Riverside Camping adventure ( Nearly Tragic) at Rishikesh, India – Page 2
If you had read my previous part of the story, you might have enjoyed my experience of rafting in wild Ganges river, Rishikesh, India. Here, I am sharing an incident that opened our eyes.
Nightmare
These drunk guys were quite loud and disturbing. I already got a negative vibe because we were only girls, they saw us as well and our camp’s area was deserted. So, I requested the camp employees to take a special care for us in the night as we were only girls. By that time I didn’t realise that it might be serious, I was just being alert and giving a heads up to the owner.
We went inside the tent to sleep at around 10 pm! As any other girls, we kept on chatting , laughing out loud for hours, enjoying our time together inside the tent. We still heard the sound of the drunk guys outside. We ended the day on a good note and slept.
Nearly Attacked in Midnight
Suddenly, we were woken up by a loud sound of someone rushing towards our tent. All of us except a friend woke up by this sound. We were startled but quiet 🤫 like we were mute, none of us opened our mouth but looked at each other. We knew that something was wrong outside, but didn’t understand what was exactly happening, scared to move a bone of our body. Then, we heard a guy shouting in hindi, we didn’t know to whom, that goes “GO BACK, if you come again, I will blow the whistle which sends a signal to all the community of these tents, all of them will come out and you will be in danger”.
We were scared like hell. I looked at time, it was just 1 am. We had a vague idea of what was happening. We were too scared to go outside and check. So, we just decided and whispered to ourselves that we wouldn’t sleep the night and would spend awake. We couldn’t sleep for two more hours, were worried if they attacked us again. My sweet and brave friend, Munu, whose spot of the bed at the outermost side of the tent was assuring us that she had a multi-functional travel knife under her pillow to protect us, and asked us to go to sleep. I felt that was very brave of her. We needed those words to hear.
What Really Happened.
What I thought from my instinct was that the attackers knew we had gone to sleep because our tent became silent. That’s why they came to attack us. But our camp’s employee protected us by sleeping just next to our tent, so he might have seen the attackers coming to our tent which the attacker didn’t see that coming. Then, the employee shouted that made other employees rushed to our tent, and shouted whatever we had heard. We realized in the next morning that the employees slept outside just next to our tent. That was so thoughtful of them. I will never forget what they had done for us. People, humanity is still out there in our world. I cannot imagine what would have really happened if these employees had not done their job properly. It might have cost our life.
Lesson Learnt : Whatever Parents say also make sense. Better listen to them.
Tips: If you ever plan to camp, you better choose a place where many people are also camping. Because anyone can attack you even if you are with guys
Morning of a Tragic Night
When I woke up, sky was already bright. It was 6 o’clock. I looked at all of my friends who were sleeping. But one of our friends who didn’t wake up in the night when the incident was happening outside, was not in our tent. I was scared since the place was not safe for us . Then, I asked my other friends where she was gone, we found out that she was enjoying, swimming outside already. I thought this girl didn’t care what the guys was trying to do in the night. I wondered how she could take that so lightly because my trauma was completely not gone yet. After she came back to our tent, she had shown us strength to go out of our tent and see the morning beauty of the place. It was indeed splendid, people were already sitting on the beach, relaxing, watching the rafting and kayaking boat passed, cheering them from the shore, Then, we went to dining hall to have breakfast where we saw the attackers in person.
Attackers
You know how big the bouncers are, right? These attackers were like that with big tattoos on their big arms. There were 5 to 6 of them in which all of them looked like the villains from the action movies. They looked pretty scary even in the morning when we saw at the breakfast in the common dining tent. We secretly glanced at them, pretended like we didn’t know anything. They also looked at us sometimes, camp employees were also pretending like nothing really happened. These guys didn’t seem like tourists too. I thought if they really attacked us, our life would have been different, or ended. Even if we had guys, they would’ve easily attacked all of us, referring to their monster-like bodies who knows if they had weapons.
Morning Breeze by the Shore of Ganges River
Once we were done with the breakfast, we stayed at the beach and enjoyed the last day of our tour. The morning was also quite beautiful. There, we were sitting and absorbing the beauty to take the journey to our life.
Holy Places
We left the tent and came to the popular holy place of Rishikesh where Laksman Jhula bridge was there and crossing it took us to the neighbourhood of famous hindu temples.
Three months behind to stumble upon the country’s worst natural disaster since Tsunami 2004
Till today, thinking about it gives me goosebumps because all the tents were washed away with the angry river.
Tips: Better check the weather to visit such places.
So, I learnt a lot from this trip. I wouldn’t really suggest you to go for rafting in wild rivers if you don’t know swimming or atleast floating. Nothing may happen but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be prepared for the worst. After we reached New Delhi, we read a news of an accident in rafting that happened on the next day of our rafting journey. The raft flipped and the instructor pulled all the seven tourists to shore but couldn’t rescue himself. The tourists were lucky to have a selfless instructor.
Here, I want to close the chapter of my bumpy experience and give credits of some photos to my sweet sister Jayalakshmi Sagolsem. Thank you, guys, for reading my story. If you like it, please hit the clap button👏👏👏 and share. Thanks. Until next time, Good bye.
