Day trip to Dam Dama

On 22 June 2008,we started from Delhi at 7 am towards Dam Dama,in Haryana for a day cum bike trip.

Vikash and Cini,Akbar and me and Manu photo by Liza

Our first stop was at Liza's place at Gurgoan where we had to pick her up as well breakfast was prepared for us. After a hearty breakfast of puri and aloo and lemon tea ,we started towards Dam dama at 9.30 am. The day was quite ok due to the rainfall the other night.Oh I forgot to introduce my friends, we were six people, three from my previous organisation GE Capital liza,Akbar and Manmohan ,liza's siblings Cini and Viksh and of course me.We had no clue what we would be doing for the rest of the day as we had not planned all we knew was we would be visiting Dam Dama lake and then head towards Sohna.The ride was pleasant and the roads were in good condition ,especially towards the lake after we diverted from the highway. The villages we passed looked beautiful with people Once we reached Dam Dama and saw the lake,dont know if it looked like a lake also, I felt it looked like a place where water had collected after the rains. And on that little water people were boating,along with some buffaloes on the side. We had heard about some place where they provide some adventure activity, so instead of wasting time at the lake we decided to look for that place as the Haryana tourism guys at the lake would not help us with the information.AS we turned back from the lake we checked with few people about the place, we were directed towards what looked like a wasteland and all we could see was track of vehicle with long grass covering both sides, felt like we were going on a safari ha ha we randomly followed the path which fork out each time you ride a certain distance.

Finally we reached the gate of Waterbank and there we could see the paintball court, and we knew we were there.Few keepers around, we were the only visitors, we bargained the activities and lunch for 500 per head.The area were under the cover of greenery, very beautiful, never imagined this place was 50 km from Delhi. Nestled amongst the Aravali hills and with unseasonal rains this year the valley was so lively and refreshing. One could say the feeling was almost to being in a hill station plus the humidity due to the rains ha ha.Anyways the humidity did not dampen our spirits.The moment we were there and settled the tariffs we were ready to start with the activities for the day.

The greenery around were mesmerising.

First we wanted to go for a warm up session so tried jumping on the Trampoline,it was fun to get breathless after few jumps, which shows the physical condition we are in.

Wow ! what a jump

Manu trying hard

After the jump it was time to scale the artificial wall, which is of 10 m in height and 3 m wide, everything looks easy till your turn comes ha ha.Each one tried their luck with Cain leading the pack. And I should not miss one incident, though I'll not name who coz we had loads of fun and we could not stop laughing at the expense of the poor guy. While scaling the wall might be the position was not correct or he tried too much for the next point we could hear the sound of tearing, and poor creature just shouted" my pants", rest of us on the ground doubled with laughter, after reaching the top finally the trauma was over.

After this we tried the spider web and some obstacle race two people at a time it was fun ,we were supposed to race up the web and roll on our back and again come down the other side the

instructions were not given correctly and when the instructor said roll I understood with head first,I don't think I have to write what happened next.Anyways I'll write for the benefit of other people who might think like wise. As the web was quite big my head slipped through the holes and got stuck, as my body weight tightened the rope. For a

moment I panicked and tried to force my head to come out of the tangle, then I realised its not worth I have to try bit by bit to release myself.After struggling for sometime I was able to release myself from that deadly grip. Later Akbar too got stuck, luckily it was his foot not the head. We went and tried crossing the Burma bridge it was ok ok experience. After this we did valley crossing, which ended successfully without any incidents,then we had lunch which was quite tasty. Lunch make us slack down and everyone wanted to rest and we did.After lunch we went for paintball game where we had to put on the army dress, the dress were huge for my size but we did put in on and sweated for the rest of the game. On top of the dress we had to put on a protective vest and helmet so that if we happen to shoot someone on the face we would not injure that person. The game was explained to us ,two teams on either side had to run hitting the opponent to retrieve the flag at the border. When we started the game no one buzzed from their spot in fear of being shot, and we were there to play war game ha ha.Finally Vikash came out of nowhere ran towards the flag and took it, half of our guns did not work or we did not know how to operate it properly. We were given 10 bullets of small balls filled with paint. Our strategy was not working so we decided to march forward shooting the enemy( for today the other three were our enemy).We did get hurt where the bullet hit us I still have the mark and I guess others do too.After the game we were supposed to go for trekking in the Aravali hills but we had decided to visit Sohna hot springs so we had to forgo one. We had tea settled our bills and headed towards Sohna.

After manipulating the Haryana traffic we were able to reach Shiv kund,there is a big temple of Shiva which houses the hot springs. WE did not have bath but washed out hands ,faces and legs with hot water flowing from the springs. After relaxing on the pool side and dipping out feet in the hot water for sometime we were relaxed to start for our return bike ride.The weather was still ok ok and the roads were open to enjoy a bike ride amongst the village setting and fresh air hitting on our face with vengeance. We reached Delhi at 8 pm this ended out
eventful day to Dam Dama.

Ps: info on Dam Dama Water banks can be availed from this link below..
http://www.ashextourism.com/hotelsresorts/Haryana/Waterbanksislandresort.htm