Banaras!

Many people think they cannot have knowledge or understanding of God without reading books. But hearing is better than reading, and seeing is better than hearing. Hearing about Benares is different from reading about it; but seeing Benares is different from either hearing or reading. – The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna

Banaras, Kashi or Varanasi, whatever name you might want to call it, was a city I always wanted to visit. For someone who loathes crowds and cities and prefers natural beauty and places bereft of people it is a weird selection. The reason I went there honestly was basically to hog on the street food of Banaras. Fuelled by my friend Sangeeta’s book Culinary Culture of Uttar Pradesh I caught a direct flight from Ahmedabad to Banaras. The agenda was food and nothing else.

The city of Banaras, although I am going to try and describe is not something that can be understood by descriptions, it can only be experienced.

The drive from the airport to the hotel was smooth, apparently upto the city the road is broad and well constucted, once you enter the city though, you realise the sheer number of people around and as you approach the ghats, where we stayed, the roads become narrower and the honking becomes shriller and louder. The hindi in which our driver spoke to us and when he had his girl friends call was a welcome change to listen to from the honking on the streets. Listening to words like “Prachin”, “Vivash” in normal conversation and not in prose and poetry was a novelty for us to listen. To be honest the hindi was so pure and cultured, just listening to it was music to the ears.

The Ghats and the narrow streets around it are like a different world. All streets leading to the Ghars are chaos personified, whilst they are trying to clean Banaras a lot, its still a while to go, I guess. The infinite number of people, the cycle rickshaws, the autos, the incessant honking would make you wonder if everyone would be at verge of losing their composure and yet, when I asked a gentleman rushing past me, “ Bhaisahab, yeh Kachori gully kaha hai?”

He paused and immediately helped me with the directions, as we began walking in the direction, he smiled and showed me his pan smeared red teeth, and said,”waise abhi kachori milegi nahi.”

It was 1.30pm, lesson number one, all food here is served at a particular time and you cannot get it round the clock no matter how good it is.

Amidst all the chaos, all the rush, all the crowd the city is clear, gol kachori available from 7.30 to 9.30, badi kachori from 9.30 to 12, Malaiyo early mornings, Samosa in the evenings and so on. Do not for a minute think this town works like chaos, its on a schedule and there is order. There is a queue and you will get your Jalebi but only jab tumhara number aayega.

There are barbers shaving heads and beards on the ghats, there are pooja’s happening, Sarees drying, boatmen luring you for a boat ride, green tea being sold, gulls picking up anything that is eatable, kids sliding on the slopes of the ghat, cows flicking their tail which can get into your face, pyres being lit, tears of their loved ones, painters sitting and painting art, jyotish giving you a sneak peak into your future, Baba’s smoking chillum and yet you will also find a corner where you can be alone, bereft of any intrusion and hear bells of a temple, watch Ganga Maiya gliding by, small lamps at dusk flickering with the light waves of the river and feel the vibrations of the place, an unbelievably beautiful dusk sky would ensure you actually feel the vibrations of this magical town.

I am an atheist, a non believer, someone who loathes places of worship, no we didn’t even go and visit the Kashi Vishwanath temple, but we felt the place and its magical aura, it has certain vibrations that are unmistakable, inexplicable, but prominent. You may not be able to explain, but you will totally understand the reason why people are pulled to this place.

Walking the narrow lanes around the Ghats, the various food shops serve the best street food in the world, the city maybe messy but the halwai’s have spic and span shops, especially The Ram Bhandar, whose Kachori’s and Jalebi’s are something you do not want to miss. The Malaiyo by Markandey Sardar available only in winter months is unlike anything you would have ever had. A glass of Bhaang from Badal Coldrink or a Lassi from Blue Lassi will add extra zing and aid your gut to gulp more, for after a noon siesta you would want to gulp the best Chaats in the world, be it the unique Tamatar chaat or the amazing Chooda Matar the food this city has to offer is something for which I shall travel here again.

Not just the food though, Banaras is a place you want to immerse in. Words I aint got enough to describe this place, some pictures will perhaps do a little more justice but nothing will be better than you going there and feeling it.

I’ll leave you with some pictures which I hope will inspire you to go visit Kashi, the oldest town in the world!

View from Assi Ghat

Assi Ghat, mandir bhi pizza bhi, take your pick!

Innumerable such pooja’s are being performed.

The evenings are the most magical, before the Ganga aarti begins, the sunset is magical here!

Gulls flock people spilling ashes of their loved ones in the Ganges.

Markandey Sardar ki Malaiyo!

Jalebi!!

Gol Kachori

Chooda Matar

The cows are a part of Banaras lanes

You will also find calm in this chaos!

Bholenath is omnipresent

Pick a corner, grab a bite!

The ghat is lit up in trippy lights in the night!

Sattal

Apparently Sattal is a paradise for bird lovers, at a nice distance away from crowded Nainital, Sattal is thickly wooded, and forested, thankfully the woods here are protected and this in return has meant loads of birds and an odd leopard and a bear being spotted.

We stayed at the Incredible Birding camp, the place was highly recommended by birders and a friend of mine Tikuli. The Incredible Birding camp is run by Khusbu and Rahul Sharma who are themselves very keen birders and apparently are very good photographers of birds. Unfortunately whilst we went there, the pair was away to Iceland for birding! Well, atleast now I know some people are living the life! Anyways, since they were not there, the guy in charge was Vipul, coincidentally from Surat, 75 kms from my place, the fun of communicating in Gujarati in this state far from home! He aided us in identifying and finding favourite spots of birds around Sattal, Garudtal and Chafi river.

 

The reason why this is a bad time for birding is, the foliage is lush, the leaves are dense, there is water all around, moving around is troublesome and it keeps raining on and off, however, that did not deter us, we went out, we were patient, photographing was more tricky, but watching them with a binocular much easier! Mornings and evenings were particularly active, the chirps and coos wouldn’t stop, we kept spotting quite a few residents there and we actually saw a lot of species that we had not seen earlier!

 

The lakes here are quite beautiful and pristine, especially now with it being off season and no tourists boating in the lake or traffic on the roads it was blissful and you could actually have the whole lake to yourself. It was so quiet that you could hear and identify birds just by their calls. I can’t imagine how it would be in proper dry season and winters which is the ideal time to visit this place for birding. I have heard people saying they would spot 150 plus species in 2-3 days. In this off season we spotted 46 species in the one and half day excursions we took around.

 

Some pictures are in the below slide show :

 

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the rain affair!

In a country where the sun shines almost 11 months a year, please excuse me if I don’t appreciate it as much. I loathe it, on the other hand, I love the clouds! Damp, gray, dull weather for me any day over the sunny days. Unfortunately we barely have that sort of weather at best for 1-2 months a year. So it is very important for me to make the most of it when that weather lasts!

Since three years now, I have been driving to the Himalayas from my hometown in Gujarat, this honestly is the best time to take a road trip in India! Entire India is beautiful during this time of the year, all those dusty towns in Haryana, those dry deserted rocks in Rajasthan, the dry north Gujarat, everything springs to life, suddenly there are more lakes, the greenery seems to have taken over, there is a vibrant coat that all trees are wearing, this dusty country suddenly has a green sheen to it and it looks amazingly pretty. Especially when the clouds descend in various shades of gray, innumerable small waterfalls begin trickling down slopes thanks to the clouds drooling drops of rain on the earth and mist floating around, the whole image is impossible to capture in a photograph, but you all surely have seen it haven’t you?

Trust me, if you haven’t you are wasting your life, go out and see the Indian countryside in the rains, its simply as good as any place on earth during this time.

Since I am a more greedy person than normal, I can’t make do with just the normal pretty Indian countryside, I prefer to travel to the Himalaya’s! Three consecutive years, end of July I am going to the Himalayas and take it from me, it is a super time to go there. The weather is not unbelievably cold, infact its quite friendly unless you are opting for a very high altitude, secondly, there are no crowds, thirdly the mountains are hibernating, the trees have been washed, the leaves are sprouting, the valleys are full of flowers, at times at certain places I remember it was difficult to walk without trampling flowers! Can you imagine that? On some trails at certain times, it is a problem, you cannot walk unless you put your feet on flowers! Coz the floor is that full with flowers! There isn’t just one valley of flowers, yes that is a famous one, thankfully, it keeps people from going everywhere! There are quite a few valleys that bloom and they are a sight!

Please do not let people deter you by saying landslides happen and all that crap, enough accidents happen on roads in cities. If we are sensible and prudent, accidents mostly like will be avoided, yes you might get stuck in a place for a day or two longer, but that’s about the worst it can get. Come to think of it, getting stuck on a holiday is the best thing that can happen to you! You can always tell your boss, sorry but road closed, I couldn’t come back and enjoy!

The monsoon in the Himalaya’s is quite spectacular, the water usually at most places is quite pristine and clean and clear, no brown falls here (largely) secondly, the breeding season of birds, so lots will be about with worms in their bills feeding, without worrying how close you are getting to them, thirdly, apple, peach, plum, pear season, pluck them and eat them! The freshness and the juiciness will blow away your mind! You might even not eat fruits any longer once back thinking, this is no way the same fruit that grows on trees! Take my word on this one too! The mountains near to you are lush green, the ones further away from you seem a lighter shade of green and eventually become blue, the clouds flirt with not just the mountain peaks, but they come down, settle down in the valleys, they flirt with the trees and even you! Yes, go walk in the clouds, you can also sing “aaj main upar” for many times the clouds will actually be in the valley below you!

The places are empty, the popular tourist sites, which are pretty, but usually made places to ignore because of the crowds are empty, the hotels are empty, you get loads of discounts, if you stay there they treat you like royalty, there are many local village deity festivals, if you can befriend locals you can have a ball visiting these villages during festival days, the people are generally in a good mood and relaxing.

Talking of festivals, I remember one afternoon we stumbled into a stranger called Rajinder in Buhad village in Parvati Valley, when he learnt we were from Gujarat and that we had come to see their local customs, he invited us home for tea, we tried to ignore but he insisted, we eventually went for tea to his home, in the middle of an apple orchard at around 5pm. That tea was followed by Bhatture Chhole, Fruits, Salad, Kingfisher Beer, Bholebaba Prasad, Chicken, Naan and by the time we left his place at 11.30 in the night, we were happy high, belly filled and stoned! Today that stranger Rajinder is a friend, we also meet for treks and I hope someday he will visit Bharuch and maybe I can reciprocate his kindness in some way!

Encounters like this do not happen in summer season or diwali season, the locals are also busy at that time! Its during rains that everything takes a back seat in the Himalaya’s. The atmosphere tells you not to work, to sit back, relax, gaze, sigh, soak in fresh air into those lungs of yours!

This year we headed for Kumaon, opting for the small corners in Naintal hills and Almora hills, we visited Nathuakhan, Sattal and Dhamas. We stayed in two places that are sort of hotels where we were the only guests, the cooks would ask us what we’d like to eat and cook, it was good to have their undivided attention and having everything cooked as per our whims and flavours and at times we wanted to! In Dhamas, we took up a house in the middle of nowhere, to get milk we had to drive about 10 mins after walking to the car for another 5 mins and to get proper vegetables or butter or bread, we had to drive 13 kms one way! The place though, had only three kinds of sounds, birds, cicada’s and crickets and rains pattering on our roof! The villa was secluded, very well equipped, with a view so good, for two days we plonked our asses on the bean bags in its balcony and read books, drank cups of tea, drank the other drinks, did the things and everytime we looked up from the books the view was to die for. We didn’t feel like moving, we didn’t feel like coming back, it was the ideal sort of house that I’d love to have some day in the hills. I’ll leave you with a few pictures and I hope it inspires you to take a monsoon road trip to some place if not the Himalayas!

The view from our balcony in Dhamas after the rains when the clouds descended seemed like this place was out of a fantasy!

Neither the sun, nor the stars were visible, but the hues the skies changed at dawn and dusk were so amazingly spectacular that I cannot describe or capture, this is the best I could do!

The empty roads are a pleasure to drive on!

Bob’s place at Nathuakhan is very popular, but we got it all to ourselves! A childhood dream came true by visiting this wonderful place!

Garudtal lake all to us! No visitors, pristine colours, silence and well you get the idea right 😛

they make the clouds here!

.

~

an invisible bird tweets,

rubbing my eyes, stumbling to the balcony,

I step out,

it was dawn finally,

the night was dark and angry,

it thundered and it roared and it poured throughout,

another tweet I hear,

looking out of the balcony, all I see is an abyss,

the clouds have descended on the grass,

a chirp again,

intrigued I am, bulbul I guess,

the clouds distract,

envelop me they do,

a stream gurgles,

where I wonder,

what land is this I ponder,

surreal perhaps,

no ethereal maybe,

Sohra it is!

~

 

I don’t thinking I can ever encapsulate the beauty, the environment and the surroundings of Sohra in words. Gushing all the time about how the clouds would engulf us from time to time, how suddenly from clear weather to not being able to see 5 feet away from us was the activity that we indulged in maximum. The precise reason we wanted to go to Meghalaya in may was this. I had read and heard, that monsoon arrives slowly and whilst it is too intense and too wet in june and july, early may is a good time to maybe go to Meghalaya to experience a bit of rains and at the same time also get a chance to have enough dry weather to move around. What we did not know was how misty, foggy it would be, but accidentally, we actually thoroughly understood what Meghalaya the name stands for, abode of clouds, literally it means that, we witnessed it first hand and I cannot but get over it.

I have a small video of it here to explain!

I have seen a lot of documentaries where they show a rain forest and how the canopy of trees send out clouds, I have seen those time lapses and now I saw it first hand with my own eyes. We would be standing in a parking lot, surrounded by shops, and suddenly from no where clouds would appear and my son 10 feet away from me would seem invisible, for a few fleeting moments we would all stay in the clouds and then the sun would try to power its way through. I wonder if I am able to explain what we felt and saw.

Sohra in May is unbelievable, its like a fairy tale, green grass all around and white outs are the norm, you cannot see too far, you cannot photograph, but hell I love that sort of weather, for where I come from, we have a tad too much of sun, I love the clouds, the mist, the freshness that such weather brings is something I really enjoy. It was pleasantly cool all the time, perfect weather to sip cups of chai or eating roasted bhutta’s or slurping maggi! The three days that we were there seemed like a dream, whilst the sun would also from time to time power its way, the clouds would regularly win their bouts and these bouts would keep on going whole day, for the three days we were there!

White skies, deep green valleys, when the clouds would clear out for a bit, you could see the whitest of streams and waterfalls flowing amid vivid green gorges. Bah, why did I have to come back from there?

 

 

 

 

Monsoons and the Himalaya’s

 

I thought to start with the story of our monsoon roadtrip to the Himalaya’s it would be apt to begin with a picture of prayer flags. Before we left we did talk to a few people about our plan and most of the times everyone would immediately show concern about the rains, landslides, bad roads and how it was a very bad idea, not out of anything else but out of worry for us. Its kind of a catch 22 situation, you know they care for you, you know they want you to be safe and yet you must ignore cause it cannot be explained to them that its not such a bad idea, that things can always be worked out, that people live in the Himalaya’s in the monsoon and travel there and that nothing happens if you just be careful.

 

Its sort of important to stay on course and not budge, because once you set out of home let me assure you, you are in for a trip of a lifetime. The Himalaya’s are in a totally different mood during the monsoon, they seem to have bathed, they seem to be breathing clouds, they seem like they have been put through some filter that is just amazingly fresh and pristine. If the Himalaya’s were people, they are probably living their lives at their best during the monsoon.

 

It is fresh apple season, the streams are full, the nullah’s are overflowing rapidly and ferociously, crossing them is a thrill in itself, the hills and pines seem to be cooking clouds all the time and its time when you just sit, gape and gasp at the changing weather. You are admist clouds for a minute and another minute you could have a scorching sun on you.

 

The 20 days we spent there were pretty much without any dangerous incident, we didn’t go looking for trouble and I would say the Himalaya’s in the monsoon are a perfect destination to travel. I would actually prefer the monsoon over the summers for a trip to the Himalaya’s, even for us guys from the plains. Not only is the temperature perfect for us but the amount of freshness that is oozing there during these months has probably increased a couple of years of our lives!

 

So stay tuned for more stories and pictures of the Himalayan Monsoon Roadtrip and before I go, here is one more eye candy!

 

Travel Forums – life savers I say!

Ever used TripAdvisor or IndiaMike or LonelyPlanet’s thorn tree or Roughguides?

Well if you travel regularly and manage your travel by yourself I am sure you have used these sites. If you haven’t used them and love travel, I recommend you get onto them immediately. These sites are nothing less than a boon for a travel loving person. I like to do my travel by myself, I hate packages or tours, never taken one, nor will ever take one. So whilst I like to travel by myself I am greatly assisted by these travel sites and more than just reading about travel, the best part about these sites are the forum’s on them, you got any question, any doubt, just ask away and you will have some travel loving folk helping you out. I wonder how the people who used to explore on their own before the age of internet managed. Perhaps they were the true adventurers! 🙂

I encounter many people who want to travel, sometimes dont want packages from tour operators, however, eventually give in to them. However, if you are keen to travel on your own, get on these forums, not only can you give great tips to people who are travelling to places that you are well aware of you can also get a lot of info. Many a times people are apprehensive about so many things and have so many doubts and very few people to ask, especially when travelling to remote or offbeat places. No longer should you have any inhibitions if you use these forums.

How safe is it after dark?

How easy is it to rent a car?

Are the directions in English or some other language?

Apart from the popular circuit, what are less touristy yet equally interesting places?

Can we drive in a safari?

Can we camp?

What area is better to stay in with regards to restaurants? etc etc etc…

There are a load of questions in our mind before embarking on any trip, especially if you are going slightly off the beaten path or are totally unaware of the place you are going to. Thanks to these forums now its a piece of cake.

For example, before our recent South Africa trip, I met one kind soul on the forum of Lonely Planet, she seemed to be replying a lot of people about their South Africa travel queries. So I sent her a message asking if she would assist and I sent her a list of questions. Voila! She not just assisted but after many messages back and forth, she not just replied to my innumerable queries, she would offer quite a few suggestions, send me links, contact details and what not. Infact, she was the only reason I had a 12 day road trip in SA (my first driving outside my country) which was not only comfortable and slow paced but entirely smooth and without any sour incidents. We would have never known about the Panaroma Route in South Africa and Drakensberg mountains which are a must visit sort of place if we had gone by some commercial tour planner.

Unfortunately I couldn’t meet the lady as she was herself travelling whilst we were in SA, however, I can never ever thank her enough for the amazing information she gave us and for being so patient with so many of my questions. I don’t think I would have done the trip like we did without her assistance.

I have been writing on Trip Advisor since a long time and now am looking forward to replying a few people about their queries when they come for a trip to India on Lonely Planet as well. India Mike is also a wonderful place to ask all your questions especially if you are looking to do Road Trips in India! These forums are a boon for the wanna be explorer’s/travellers 🙂 Don’t believe me? Go check them out for your next trip!! You will not be disappointed!

Stop pondering about how to plan a trip and get onto these lovely travel forums and start interacting!

Road Trip – South Africa

 

Ever since I have come back from South Africa, I cannot stop raving about the amazing road trip we had there. The feeling of being cock a hoop is not leaving me. The country has amazing panaromic views all around, the roads are in top notch condition and the traffic there is absolutely nothing, especially for a guy who lives in India! After driving around about 4050 kms in the country and spending 12 days there I am quite adamant that anyone that goes to South Africa has to do a road trip.

 

For someone who had not driven in any foreign country before there were a lot of apprehensions and doubts let alone half the known world here telling me it was a horrible idea, that in South Africa after dark people are just waiting to mug me or rob me. Let me tell you, nothing of that sort happened, we infact in our 12 days trip did not ever encounter any of those scary experiences. The thrill of self driving in a safari in a bush full of Elephants, Rhino’s, Giraffe’s and what not has to be experienced and soaked in. Once you complete the trip it seems all chilled out and I wondered what the fuss about it was.

Okay lets first give some information for you guys if any one of you plan to drive in SA :

 

1.) Indian driving license is valid in SA as long as your driving license is in English. However, we had read on the internet that car hire companies could demand an International Driving Permit and so we actually got one and spent money on it, but it was never asked or checked!

2.) In South Africa like in India they have a right hand drive, so its almost no adjustment for us Indians. They do follow rules though, which might be a little tricky for us Indians 😛 However, if you just drive carefully and watch around, there are plenty of signals and signboards and they are all in English and so once you get a hang of it you are sorted.

3.) Budgetcar.co.za was the car rental that we used and believe it or not for 12 days and 4050 kilometers for two drivers it cost us just 20k. How cool is that? Yes we paid for the fuel and toll (which was at very few places)

4.) We did actually pay around 2500 extra for road side assistance (included in the 20k) however we never required it.

5.) When we left we had booked a Volkswagon Polo, however they gave us a ford fiesta. Which was a pretty similar hatchback type car.

6.) For Safari, ideally you want to hire a jeep or a higher vehicle. We made a slight mistake and didn’t opt for the higher vehicle.

7.) Dropping a car and hiring was very easy and whilst picking up it took us some 15 mintues while dropping the car it took us hardly 2 minutes.

 

See it is that easy and hence I recommend you do a road trip in SA and never opt for any other option. If you are weary of driving a very long distance, which we are not, you can drop a car at an airport and pick up another one from another airport. Its easy and no hassles.

The people here even when driving communicate a lot, while we were driving around in Kruger National Park almost every car that would pass us would wave or flash a light to say ‘hi’!! On the highways when you let a car pass, it would switch on its parking light to say thank you and we would flash our light to say welcome! Seriously almost everywhere this was the norm! In the city of Cape Town though all that disappeared but then I guess folks in a big city are always too busy and in a hurry. It used to amuse me though when our host in Cape Town warned us of traffic on the way to the airport, for someone who comes from India the traffic in SA was an absolute non issue, they simply dont have that many cars or people. There were very few two wheelers and that is half the problem solved.

Having our own vehicle in a national park doing safari was something I was most apprehensive about, how do we find routes, how do we identify animals and birds, what if we encounter big animals on the road? If you are just a little sensible with the animals and keep a distance, the animals were fine, most of the time they kept their distance as well. Kruger National Park has amazingly clear sign boards for a park that is spread across 28000 square kilometers! Riding there and tracking animals or finding a waterhole and spending hours waiting there was so amazing that I cannot quite describe it! We have always complained that in Tiger parks in India they do not let us spend enough time inside the park, here from morning 6 to evening 6 you are free to roam in the park track animals or sit at spot and wait for animals. Can you imagine 12 hours of being in the wild looking for animals and birds? I could not before this trip! We bought one animal identification book in the park and it was great to spot birds and refer the book!

An Impala walks patiently for us to cross before it crosses! 🙂

The most amazing moment was when we encountered was when we saw a family of Cheetah, the parents were teaching their kids to hunt, the kids were pretty inept and could not stalk at all and would always alarm the Impala and Zebra before they could get near enough to chase. We spent an hour with that family and eventually left that family to perfect their art. It was like the first time that we got to see a wild cat for such length of time! We spotted a pride of lions when we were driving and there was no one else around, just us and the lions! One night we got delayed and drove in pitch darkness in the park and encountered wild dogs, Elephants, Rhinos sitting on the main road! Oh I can go on and on about our 3 day drive in Kruger National Park.

They were more curious about the cars then the Impala’s!

The usual traffic jam in Kruger! We looked forward to such traffic jams, which clearly meant some good sighting was happening! We used to rush in the midst of all traffic jams! 😛

 

After Kruger National Park we went on a drive on the Panaroma Route and the route is named totally aptly! The views on that drive were amazing, SA generally has less trees and small buildings so the visibility is amazing, you can see far and wide and the landscape is absolutely stunning. There are so many waterfalls on the route that we didn’t know which to visit and which to skip. Overall we felt we should have given ourselves a few more days to properly explore the Panaroma Route and the Drakensberg Mountains, but perhaps that would be for another time. Here are some snaps from the Panaroma Route.

The drive upto the Three Rhondavels View Point is amazing and the reward at the end of it equally stunning!

We found loads of maple tree’s near Graskop where we had the best Pancakes ever!

The Golden Gate Highlands National park is straight out of the wild west or Texas! We were pleasantly surprised to see it!

 

We absolutely loved the Garden Route, picture this : Green Mountains on a side, the top being full of clouds on one side, the ocean on the another and you are zipping about on a tip top highway! The country is amazingly beautiful and one way to see a lot of it in a short time is to take a car and drive! There were innumerable view points, the amount of stops that we took to take photographs would drive any other driver mad, unless ofcourse if the driver and the photographer are the same person!

 

Here are some more pictures of the Garden Route, a full travelogue comes next and then our experiences of our encounters with locals there!

I told you green mountains with their tops in the clouds on one side!

The ocean on the other!

when clouds descend on the garden route!

Thoda to style maarna banta hai!

 

 

 

 

My first bungee!

Ever since I first had heard about bungee jumping in New Zealand and seen it, I had made up my mind, some day I am going to do it. This was probably way back in college and although I had never had come across a bungee opportunity, I had not even properly looked for it. Somewhere inside me it was still lurking and when we planned a trip to South Africa this may, I came to know about Face Adrenalin the worlds highest Bungee Bridge on the Storms River!

I was pretty certain from the moment I booked my flight tickets that I am going to go and jump off the bridge and do the bungee finally.

Here is a pic of the place, this pic is courtesy Face Adrenalin :

However, as we reached the destination, first up we missed it and went ahead then we had to drive back to the place, when we went up to the registration counter the lady asked us if we were sure of jumping as there would be no refund once we enroll. My wife prodded that we take a look at the jump for once and see the height and then decide. 216 meters didn’t sound too deadly and I was convinced I wanted to jump, coz I know I am tied up and am not gonna die so I wanted to get over the fear thing. We didnt go to see it and enrolled.

However after enrolling we learnt that we had to wait for about 30 minutes for our chance, it was drizzling and was freezing cold and I was intent on doing the bungee in my tshirt and not my sweater and so didnt put anything warm on. The staff at Face Adrenalin eventually guided me to a fire place in the restaurant. Thank god for that coz or else I am sure I wouldn’t have stopped visiting the toilet that day!

Eventually we got over to the bridge, the walk I must tell you is equally scary to the point from where you jump. There is a grill through which you walk and you can see the bottom of the valley, bad idea I tell you!

Upon reaching the place we discovered that there was loud music blaring, people were screaming out of nervousness I assume and most of the people were dancing, trembling, kind of loud out of their own nervousness.

Skipping to our jumps, my wife went first and she did it and came back and told me it was amazing. Now I knew it was amazing but what I also knew was that I had still got to do it.

As I stepped to the edge all suited up and ready for my jump the moment I looked at the free fall for half a second, honestly, I wanted to chicken out! I don’t know how, but I managed to overcome that initial thought and went for the jump and boy, after the first 4-5 seconds when I was stiff in every since millimeter of my body, I eventually got caught up by the fact that I was kind of flying (falling whatever) and once lower by 200 meters and bouncing up and down on the elastic and swaying like a palm tree, I could pretty much get an idea of how a bird might feel. Amazingly down there in the valley swinging about, there was no noise at all, the music, screams of all others were not audible to me, tells you how far is 200 meters! All I could feel was a slight drizzle, the wind in my ears, my hair flying in the wind and you wouldn’t believe that but there was a calm and peace amidst all this madness that I cannot comprehend. I actually couldn’t believe that after the 5-6 seconds of euphoria/nervousness there was such calm awaiting me!

I can’t imagine how wonderful a skydiver must be feeling! I think that has to be the next jump! Which I had never though about up until this first bungee but I don’t think the sky dive is going to wait for as long as the Bungee had to wait!

For all those who want to laugh at my nervous smile, here is the full video! 😀 😀