Into the wild
Fear, pain, the risk of debilitating injury—they don’t sound like the ingredients of a traditional holiday on the face of it. (You get enough of that at work, right?) But a growing number of young executives throughout India are spending their time off rafting down rapids, or scaling sheer rock faces, or hurtling down a mountain side on a bike praying to the heavens that the brakes work. They’re not all “outdoors types”, these guys. Many are trying these things for the first time. They have tried the sight-seeing vacation, the cultural vacation, and particularly, the recharge-the-batteries vacation— the one spent mostly on a sunlounger in some kind of paradise palace sipping cocktails and dozing off gently.
India is abundantly blessed in both departments. Mention the economic slowdown to R. Balakrishna of The Great Indian Outdoors, a tour group specialising in adventure holidays, and he laughs. “Hasn’t affected us! Adventure tourism has gone through an enormous boom over the last decade or so.” So, what’s great about clinging on to a rock face for dear life, over a 200-ft drop? Well, there’s the enormous satisfaction of looking fear in the face and steaming ahead regardless.
Courage is a habit, confidence is a muscle. When you’ve done the unthinkable once, it’s that much easier to do it again. Furthermore, the great outdoors is actually pretty great—even greater when you’re grappling with its majesty and power, one-on-one. So, there’s a little pain involved, a few battle scars—big deal! Wasn’t it REM who sang, Everybody hurts, sometimes? No, I’m thinking of that Nietzsche quote—“that which doesn’t kill you, makes you limp for a few weeks until they take the cast off. But the girls will dig your scars.” (Note: not all quotes can be guaranteed for authenticity).
If you’re serious about an outdoor adventure, get used to the idea of dangling from a rope.Of all the wonders of the great outdoors, it’s the plunging drops and immense peaks that humble us the most. The canyons, the waterfalls, the mountains, the sheer cliffs. But there’s no way to take them on without a system of ropes and harnesses. It can get complicated with all the loops and knots and brand new words to learn like “carabiner” (a kind of D-shaped hook you need for climbing).
But you’ll learn, everyone does. More than that, you’ll come to love ropes and trust them, for they, and those nappystyle harnesses, will save your life. They are your antidote to vertigo. And if you don’t pay attention in rope class, well, you risk watching the thing rapidly unravel as you lose your footing and… Nobody likes to see that. Not on vacation.
Rappelling
It might look daunting to clamber down a sheer 50-feet rock face, but really, rappelling is one of the basic tricks in trade of mountaineers. Also known as abseiling, the art of hopping down a cliff face doesn’t take too long to master. But like most other kinds of extreme sport, you have to concentrate and trust your teammate (or instructor). To rappel down a cliff face, first strap yourself to two safety ropes. One is a fixed rope usually tied to a rock at the head of the rock face—this is the rope you use to haul yourself down. The other rope is attached to a harness around your waist.
Once strapped and ready, you release the rope while you hop down the rock face keeping your head back and feet planted firmly on the rock at roughly 90 degrees to your body. To arrest your descent, twist your guide rope around your body. It’s a handy trick to know if you want to stop and look around for a good foothold. If it sounds difficult, it isn’t. My initiation into rappelling was on a cloudy day when visibility was often very low. If you suffer from vertigo, this is a blessing. As it was, I was surrounded by a ghostly landscape of looming cliffs and shifting mists. It was an exhilarating rush.
Another form of rappelling is called “bridge slithering” in which you swing down from a bridge rather than clamber down a rock face. The ropes and harnesses are the same, but the experience is altogether different, especially if the bridge is ramshackle and the river below is roaring. Take my advice— look up, not down.
The art of hopping down a cliff face doesn’t take too long to master. but like most other kinds of extreme sport, you have to concentrate and trust your team-mate (or instructor)
Imagine standing atop a 60-feet waterfall, rappelling and being asked to walk backwards on a slippery, moss-covered rock with raging water below. Now, imagine the rocky patch you're “walking” on is at an angle of 90 degrees. That’s waterfall rappelling— one of the ultimate adventure sports to be found in the Western Ghats of Maharashtra during monsoon season.
The water comes crashing down all over you, it knocks you off your feet, it’s a total rush. But the techniques are much the same as in conventional rappelling—you get the same safety harness, the carabiner (the hook part) and the figure of eight, which holds the rope through the harness that is tied to your waist. A helmet is provided and after all safety gears are in place, you are fitted with two ropes—a rappelling rope with which you descend down the waterfall and a belay rope (a back-up rope), which is controlled by a “belayer” at the top. The key is to carefully follow the orders of the instructor.
Bouldering is the purest form of climbing because there’s no climbing equipment—no rope attached, no protection at all.“Rock climbing gives one a sense of adventure and freedom,” says Abhijit Burman of Girivihar, an adventure operator in Mumbai. “It’s the feeling that you can go whenever you want and wherever you want.” But this kind of freedom comes at a price. Rock climbing isn’t easy, it takes guts and strength, balance and rhythm and hands of steel (don’t worry, you’ll get stronger from climb to climb). Bouldering is the purest form of climbing because there’s no climbing equipment—no rope attached, no protection at all.
Although hands and feet do most of the work, safety equipment like ropes and body harnesses are mandatory in other forms of rock climbing. They’ll keep you safe, the ropes, but they won’t get you up there. And that’s the beauty of rock climbing—it’s a pure metaphor. There are no short cuts to the mountain top—your muscles will burn and throb. But once you get there, the feeling is immense, indescribable. There are no short cuts to that, either.
View to a Thrill
Biking uphill is mostly about stamina and fitness and turning your thigh muscles into jelly. downhill is another matter.Yes, you will fall. Yes, it will hurt. But the sheer rush of hurtling down a rubble-strewn mountain trail somehow makes it all worth it. Let’s get that heart pumping.
When you strap on your knee guards and your gloves and the vaguely E.T.-esque helmet, you’re making an unconscious decision to enter a world of cuts, bruises, head-on collisions, and hairpin bends. So, let’s not kid around. Mountain biking hurts. Before you set off, reconcile yourself to the fact that you will fall, because everybody falls. If anything, bikers are the extreme cousins in the adventure sports fraternity. They make a fetish of pain. I hadn’t ridden a cycle in over a decade, so, the idea of rattling down a hillside on slick wet tracks seemed a little nutty.
But I was in safe hands. Up at the Great Indian Outdoors adventure camp at Viraatkhai, deep in the mountains of Uttarakhand, I had Shubham Basu and Vibhav Nijhowne, two hardcore biking enthusiasts, take me through the paces. Biking uphill is mostly about stamina and fitness and turning your thigh muscles into jelly. Downhill is another matter. For better manoeuvring— and just in case you ever want to have children—you never actually sit on the seat.
You suspend your butt in the air, hold down the handlebars like a steam drill, and hunker down as if your life depends on it, which it does, quite frankly. The bike will serve you well with its small, reinforced frame, grippy tires and wide range of gears. But mastering the gears and the brakes is the real challenge—it’s the difference between jumping over a small rock and avoiding a headlong SUV or… Ouch!
It also helps, says Shubham, to know how to fall. When you know you can’t avoid it, just let the bike go and fall on your back. Often, you hurt yourself badly while trying to break your fall. As a novice, I forgot this simple rule, and fell awkwardly, knocking off a tooth. Yes, mountain biking is lunacy, but it’s a little bit like Zen lunacy.
The popularity of scuba diving in India just grows and grows. And you no longer need your passport. Forget Malta, South Africa and Thailand. India is where the action is if you're in the mood for scuba. “I have been teaching scuba diving in Goa for around 10 years now,” says Ajay Patil, dive instructor and operator, Diva Goa. “And I have witnessed a remarkable change in the way people are taking to it. With so much awareness about the activity now, people are less inhibited and more adventurous in their approach.” Patil’s patch in Goa is probably the safest bet for beginners, with its calm sandy bays and shallow diving sites.
He’ll take you for either a full-blown PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) course, or a one-day programme for beginners. The Grande Island in Goa is a 30-minute boat ride from Vasco De Gama and has some of the most amazing scuba sites, like Suzy's Wreck, a 130-metre metal cargo ship resting in a sandy bay and Sail Rock. For clearer waters and better visibility, try Agatti and Bangaram, the scuba diving hot spots in Lakshadweep.
Popularly known as Lacadives, the waters of Lakshadweep Islands are completely untouched and pure. Bangaram, in particular, is a teardrop-shaped island, which is exceedingly romantic, and scuba diving can be magical. But, if it’s adrenalin you’re after, then the Havelock Island in the Andamans is the place to be. Located 38 km from Port Blair, it is accessible by government boats and is one of the few places in India where you can get lucky and spot a few sharks.
Yes. You read that right. Hammerheads often patrol the waters away from the reefs and nurse and leopard sharks can be found closer inshore, if you’re lucky. But fear not—they don’t bite. “The sharks found in these tropical waters are totally harmless and will be oblivious to your presence,” says Patil. So, what are you waiting for? Scuba season in India starts mid-October and runs up to May. Pass the flippers.
Rafting
The whitewater experience is about as intense as the outdoors gets. Prepare to get very, very wet. Standing on the rocky banks of the raging Tons river in upper Uttarakhand, I watched a red raft being tossed about like a toy. It was manned by an armed forces team who fought valiantly, disappearing one second into a raging eddy only to reappear moments later wet, but miraculously unharmed. Pretty soon, they went around a bend and were lost to my view. They were elite rafters—no one else would actually make it through the Grade IV rapids without at least overturning.
Tons, along with the Zanskar river in upper Himachal, is the happy hunting ground of those who really know their way around a paddle. But if this is your first time rafting, then best stick to the safer waters of the Ganga above Rishikesh, or the lower Alaknanda river near Rudraprayag. Rafts come in different forms, and the ones mostly used here are the symmetrical rafts, which hold up to sixto-eight people and are oar-paddled.
You will be given a crash course in paddling through different currents and dips in a fast-flowing mountain river. And if you get bored of being constantly overturned, you can always just float along with the raft. It’s a blast.
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