Water-sports!
Weekend again... no clue as to what to do... we decided first things first - lets just rent a car. Rented a car (ideally should have been called a truck) and then came backto the apartment and we were like - What next?
Sanks and Rams were returning to India soon and decided to shop and we decided to go the outlet malls which were 30 miles away from our place... It was a nice experience but after 4 hours of window shopping - we decided that to make any justice to our coming there - we better buy something..
Ths stores were closing at 9:00 and we ran into the Reebok store at 8:50... We were not greeted with the most pleasant of smiles... the guys ran to check their shoe sizes and different pairs - one of them put their feet into an infants shoe measure instrument and his feet covered the whole of it and he looked at me and asked - "What is my size". I said politely - "Infants instrument da, you crossed that period some 20 years back!!" Finally after trying out twenty shoes, fifty different questions to the person at the store - we finally bought a couple of sneakers and headed back...
On the way we decided to check up the drinks at the wine store and we were tempted by the Gold Label bottle and minutes later - we were armed with 750 ml of spirit for the night...
Back at the apartment, as we were sipping on the drinks - the question again popped up - What next?.
One of the guys took out his laptop and started surfing and after few searches he said - Let's go rafting... We took the idea like a fish to the water and we decided that "Life main adventure ki zaroorat hain". We called the place for reservations at 11:45 pm - i am not sure they were pleased with our sense of timing. However they said that" You guys are just 3 people, we cannot guarantee your reservations. If you can get a 4th member we can definitely reserve you for the 2pm slot tomorrow"
Now how the hell do we get a fourth member - and that too at 12:00 in the night - we started calling our friends at the nearby places and finally we did manage to find a "bakra" - Saks - who said that he has no plans and is free on Sunday...
We got up early in the morning (7ish - had slept only at 2) and we were all groggy - but the plan was to leave our place at 8:30 - finally we did at 9:30 - then picked up Saks (who lived 20 miles away) and that is when Rams said - "Hey i left my purse, license etc.. at the hotel... " We controlled our expletives and said - "Lets quickly go back and pick it up then"
So after 1 and 1/2 hours of driving, we were at where we began - outside our hotel - we decided we must hurry and then decided to catch some lunch at Udupi - considered to be a decent Indian restaurant - We all had our mouth watering at the thought of eating south indian food :) ...
When we arrived there, all the people were staring at us. The rest of the people had all dressed in traditional attire - dhoti's kurta's and we were a bunch of guys in t-shirts and shorts and sandals!!! The manager came and asked - Have you come for the party - and we uttered the wrong words - No. Seconds later we were politely sent out of the hotel. Sanks said that he felt a boot near his posterior, but none of us looked back.. We were really dissapointed and now were very hungry and I heard my mind saying " So close and yet so far"
However the manager was gracious enough to agree to take our orders - only thing was that we had to take it as a parcel... We were very hungry as we hadn't eaten much the night before and therefore we readily accepted it... Dosa's, sambar and chutney vanished in 15 minutes flat and we were off to Duluth... we were 120 miles from the rafting place and we just had roughly 2 and 3/4 hours to do it
Rams definitely would give Narain a run for his money anyday at the Grand Prix - he reached the place in 2 hr and 15 minutes - this was after taking a break of 10 minutes in between...
We were ready to raft in an hour - we had put the life jackets, signed forms stating that "We chose to die on our own and no one forced us into it" and nervously sat on this blue rubber device which they called the "Raft" - Sanks excalimed "How do we continue to remain on this thing". Yours truly said - "your guess is as good as mine". Basically we were sitting on rubber logs that ran horizontally across the raft and we had nothing to hold!!! We started thinking that this was not such a good idea after all...
Lot of instructions were given as to how not to raft - I guess we heard it as how to raft because 10 minutes into the water - we were circling at the same place where we started and were shouting at each other saying that the other person was doing it wrong... Rafting is about team work and that was exactly what we were not doing too well here.... A couple of instructors decided to intervene when we started pointing the paddles that we had at each other - they must have thought that we were more interested in the paddle form of sword-fighting...
Lot of instructions flew in but we were not able to control this animal of a blue raft - it just refused to listen to our paddling... finally we grappled with it and with nudges and pushes, reached the first rapid.. we were the last to reach there - the rest of the group had reached there quite a while back and they were all looking at us and thinking - what the hell were they thinking when they decided to try rafting out!!
The first rapid was fine - the raft did bob sideways a bit and water did come into the raft but we were basically fine... We obviously were mountain climbers in our earlier lives because we just loved the rocks and kept hitting our raft into all the rocks around ... At the second rapid we were supposed to circumvent a huge rock that was in the wate and flow with the current... we went right over the rock and the raft dived down - I was sitting at the front and I was like - what the hell have we just done... Rams in the back was half standing up and Saks at the back, who was steering stood up completely... and we nose dived in - thankfully we surfaced soon and the count on the raft was still - 4 people - alive and trembling...
After this we went an rested in a corner and we saw lot of people jumping into the water and splashing around- and we decided that lets all jump in as well - the thing that we did not know was that getting out of the raft into water was easy not vice versa... After a while when we decided to get into the raft - I found it physically impossible to get in... Sanks, who was in the raft all the time was finding it difficult to pull me up, as he was quite a lean guy... however he managed to lift me after a few attempts and much to the amusement of the other rafts... we quicly got the rest in as well - and the other rafts were all passing smart comments amongst themselves... We sheepishly headed to the next rapid
The next one was a short waterfall... I was like - Are we going down a waterfall!!!... The rest in my raft also froze - we all started staring at Sanks who had made this great plan - was it worth it - paying 40$ to get killed!!! This was not our idea of adventure - not mine for sure...
However we saw the first raft go - In a second they just vanished from the water surface... and we were like - how the hell are we going to do this... Rams had quickly started saying his prayers and we repeated all the gods names that we knew... It was our turn soon and we went slowly rafting and hearing the directions that the instructors gave... In seconds we saw that "this short" waterfall was not "such" a short one - the raft dived into the water and the experience was quite amazing... we just went into the water - the whole raft got nearly submerged into it and in a couple of seconds came out - the raft rocked violently from side to side before it came to a standstill. We had successfully held on and moved to the safety near to the shore - It was just too awesome...
Then we had a couple of miles to raft and our arms were getting sore with all the paddling - As usual, the rest of the boats had dissapeared in the horizon and we were still battling with keeping it straight... Our arms were really sore and our speed had considerably come down- Rams threw his arms up in despair and said that he is giving up and he cannot paddle anymore - A couple of glares from us set him back to paddling.... We reached the shore - lifted the raft and put it into the bus that would take us back to where we started...
It was the most amazing experience - I have gone on roller coasters... adventure rides... dropped from heights... but rafting a boat all on ourselves with no instructors on the boat was a truly exhilirating experience...
Sanks and Rams were returning to India soon and decided to shop and we decided to go the outlet malls which were 30 miles away from our place... It was a nice experience but after 4 hours of window shopping - we decided that to make any justice to our coming there - we better buy something..
Ths stores were closing at 9:00 and we ran into the Reebok store at 8:50... We were not greeted with the most pleasant of smiles... the guys ran to check their shoe sizes and different pairs - one of them put their feet into an infants shoe measure instrument and his feet covered the whole of it and he looked at me and asked - "What is my size". I said politely - "Infants instrument da, you crossed that period some 20 years back!!" Finally after trying out twenty shoes, fifty different questions to the person at the store - we finally bought a couple of sneakers and headed back...
On the way we decided to check up the drinks at the wine store and we were tempted by the Gold Label bottle and minutes later - we were armed with 750 ml of spirit for the night...
Back at the apartment, as we were sipping on the drinks - the question again popped up - What next?.
One of the guys took out his laptop and started surfing and after few searches he said - Let's go rafting... We took the idea like a fish to the water and we decided that "Life main adventure ki zaroorat hain". We called the place for reservations at 11:45 pm - i am not sure they were pleased with our sense of timing. However they said that" You guys are just 3 people, we cannot guarantee your reservations. If you can get a 4th member we can definitely reserve you for the 2pm slot tomorrow"
Now how the hell do we get a fourth member - and that too at 12:00 in the night - we started calling our friends at the nearby places and finally we did manage to find a "bakra" - Saks - who said that he has no plans and is free on Sunday...
We got up early in the morning (7ish - had slept only at 2) and we were all groggy - but the plan was to leave our place at 8:30 - finally we did at 9:30 - then picked up Saks (who lived 20 miles away) and that is when Rams said - "Hey i left my purse, license etc.. at the hotel... " We controlled our expletives and said - "Lets quickly go back and pick it up then"
So after 1 and 1/2 hours of driving, we were at where we began - outside our hotel - we decided we must hurry and then decided to catch some lunch at Udupi - considered to be a decent Indian restaurant - We all had our mouth watering at the thought of eating south indian food :) ...
When we arrived there, all the people were staring at us. The rest of the people had all dressed in traditional attire - dhoti's kurta's and we were a bunch of guys in t-shirts and shorts and sandals!!! The manager came and asked - Have you come for the party - and we uttered the wrong words - No. Seconds later we were politely sent out of the hotel. Sanks said that he felt a boot near his posterior, but none of us looked back.. We were really dissapointed and now were very hungry and I heard my mind saying " So close and yet so far"
However the manager was gracious enough to agree to take our orders - only thing was that we had to take it as a parcel... We were very hungry as we hadn't eaten much the night before and therefore we readily accepted it... Dosa's, sambar and chutney vanished in 15 minutes flat and we were off to Duluth... we were 120 miles from the rafting place and we just had roughly 2 and 3/4 hours to do it
Rams definitely would give Narain a run for his money anyday at the Grand Prix - he reached the place in 2 hr and 15 minutes - this was after taking a break of 10 minutes in between...
We were ready to raft in an hour - we had put the life jackets, signed forms stating that "We chose to die on our own and no one forced us into it" and nervously sat on this blue rubber device which they called the "Raft" - Sanks excalimed "How do we continue to remain on this thing". Yours truly said - "your guess is as good as mine". Basically we were sitting on rubber logs that ran horizontally across the raft and we had nothing to hold!!! We started thinking that this was not such a good idea after all...
Lot of instructions were given as to how not to raft - I guess we heard it as how to raft because 10 minutes into the water - we were circling at the same place where we started and were shouting at each other saying that the other person was doing it wrong... Rafting is about team work and that was exactly what we were not doing too well here.... A couple of instructors decided to intervene when we started pointing the paddles that we had at each other - they must have thought that we were more interested in the paddle form of sword-fighting...
Lot of instructions flew in but we were not able to control this animal of a blue raft - it just refused to listen to our paddling... finally we grappled with it and with nudges and pushes, reached the first rapid.. we were the last to reach there - the rest of the group had reached there quite a while back and they were all looking at us and thinking - what the hell were they thinking when they decided to try rafting out!!
The first rapid was fine - the raft did bob sideways a bit and water did come into the raft but we were basically fine... We obviously were mountain climbers in our earlier lives because we just loved the rocks and kept hitting our raft into all the rocks around ... At the second rapid we were supposed to circumvent a huge rock that was in the wate and flow with the current... we went right over the rock and the raft dived down - I was sitting at the front and I was like - what the hell have we just done... Rams in the back was half standing up and Saks at the back, who was steering stood up completely... and we nose dived in - thankfully we surfaced soon and the count on the raft was still - 4 people - alive and trembling...
After this we went an rested in a corner and we saw lot of people jumping into the water and splashing around- and we decided that lets all jump in as well - the thing that we did not know was that getting out of the raft into water was easy not vice versa... After a while when we decided to get into the raft - I found it physically impossible to get in... Sanks, who was in the raft all the time was finding it difficult to pull me up, as he was quite a lean guy... however he managed to lift me after a few attempts and much to the amusement of the other rafts... we quicly got the rest in as well - and the other rafts were all passing smart comments amongst themselves... We sheepishly headed to the next rapid
The next one was a short waterfall... I was like - Are we going down a waterfall!!!... The rest in my raft also froze - we all started staring at Sanks who had made this great plan - was it worth it - paying 40$ to get killed!!! This was not our idea of adventure - not mine for sure...
However we saw the first raft go - In a second they just vanished from the water surface... and we were like - how the hell are we going to do this... Rams had quickly started saying his prayers and we repeated all the gods names that we knew... It was our turn soon and we went slowly rafting and hearing the directions that the instructors gave... In seconds we saw that "this short" waterfall was not "such" a short one - the raft dived into the water and the experience was quite amazing... we just went into the water - the whole raft got nearly submerged into it and in a couple of seconds came out - the raft rocked violently from side to side before it came to a standstill. We had successfully held on and moved to the safety near to the shore - It was just too awesome...
Then we had a couple of miles to raft and our arms were getting sore with all the paddling - As usual, the rest of the boats had dissapeared in the horizon and we were still battling with keeping it straight... Our arms were really sore and our speed had considerably come down- Rams threw his arms up in despair and said that he is giving up and he cannot paddle anymore - A couple of glares from us set him back to paddling.... We reached the shore - lifted the raft and put it into the bus that would take us back to where we started...
It was the most amazing experience - I have gone on roller coasters... adventure rides... dropped from heights... but rafting a boat all on ourselves with no instructors on the boat was a truly exhilirating experience...
posted by tcr_79 at
10:12 AM
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