Ellie moves to Delhi: This is what we came for

On the way to the river

Wow! It's going to be hard for me to put into words how much fun I have just had. My aching cheeks may be a good indication of the amount of smiling I've been doing today. It's been long awaited but today we finally got to kayak down the Ganges from marine drive to Rishikesh, 24km, with fast flowing water this took us around 3 hours. Not only was the river itself fantastic, but the atmosphere in this area is so unique, after finishing the Golf course section which was so big I had to take a second to breathe when it was over, we found ourselves at what I can only describe as a river market. There were mini water falls where people were bathing and all along the rocks people had set up stalls selling food, idyllic. All the rafters stop off here to jump in off the rock jumping area and get some grub after a super day on the water.

Preparing for our first taste of the Ganges

Its a small world after all: We met our friend Sam on the river who also studied at Uclan

Feeling very fortunate

River side market

Fancy pot noodle for lunch

I should probably mention how we got to Rishikesh as I have just skipped from Delhi to here, my apologies but I was too excited to talk about the river. We left Delhi on the luxury night bus, I guess it was luxury for India, we had air con and considerably less flies in our bus than the economy ones. We arrived at 4:30am and got a solid hour sleep before the day began. The day consisted of preparing the camp for the clients, setting up the ropes course which the monkeys tested out for us.

We also got some chill time

The next day the clients arrived, we went on a walk with them down to the river. It was so refreshing to have a conversation with a girl, it occurred to me then that I have been surrounded by men. The group were so lovely, a great laugh on the river and we spent the evening with them where the men taught me Punjabi dance moves and I shared with them my club classics. The dancing was brilliant but when we tired we moved onto a singing game which was equally enjoyable, all my years shower singing finally paid off. When they were singing Hindi songs the guy next to me was explaining to us the meaning of the song he did this a couple of times, but caught me off guard when he turned to me and said "Thank you for coming into my world", I thought bloody hell I've done one days rafting with this guy and he's getting all deep, I think the look of confusion and gratitude on my face made him realize that I had misunderstood that he was only translating lyrics for me and not declaring his appreciation for me entering his world.

Day 2:
Today was technically my first day of work at Bulls Retreat. Me and Vicky were the safety kayakers for the raft of clients, however Vicky forgot his spray deck and paddle, not the essentials or anything. So I was in the raft for the day as I lent him my stuff. Turns out this wasn't so bad because I got to have a go at steering and commanding the raft which was good fun! We stopped off half way down the river and were met by JP and many other crew members with the children of the people in the raft. We then spent a few hours playing beach games before finishing off the last section of river. Today was a great insight into what life is like working here and yes the money may be poop, but this is really living!