Traveling guide / Solo Travel
Exploring Rishikesh and Haridwar on foot: Part 4
Exploring Lakshman Jhula, Ram Jhula, Triveni Ghat, and Har ki Pauri on foot
This one is in continuation to the previous article, if you haven’t already please give it a read.
Day 4
The plan for today was to reach Rishikesh as soon as possible. I woke up around 6:30 am and started preparing for the trip. For breakfast, I only had packed milk and left my stay at 8 am. The bus stand was right there so I didn’t have to walk a lot, the bus was supposed to leave at 8 am but it didn’t even get there till 8:20 am. I met a guy Sourabh there who was a student at Dehradun college, he said sharing a cab would be a good idea. The cab was ready and only had two seats so we got in and left for Dehradun. It took around 45 mins to reach Dehradun railway station and from there I left for the ISBT, Dehradun in an autorickshaw. By now I was already feeling motion sickness. So the first thing I did after reaching ISBT was to get myself a flavored drink.
The ISBT was nicely built and I found the Rishikesh/Haridwar stand in a couple of minutes. I was lucky to find a bus ready to leave for Rishikesh and I got myself a seat too. The drink helped me a lot and I was feeling better now. The road from Dehradun to Rishikesh was nice and in the latter half, we saw some beautiful views as well. I reached the Rishikesh bus stand at 11 am. I had already booked my stay at GoStops Lakshman Jhula in Rishikesh after the whole stay situation in Mussoorie.
So from the bus stand, I hopped into a shared auto till Lakshman Jhula, the auto dropped me near the market and from there I walked up to the hostel, it was downhill till the Jhula and then uphill afterward. The Jhula itself is pretty fascinating, it was hard for me to take out my phone from up there with all the people on the bridge and it constantly swinging.
I checked in to GoStops at 12 pm and got ready to leave at 1 pm. After talking to one of the staff members there, I got a pretty good idea of how to plan the rest of my day. I was super hungry and left straight for Ram Jhula, it was 2km away. The walk on the flat road felt like a breeze compared to the last couple of days. It took me 30 mins to get to this famous food joint called “Chotiwala” and order a north Indian thali for myself. Although the food was spicy, I enjoyed it thoroughly.
After having lunch, I left for the Ram Jhula which was just 100m from there and it was amazing. It was so huge and the river Ganga was so clean and clear. There were two monkeys sitting on the gate of the bridge so I hesitated and instead went for the sand beach (yes, rivers also have beaches). I’ve never been to a beach before, I just loved walking on the sand. After a few minutes I decided to walk into the river for a while, I stepped in and boy! it was so cold. For some reason, I didn’t think of it to be that cold. I started enjoying the chilling water but couldn’t stay in for more than 5 mins and then once I walked out, the warm sand felt so comforting to me. I picked up my shoes and went to sit on the stairs to enjoy the view it was.
At 2:30 pm I left for Triveni ghat, which was a 4km walk alongside the river. I was up for it and I had to cross the bridge for that. Finally, I could gather enough courage to get past those monkeys. The bridge was similar to Lakshman Jhula and It was fun walking on it. The only thing that bothered me was people crossing it on scooters and bikes. It was super annoying and loud. I started waking through the market but soon got annoyed by all the noisy crowd and decided to just follow the path alongside the river instead.
The next milestone was Janki Bridge, looking huge even from a distance. The walk was pretty awesome. I loved the clear weather and flowing water sound. I stopped in between many times to take videos and pictures. I couldn’t stop myself from standing and just staring at that clear water. I reached Triveni ghat around 4 pm and the place was good but crowded, they were preparing for the aarti and I wanted to avoid the crowd so I left before aarti and went back to the hostel. I had to take a rickshaw back and then enjoyed the Lakshman Jhula walk this time around. I also stopped for a quick bite, had chole kulche on the street. While walking back I went downstairs to the ghat just below Lakshman Jhula and spent some time around the river watching people enjoying the boat ride. The water level here wasn’t as shallow as it was at Ram Jhula so I didn’t go in.
Reached back to the hostel room and took a quick nap, then woke up around 7:30 pm and went straight to the terrace. The terrace was nice and chill, the whole setup was amazing. I met some new people there, one of them was Sharath he was in media and wildlife. He shared so many experiences and stories. He knew so much about travel and nature. I went to grab a bite at 9 pm and then stayed at the terrace talking till 1 am, the wind was too cold to handle for me by then. That was the end of day 4 of this trip.
Day 5
Thanks to someone’s annoying alarm tune, I woke up at 7 am. After getting fresh & up I went on the terrace to capture some shots. There was no one else up there so I came down soon enough and went to the same ghat as yesterday. It was still windy out here but I managed to stay there for half an hour and then came to pack up for the final day.
I left the hostel at 8:15 am as I had to catch a train from Haridwar at 1 pm. Met my hostel mates and said bye, the Lakshman Jhula was empty so spent some time there and then walked uphill to the main road. I started looking for buses or rickshaws till Haridwar but it was a long waiting. So I waited for a while until a group showed up and I joined them till Haridwar in the rickshaw. We reached around 11 am at Har Ki Pauri, Haridwar.
The river was flowing much deeper here and it was a view from the small bridges built across the river. I took some photos from up there and then head towards Mohan Puri wala, only to find out that it was super crowded. So I started walking through the market towards Jain Chat bhandar. It took me some time to reach there, this time I was lucky enough to reach on time. The owner had just arrived to open the shop. I had a “Magic chat” and it was super tasty yet light.
My mother told me to bring some Ganga Jal, so that was next up on my list. After taking a can of water from the river, I went straight to have “Bun Choley” which was looking tasty but super unhygienic so didn’t have it. The shop was on a railway road, so I kept walking towards the railway station and at 12:30 pm I was finally at the station. I onboarded the train on time and then enjoyed the journey. The train was pretty much on time and I reached Delhi at 7 pm. Took the metro home, boarded the wrong train, and wasted 1 hour. Finally reached home at 9 pm. Had “Pyaaz paratha”, talked to my family, and ended the day after a video call with my love.
Well, that was the end of my solo trip series. I hope this article was helpful to you. Feel free to comment below if you have any questions or suggestions, I will be more than happy to help you. If you haven’t already please follow me, to get notified about such posts.
You can read the complete series from the link below
