An Outlet - Part 9

11 March, 2024.

Graduation trip begins!

This time it's with Ryan, Steffani and Yale. Vera was also supposed to join us but she dropped out at the last minute cause her long term boyfriend was coming to meet her and she hasn't met him in years. As for the destination of this trip - it's Haridwar and Rishikesh!

Our MBA exams officially got over yesterday and we got ready and left college last night by 10PM. Before leaving tho, we met a couple of our friends as they would've left college by the time we return from our trip.

I ordered dinner and then we left for the station. Unlike my last trip, we had ample amount of time to get everything done and reached our platform well in advance. Ironically, it was the same platform as my last trip.

The train was different this time, it was the normal sleeper one. I felt slightly uncomfortable but only slightly. I guess it took some time for me to come of out of my (literal) comfort zone.

After talking to Steffani and Yale for a bit, I spent a lot of time on my phone, slept quite late and woke up vvv early. We reached Haridwar station by 6:20AM and navigated through rickshaws to find someone who'd take us to our hotel at a reasonable price.

We were sceptical of the hotel at first but the interiors looked exactly like in the pictures so we were sure that we hadn't been scammed. The receptionist wouldn't let us check in early though. He kept insisting that we'd have to pay up 2000 bucks in order to do so.

So we decided to leave our luggage at the reception itself and roam around and come back by 12PM.

We went to Har Ki Pauri which was only a 10 min ride from our hotel. However, we had to walk for sometime after a point to reach it as not all vehicles were welcomed inside. Har Ki Pauri is a ghat on the banks of river Ganga and is considered a holy place. It's got a lot of steps and bridges for navigation purposes.

There were already a lot of people present even if it was just 8 in the morning. We kept roaming around and exploring the area, crossing one bridge after another. We also had breakfast (Chole Bhature, Aalu Puri) in the middle. Surprisingly (yet not so surprisingly) UPI adoption hasn't penetrated in this part of the country.

After walking for quite a bit, we sat down at a place (where nobody was bathing/offering ashes or conducting a ritual, etc) and put our feet in the vvv cold water. We also went to a huge Shiva statue that we had seen from afar and spent some time in the shade. This is the first time in a long time that I have sweated due to the weather.

We went back to the hotel by 11 AM and got ourselves checked in. The rooms were really nice! Thank goodness! We all took turns to take baths and freshen up. And left by 2:30PM. We decided to eat at one of the dhabas closeby and had Masala papad, Masala Dosa, Uttapa, Jeera Rice and daal and some cold/soft drinks.

After taking some money out of an ATM, we left towards Har Ki Pauri yet again. This time we went a little further and had to walk a lot because the rick guy dropped us at a far off location. We kept on walking until we reached the base of the hill where the Mansadevi temple was sat.

We got ourselves a cable car ride to the top of the hill and the view was nice! As for the temple, it was a confusing one in the sense that there were multiple moorthis and all the pandits guarding them kept saying that that's theirs is the main mandir. Nevertheless, we went to all of them and got done within half an hour.

We came down through the cable car again. Steffani and Yale wanted to have tea but Ryan and I wanted to reach Har Ki Pauri as soon as possible for the Ganga Aarti so we left. And secured ourselves a good spot for the Aarti. It was already crowded by the time we reached (around 5:40PM) and people kept pouring in. The Aarti started around 6:20PM and it was a nice one. At some points I had to sturggle to see it due to my short height. But I got to see majority of it so that was nice!

After the Aarti, I bought some clothes and ornaments for the Krishna idol at my residence. Then we had some aaloo poori, kachori and gulab jamun for an early dinner. Then we headed back to our hotel, freshened up and played Uno until now when I feel very heavy due to tiredness and lack of sleep.

Day 1 successful.