My friends and I started off from Bangalore to Hebri (near Udupi) on a Friday night. Most of us were exited about the travel as we were traveling in a sleeper couch. We played UNO for sometime and then drifted off to sleep forgetting the hectic week and looking forward for the awaiting adventure.
We reached Hebri Forest guest house around 10am. It was raining and everything around looked fresh deep green. What a treat for our eyes! We met our friends who were supposed to join us from Mysore. The guide over there told us that we’ll be rafting only in the afternoon. So we had lots of time on our hands. We freshened up and had the yummy breakfast (Neer dosa, idli and vada). We were then sipping our coffee near the bridge looking at the other team who were all set to go rafting. The nature looked so perfect; the sita river was flowing to its brim, submerging a few trees and shrubs at its banks.
The shrubs never seem to mind, swaying along with the flow of water. It was raining and the rain drops made beautiful patterns in the water.We then trekked to a small shiva temple nearby. We saw a variety of gigantic butterflies. Everything was good except for the leeches. We later went to Hebri to have our lunch at a homely mess. Hmm.. the food was simple but tasty. We came back to the forest guest house and got ready to go rafting. We put on our life jackets and helmets and carried our rafts to the river. The instructor gave us instructions on how to row, how not to panic if we fell out of the raft and how to come back to the raft. We were a bit scared but the enthusiasm overcame the fear factor.
Gets it go.. off on the raft .. flowing along the river! Two rafts and a kayak sailed off together. A nepali person was our instructor. In the beginning he was just testing our rowing skills and gave us some rafting gyaan. He told us how he had lost his front tooth while rafting as if it would encourage us! In five minutes of our rafting, one guy from our raft lost control and fell into the water. We were stunned! Our instructor pulled him back on to our raft. He went on to tell that that this was nothing compared to rafting in rivers in foothills of Himalayas. Rafting went on with few peaceful moments. There was dense forest on both the sides of the river. We spotted a few birds like peacock, kingfisher etc. Then our guide said that there was a snake on a tree branch and we all were eager to see it. In our eagerness we rowed with so much of energy that my guide and few of us next him were right under the snake! It was a blank and white striped viper. Thankfully we rowed away from it with equal force. After that we rowed to a calm area and all of us jumped off the raft to float in water. I do not know swimming and it was a great experience floating in the water, looking towards the sky and rain drops hitting our face. By then a friend of mine who also didn’t know swimming had sailed off very far, he called for help which we never heardL. Finally he got hold of the kayak sailing nearby. He was hanging like a monkey to it until our raft arrived there. We missed our camera to capture this shot J After sometime we were nearing a pillar of a bridge,
and to our knowledge we were going to have a head on collision with it. We looked at our instructor questioningly and all he did was to laugh! In seconds our raft collided with the pillar and the front three guys/gals were thrown into the raft! We went on to fall into the raft yet again while passing a strong current. After all the excitement the rafting ended. We wanted more of it I say! Anyway all good things come to an end. We had lot more fun than the guys in the other raft because of our daring instructor. We returned back to the forest guest house and then, back to Namma Bengaluru with a memorable and adventurous rafting experience.
