The guy who offered the rafts was atrociously priced, but u know what, he was the only one who provided this service and every tourist who passed by would not mind paying that amount because its "a onetime experience". We had a huge discussion whether to go for it or not. Random thoughts like "should we even bother to this?", "May be we should, because we may not come again to this place", "What the heck, just don’t bother about money", "Its freaking expensive and our overall expenses will shoot up", "No other better gift to give him on this day" blah blah blah. I wanted to make sure that Vishnu had a fabulous birthday, besides me not organizing a cake or bouquet of flowers! So, after all that brain storming, we decided to go rafting! Luckily, We found a friendly couple - Smitha & Rohit - to accompany us in this adventure and to share the burden of the cost!
The river was calm for the most part of the rafting except for some rapids which made us active and scream our lungs out when the water would rise as if its ready to gulp us all down! Vishnu took the brave work of rowing and I conveniently sat in the center to enjoy the ride. Whenever a rapid was nearing, the guide who came along with us would say "On your knees" - Smitha and I would obediently kneel down and throw ourselves in front of the raft. It was as if the waters were waiting for us to bow and it would immediately attack us! It was a once in a lifetime experience for sure and we enjoyed every bit of it! :)
Our driver, was impatient to take us to Gangtok and drove as fast as he could. (we were running 2 hours late). Vishnu and I were just too tired to even bother about the view outside! In fact we were hungry. We took out our Mothers love - Brownies and Pakodas - and filled our stomach to survive the ride. As we entered Gangtok we saw a prominent pedestrian built on both sides of the road. Found that unique as we don't really bother to build one for our city! Sikkim is beautiful (no wonder it attracts tourists and terrorists) and we seemed to like it so far. Gangtok was a total buzzing city. A fully fledged market with almost all brands available: Nike, Adidas, Louis Phillipe, Raymonds etc. We bid adieu to Ram bhaiya at the Gangtok taxi stand and a new car and driver took the responsibility of taking us around the city for the rest of the day.
We were actually not interested to do anymore sightseeing and were dying to eat and sleep! But the OH-SO-HONEST driver took us to "Bhanjakri Falls Energy Park" - It looked like a miniature of the Darjeeling rock garden, except that it had an entry fee and a restaurant to feed us! We spent more time eating than actually seeing the place and instructed the driver to take us to the hotel.
The day just seemed to long for us to handle, our hotel was 15 KMs away from the falls and we were again back to hurting our bums in the car! The road was worse than before and it was already dark by the time we saw the face of the hotel. Though the ride was extremely painful, the hotel was equally cozy! We reached "Royal Demazong" just in time for dinner! Our room was beautiful - Tea maker (Yes, I needed it badly), TV (I guess Vishnu needed it badly), huge bath tub, lovely curtains and bright cushions! (Some very pointless things to make it a cozy room, but the only things we cared about at that time!) A nice hot water bath, Strong tea, Tasty food and "So you think you can dance" on TV made it a nice evening. We hit the bed pretty soon (Too much of traveling for the day we thought). We were just unaware of the amount of traveling we would go through the next day! I felt as if I was back from a hard day’s work and was drowsy. I don’t remember saying "Good Night" to him either - I just slept!
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