An Adventure Trip to Rishikesh - Part 1

Rishikesh is most popular as a holy city. It is part of UNESCO's heritage cities alongside Haridwar. It was hence, a surprise for quite a few of my friends when I proposed going to Rishikesh for an adventure trip. In my quest of finding newer, yet popular activities to do, I came across the extreme adventure sports park setup in Rishikesh. It was and continues to be the tallest Bungee point in India. Also, Rishikesh is home to mother Ganges and she flows through the city in abundance. This actually sets up Rishikesh as one of the best places in India for some medium to high adrenaline adventure.

River Rafting and expeditions, Rock Climbing, Para sailing/air gliding, Kayaking, some steep dive/jump points along the might Ganges, Bungee Jump, Flying Fox, Giant swing etc are some of the fantastic activities we can do here.In this post I will stick to detailing and explaining my itinerary and suggesting alternates. Will post the videos and some references for some good action. In the posts to follow I will write my personal experiences and will describe in detail what emotions I went through during these activities.

We were 5 in our gang. 4 of us went from Chennai and 1 came from Lucknow. There is a direct train from Lucknow to Haridwar and he took that.

From Chennai, there are 2 ways in which one can reach Rishikesh.

1. Take a direct flight to Dehradun (`5 hours). From Dehradun to Rishikesh we can take a cab ride which will take 45 minutes. This is the BEST and easiest way to reach Rishikesh.
2. Chennai to Delhi by flight (3 hours). Delhi to Haridwar by train (4 to 6 hours) and then Haridwar to Rishikesh by cab (1 hour). Total travel duration would be roughly 12 hours including the wait times and transits (if all the modes are without delay).

When we traveled, the flight to Dehradun from Chennai was too expensive (7.5k), so we booked an Air India flight to Delhi at 9.55am (this flight was AMAZING, with super spacious cabin and in-flight entertainment systems) on Saturday morning.

We reached Delhi by 2.30pm as the flight was late by 1 hour due to congestion at the airport. We had a connecting train from Haridwar to Rishikesh at 3.20pm. We took a metro from the airport and reached the railway station at 3.15pm. (When in Delhi the best mode of transport seems to be the Metro) We boarded the Jan Shatabdi train just on time. This train was poorly maintained and seats were pretty bad and basic hygiene was terrible. Better to avoid this train, especially if you are booking the non-ac coach.

We reached Haridwar railway station around 9pm. The train was late by close to 2 hours. Since it was late already, we had dinner at a hotel opposite to the station "Big Ben". Food was average and too spicy for my taste and I felt it was at least a few 100 rupees overpriced. After dinner we went back to the railway station and were lucky to find a Bolero, which was returning to Rishikesh. We got the ride Rs. 1100. It was 11.30pm on Saturday, when we reached. Our activities were starting only the next morning & so we googled for some economical stay options in & came across a bunker bed stay @ "Nature Villa" which costed 425rs per head when booked online (we realized later that if we had booked across the counter, it would have been at 350 only). It was a neat bunker bed type room with ac and had 8 beds and the washrooms were neat. Would definitely recommend this place if you want to stay. We did not try the in-house restaurant for breakfast next day, but reviews seem to suggest it is below average.

At Rishikesh, we had booked the adventure activities as a package from Adventure Nation. It was for 2 nights and 3 days. The cost was roughly 11k per head. This included free accommodation in tents at a campsite, 6 meals, 1 free cab ride of our choice, Bungee jump, Flying Fox, 26KM river rafting and some smaller activities like short distance kayaking, cliff jumping, rock climbing & rappelling and evening camp fire plus some outdoor games.

Flights, Taxis, Local sight seeing, food on the first and last days and shopping fares were all separate. We also undertook one extra activity at Jumpin Heights - Giant Swing which costed us about 3k extra per head. Also, at this place they take videos and for you to get those videos, you have to pay 1200rs extra (500 for one activity video, 900 for 2 and 1200 for videos of all 3).

All in all we spent around 23 to 25k per head for the 4 day trip (~8k for the flight and cabs, 13k for activities, 2k for the pics, meals and 1 extra night stay and 2k miscellaneous expenses). With slightly better planning and timing we could have reduced at least 2k per person easily. We postponed our flights by a week and that made us spend Rs 1600 extra per person and if we had taken a direct flight to Dehradun instead of the Delhi-Haridwar transit, we could have saved some more. But be prepared to spend at least 20k if you are planning a trip similar to ours :)

A detailed breakdown of how we spent the 3 days and the activities and pictures of our trip are posted in Part 2 of this blog. If you want to see the videos of the Bungee jump, flying fox, swing, rafting and more do visit the 2nd part. Click here to for more → Part 2