Day 1 : Journey
begins (BUS.TRAIN.AUTO.BUS)
As always, I wanted a small and manageable group. By some divine intervention our group, size which had dangerously
exceeded 10 came down to 6 at the last moment with Vishal, Bharath, Kishan,
Patade and Chembe in tow. Since our journey was going to take us into region
with sub-temperate climate and difficult terrain, it required us to make a lot
of preparations beforehand. Being the hardcore BITSians that we so OB-viously
are, we kept on postponing the packing until the final day. So, on the day of
departure, the morning and noon was spent in a shopping spree and collecting
all the necessary stuff.
A last minute viva in one of our labs threw our departure plans
off-track. But I and Kishan managed to cajole the DIGI lab instructor and got the viva rescheduled for some later date. We dashed to our rooms where all the others were waiting, cursing us under their breaths for the delay.
Finally we reached the rickety Pilani bus stand and boarded the bus for Loharu
from where we would board the Delhi bound train.
Our plan was to reach Rishikesh early in the morning. But, the train delay at Loharu jeopardized our entire
schedule even before the start of the journey. However, we were not alone. A lot of
BITSian friends had planned a trip to home during the extended holiday and were
accompanying us until Delhi. So, there we were stranded at a non-existent place
on India’s map playing Mafia and cards and killing time at Loharu station. After a 2 hour delay, the train finally arrived. We reached the Old Delhi railway station at 11 pm.
Our earlier plan was to catch a state transport bus for Rishikesh/Hardiwar from the
Anand Vihar ISBT. But it now seemed a distant plan. So we instead reached Kashmiri Gate ISBT and got ourselves booked on a private bus standing outside the ISBT for a price of Rs 225 per seat(he had initially asked Rs 350 pp). We didn't have time for a proper dinner so we grabbed some snacks from the McDonalds and settled down for the overnight bus journey.
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