August 16 – A “five hour” trip to Rishikesh? Yeah, right.

Mintu picked us up at 8:00am to begin our “five hour” trip to Rishikesh. We were happy to be leaving Hotel Sunrise - hot water was available only 2 of the 4 days and internet in our room, only one half day (the rest of the time we had to use the internet in the front lobby with no AC and where the mosquito zapper made me jump constantly).

Anyway, we climbed into the car looking forward to getting to a new city and seeing some new sights. Little did we know that our trip would turn out to be quite an adventure…

Things began well enough. We got through Delhi and most of New Delhi without too much traffic. However, the skies opened up when we crossed over into Uttar Pradesh, the next state over from Delhi, and we found ourselves snarled in a horrible traffic jam. After an hour we had only moved the equivalent of about 2 blocks!

About an hour later we came to the first of several detours we had to make due to flooded out roads. By now it’s 11:30 (three and a half hours into our trip). We start off down the alternate route and come to a standstill when a 50 yard portion of road was under a foot and a half of water. Mintu sized up the situation and decided to go for it. He was worried because his car is diesel and won’t just “breakdown” if it gets flooded, it will cease working altogether!  We were fortunate and made it through ok. We even made it through two others of similar lengths and depths. However, the last “swamp” (about 3 feet deep!) proved to be too much for Mintu’s sense of adventure and off we went on another detour. It’s now about 4:00pm (8 hours into a 5 hour trip).

Mintu decides that we’ll have to go far up into the Himalayas to Dehradun, skirted around Rajaji National Park then come partly down the mountain to get to Rishikesh, bypassing Haridwar altogether.  OK.

Eleven hours and fifteen minutes after leaving Delhi, we finally made it to Rishikesh. THEN we couldn’t find the “Blessed Cottages” where we had a reservation. Luckily, we hadn’t paid or secured that $17-a-night hotel, so we asked  Mintu is he could recommend a good place. All we really wanted was a place with electricity, hot water and a bed that didn’t have springs poking through the mattress (Ah, Hotel Sunrise).  He found “Divine Resort”, which has, so far, lived up to its name.  

We are about 300 feet about the great Ganges River and can see and hear the rushing waters from our room and the balcony outside. There is electricity (although you have to bonk the outlets sometimes to get them to work), a water heater in the room and there are no popping springs. Heaven!