and we decided to stay back and finish it off.
Vikram and Karthik decided to have a swim and came attired with all the necessary stuff. They even got down into the water, but, seeing the flow of the water, very wisely decided against it and just took a few dips in the water. The rest of us were content with washing our feet in the water.We had lunch in a hotel called “Asli Pracheen Chotiwala-Since 51 years”. An explanation is due I guess. Over there, most of the restaurants are named Chotiwala. We started wondering whether the choti means ‘mountain top’ or ‘pigtail’. Don’t know abt the others, but our hotel meant the latter.
We then went for the darshan of Mansa Devi and Chandi Devi. We had to take the respective ropeways to reach the temples. The view from the top was amazing. We had a panoramic view of the small town. We also had a little thrill when the power supply failed and we were hanging in the middle of the valley!!! However, the backup kicked in pretty soon and we were on our way.
At abt 7 o clock, we left the town and started towards Hrishikesh where we were supposed to put up for the night and go white water rafting the next morning. We reached the hotel in abt 1.5 hours. The rooms were not that great but were okiesh. We freshened up and went for dinner.
What followed was a disaster. We went to a place called Rajasthani Hotel which had a tagline of Ghar jaisa khana. It looked decent. However, what was served was something totally out of this world. We had a chocolate milkshake which was white in colour…The veg handi was full of cabbage, the chole were tasting like no other thing on planet earth. Even the cold drinks served were past their expiry date…The icing on the cake came when we were given a bill of Rs.1200!! With this amount, we could have had decent food in one of the best hotels in any city. I was so frustrated and hungry that I went to a bakery and got some biscuits for us.
We came back to our hotel. Vikram and Karthik slept off immedieatley while the rest of us started a game of cards. We played till about 1 o clock and then I decided to call it a day as we had to wake up early the next day for the rafting.
No comments:
Post a Comment