Elephant safari in Rajaji Park

Hairi-Ki-Pairi Ghat on the Ganges River
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A weekend excursion took us to Hardwar, Uttaranchal to seek out elephants. A group of us rented a private car to drive the 200 km to the mountainous region. However, when in India, a drive that should take roughly 2 hours takes about 7-8 hours. The random pulley carts with sugar cane stacked on them are to blame for the traffic on the roads. I learned that driving in India takes pure talent and guts as I watched our driver continuously head into oncoming traffic to pass cows, people, rickshaws, etc... I also learned to NOT look out the front windshield as he did this =(

Lord Shiva statue at the fork of the River
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Hardwar is located at the beginning of the Ganges river. It is probably right behind Varanasi in "holiness" as many pilgrims come here to witness "the footstep of Vishnu". A huge statue of the God stands along the banks of the river keeping watch over the many pilgrims bathing in the rapid waters. Chain links line the ghats because the currents at this part of the river are so strong, it is easy to be swept away.

We found a cheap hotel to stay in for the night and made reservations to ride the elephants the next day. The next morning we awoke before sunrise to go down to the Ganges river to watch the sunrise over the mountains. It was absolutely beautiful. We then hiked up a small mountain to a Hindu temple called Mansa Devi. It was about a 30 min stair-master workout, but the views were worth it! Along the way, we were almost attacked by the numerous monkeys along the trail. They aren't so cute anymore.

Sunrise on the Ganges River
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Afterwards, our driver "Cha-Cha" (Hindi for uncle), took us back up to Rajaji Park for our elephant safari. However, when we got there, we learned that one of the elephants was injured and unable to go on the safari. We were determined to ride our elephants though, so we persisted and finally they allowed us to have a "mini" safari on one of the other elephants just so we could get our pictures on top of an elephant. I learned that in India, nothing is impossible as long as your persistent. It's how things work here.

Our elephant and caretaker
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We then went on a 2 hour jeep safari through the reserve. We saw wild elephants, monkeys, lots of different birds including eagles and lots of deer. I would have like to have seen a tiger, but all we got was a foot print of one. oh well. The landscape of the park was so different from what we have seen so far in India. It felt like I was in Africa or something. Very dry and vast terrains. It was also nice and quiet compared to Varanasi and Delhi. We were sad to leave this jungle paradise, but school awaited us back in Delhi.

Cute kids that live near the elephant
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Our ride home only took us about, say 8 hours!!!! We were stuck in a traffic jam for a good hour or so where we only moved about a km the whole time. There was no real legit reason for the traffic jam, but the fact that a 2 lane road turned into an expanding 8 lane highway may have been the problem. Cars were just going wherever they could squeeze themselves into, pretty nuts, but then again this IS India.