Trip to Sitlakhet

Here's a nice essay on Youreka, written by a student called Arnav, entitled "Trip to Sitlakhet":


Trip to Sitlakhet


I got to know about an outdoor camp (YOUREKA) managed by idiscoveri from my father. It was a nine day camp which was for my age group available at Sitlakhet. It had six camps with three major activities - Outdoor, Rock Climbing, Backpacking. I got interested in Outdoor activity for the 5th Batch. My father rung up the organisers and told them to book my trip. But they insisted that we come to their office or fillup the forms at one of their associates house. My father fixed up the timing for meeting the associate.

When we reached the associates house, I realised that we had forgotten the filled application at home. So, we took another application from them to fillup. I asked for Outdoor activity but was told that for the dates I had wanted the group was already filledup. So, I had 2 options, one to take backpacking or take the next batch. I decided to take backpacking on the dates I had wanted.

When I decided to go to the camp I felt disturbed as I was going out for 9 days. This was the first time, I was going to be away from my family for such a long duration. On the D-Day, I reached the station with my mother and father. We already had the seats allocated for us. The organisers were there to assist us and were very well managing the crowd. I felt uncomfortable initially and quietly sat on my seat. When the train started for Kathgodham, I went to sleep. When the train was about to reach Kathgodham station, we were all woken up.

When we got down from the train, it was raining outside. There were 9 jeeps waiting to take us to camp site. I jumped into one of them and when everyone had sat in the jeeps, the caravan started to move to sitlakhet. Enroute we stopped at one of the resorts to freshenup and for taking breakfast. After that we again boarded the jeeps and started moving again.

We finally reached the camp site at sitlakhet. In the morning the camp was also of fun I learnt many things, like pitching a tent living in a tent following mountain manners etc it was great fun. We made food ourselves, went for trekking in the forest and did mountain climbing. The food was scrumptious and at nights we boys used to talk and talk and tell jokes interact out happening in the day. Everyday we used to have a major and a minor activity, the instructors were very soft and polite but as in every organization there were some rude instructors also but the place would always take you far away from crying as it was so green and beautiful. There were very few brick houses. In the evenings there was a fun time to play, talk and interact. We did plays, made candles, made brace lets for my friends, did first aid and theatre.

In all it was a great fun and I enjoyed every moment during my stay in that camp. I look forward to going there again to learn about my true self.