Uttaranchal Trip: The Fellowship of the Hills

A nine day vacation. First in years for me. Four people with differing opinions on the ideal vacation. No plan.

Day Zero (07/28) - The Journey Begins

This was the status when we set out for Delhi at 9 AM. G picked me up and we reached SMA's place, where the two dudes were busy packing. GG for a 9 day trip, SMA for a 2 year trip to the 'land of opportunities'. Amidst extreme chaos, we managed to get out of the house barely in time for us to catch our flight, after bidding good bye to G, who was very likely to get bored back here with all us interesting people away.

Two hours of taking GG's trip finds us at Delhi airport, where we try to plan the next step. Where do we go? Gangotri? Ajmer? Manali? Landsdowne?

An hour later and we're still at the airport waiting for the fourth member of the Fellowship to join us and a little clearer on the direction of travel. Rishikesh! The plan is take a train to Haridwar, a bus from there to Rishikesh and then figure out the next step.

I'll take a moment here to introduce you to the Fellowship of the Hills:

AB Baby (aka me): Yours truly, whom you already know by now, if you've been reading this blog. If you haven't been reading, please start at the beginning. There is no short-cut to finding out what a cool person I am :).

SMA Annihilator (aka Bulla): That's what he calls himself inside the Age of Empires. Politician turned philosopher turned geek turned economist turned student, many would say he's living his life backwards. Runs half-marathons, is frequently funny, and less frequently blogs here.

GauGupta(DPM) (aka Gaurav): A teenaged brain in a 20-something body, full of enthu, butt of most jokes, this guy makes any gathering fun.

Jitu (aka Jitu): Oil rig dude, is a friend of SMA's from college. Chilled out, no hassles, this is the guy who made us wait an hour at the airport.

So where were we... Right, Delhi airport. Gaurav left to visit a relative and after some more waiting, Jitu arrives and we head to our pitstop in Noida. Dumping our bags there, we hit a mall and decide to watch Pirates of the Carribean, only to realise, after we'd bought the tickets, that the movie is longer than the average English movie and would not leave us enough time to catch our train to Haridwar. We watch it anyways.

Sacrificing the last 10 minutes of the movie we rush to pick up our bags and head to the station. Dealing with auto-rickshaw negotiations and misplaced tickets, we manage to make it to the train, where Gaurav awaits us with take-away food.

After the chaos that has been, everyone breathes a collective sigh of relief, that for the next few hours, someone else is in the driving seat. Gaurav and Jitu are introduced and the Fellowship is complete for the first time.

The train moves...

[AB: Stay tuned as the Fellowship of the Hills continues on their unplanned adventure, facing monsters who bore their victims to death, cunning elves who seek to delay them with intoxicants and promises of merriment, savoring what meagre offerings the strange land has for their palate, waging on towards their unseen goal.]