Chimmony Jungle Camp : Day 1

We went straight to Chimmony on Friday morning. At the check post, met the officers and they took us to the dormitory. After freshening up and a quick breakfast we were set for the first activity – the bamboo raft ride. This was the one all of us (except may be JK ;)) were eagerly waiting for. Since there were 6 of us they took us in two rafts. The rafts were beautifully made with nice bamboo seats so that we can sit comfortably without getting wet. It was a bit sunny in the beginning but later it changed to a pleasant one.

The place had a very soothing effect and had all the settings of a perfect holiday - far far away from the crowd, just amidst nature, nature and nature all around. And about the scenery surrounding us – what can I say? It’s far too stunning to describe in words. You can’t help but be mesmerized by the silky, shimmering waters and the stately mountains and hills filled with trees that stood proudly on almost all sides. We were busy savoring (or trying to savor) the beauty around us in the cameras (These are some situations were we realize that man/camera has limitations but nature doesn’t).

Once we got used to the raft’s balance we were comfortable moving up and down. We even tried our hands in pedaling (not the main one of course). After sometime Pint got the idea to jump into the water (he can never resist a plunge). So Pint dived first. KK and Sid followed. Sid even swam from his raft to ours which was little far apart (n got exhausted).

Pint was insisting us also to jump but we didn’t want to wet ourselves…We then heard some elephant’s noise and so decided to try our luck in spotting it. So everyone returned to the respective rafts and we started again. But after some time pint got restless and started splashing water all over me. I was totally wet and so we decided not to leave others too.
The first target was obviously JK who is hydrophobic. In order to escape from us, he took 2 cameras, put it through his neck and was running around. But after a lot of effort we managed to take the cams from him and then it was real fun time. Splashing water all over, jumping from one raft to another, pulling others to water,… Pint even tried some diving and ended up in some distance from the raft and I had to pull him towards the raft.

In another 10 mins all the 6 of us were in 90 ft deep water without any life jackets and none of us were expert swimmers either!!!! Anyway after frolicking in water to the hearts content we returned to the IB. All of us were really hungry and so devoured the simple and delicious lunch waiting for us.

Day 1, to be cont....