River rafting in Manali

Day-3:
9th November, 2011 Wednesday.

It was a nice sunny morning. The river, the camp and the mountains were presenting a very scenic view.

After breakfast, I asked Mr. Kaushik for our adventure activities. I told him that we came here especially for paragliding. We didn’t came here for river rafting as for river rafting, we would have gone to Rishikesh, only 250kms from Delhi. Then he told us that paragliding was not happening at Solang Valley due to windy weather. He also mentioned that there was an accident of a tourist lady while paragliding, only a few days back. But he assured us that he would do everything possible to make us fly. He then suggested us for river rafting as our first activity.
He also told us that if we want to go to Rohtang pass then we have to book a cab as private vehicles were not allowed during that period of time. The charges for the same were:
2400Rs for Alto, 2500Rs for Tata Sumo.

River: Beas
Rafting point: 10kms from Kullu towards Manali, shop no. 55, Gogi bhai.
Distance: 7kms
Duration: 70-80mins.
All of us were doing rafting for the first time. The water was ice-cold and giving us shivers. We enjoyed the ride a lot. During the last km of our ride, the water was a bit calm, so we decided to jump into the river. The water was so cold that my legs were getting numb within a few minutes. That was the ultimate fun I had during rafting. Though I enjoyed rafting but I didn’t find it adventurous as it was lacking the speed which I had expected in my mind.

Their jeep was waiting for us at the shore and dropped us at the starting point where our car was parked. After changing the clothes, I decided to have a coffee there.

3pm , we had lunch at our camp and left for Manali.

We visited Hidimba Devi’s temple, mall road, had some shopping and booked a cab (Maruti’s Eeco) for 5-people to Rohtang pass for 1500Rs only. I told the driver to come to our camp at 7am and gave him 200Rs as advance.
At the camp, I again told Mr. Kaushik to do something about paragliding. He asked me to phone him while returning from Rohtang pass. He would then update us for the same.

At night, all of my friends were high on alcohol. They emptied two full bottles of RS-whisky. They were without shirts and drinking in the open while shouting and laughing in full volume. I made a 20-minutes long video over my cell phone to enjoy those moments later as well.