travelogue - part 1
after my end term exams, i went on a trek to himalayas. since this was my first trek of this sort, i decided to write an account of the same. here is the first part:
we boarded the Kalka Mail for chandigarh. since it was a real big group, people were having good fun. i went to sleep early (after effects of sleeping less bcos of exam on the previous day) and i when i woke up in the morning, realized that the train is running some 5-6 hrs late. on enquiry found out that there was some big engine problem at night, some wire had broken, which led to the long halt and the delay. soon we found out from someone, that in newspapers this has been reported as a "bomb scare on kalka mail". it was hilarious, these newspaper people can distort any news. anyways, rest of the day went as usual and we reached chandigarh early morning. there we had great food at ashin's place and then took our chartered bus for manali. the driver was driving real slow plus he was repeatedly playing the audio casette of fida, that was real painful but compensated by the good scenic views that we were getting. we reached manali very late night, went to the hotel and soon dozed off.
next day, we boarded the bus that was to take us to our base camp. this time we were also accompanied by our guides who will be later helping us with tents, food etc during the trek. we stopped at a place called "mahri" for lunch. from there, the rohtang pass was visible though still at a great height. after another hour and half drive, in which we covered only 11 kms, we were finally on rohtang top. people clicked some snaps of the beautiful locale with clouds floating all around you. anyways so we started again as we had to reach our base camp before it got dark. the road was pathetic as expected, there were big digs at places least expected and so we were using the services of heavy-weights amongst us to keep the bus balanced. supposedly before "2" kms of our base-camp, the bus was stopped and we were asked by our guides to walk till the place. after 45 min of walking which was aimed at getting us in shape for the coming days, we finally caught sight of our bus. we also realized never to believe these mountain guys for what they say of distances, their notion of 1 km is quite different from ours.
we were taught how to put our tents, it was a nice learning experience as most of us were doing it for the first time. but the best part was the night sky. i don't remember looking at such a clear and bright sky in my lifetime, there were simply infinite stars and that too in big bunches and we had great difficulty in identifying even the simple constellations. another breathtaking view was the "glow of the milky way" which was later explained by pankaj. numerous shooting stars were observed with one having a real long trail. finally a few of us spotted a small object in the sky moving real fast and then suddenly coming to a halt. we started joking that it could be one of the UFOs when ashin commented that it could be the ISS (international space station). we all were like "wow" !!
next morning after breakfast, we started our trek. we had to walk 14 kms (note: the mountain "kms") and reach the camp at Bartal. the terrain was plain but we were having difficulty because of the heavy sleeping bag that we were carrying along with our rucksacks. so we took the first halt after an hour at a waterfall and had some food. of all the things that we were carrying in our lunch packet, only the chocolates looked good. we started again and after trekking for another hour decided to rest adjacent to the Beas river. this turned out to be a long stop, some of us had fun in water, others who were more tired dozed off. the third and last part of the walk was the most painful. the terrain was a desert (really !!), we were not expecting this at such an altitude (and then we thought of the real desert The Gobi). the problems were enhanced by passing sumos/jeeps who were leaving long trail of dust all around us. finally when we saw a bridge 200 mts ahead, assuming that our camp will be after this bridge only, we gave up. it was 2 in the afternoon and the direct sun was taking its toll. just then, a few of our groupmembers came and told us that the camp is just 50 mts from our resting place. so we mustered our courage and asked our jaded spirits to give one final shot and reached the camp.
i will continue from here in the next episode.
we boarded the Kalka Mail for chandigarh. since it was a real big group, people were having good fun. i went to sleep early (after effects of sleeping less bcos of exam on the previous day) and i when i woke up in the morning, realized that the train is running some 5-6 hrs late. on enquiry found out that there was some big engine problem at night, some wire had broken, which led to the long halt and the delay. soon we found out from someone, that in newspapers this has been reported as a "bomb scare on kalka mail". it was hilarious, these newspaper people can distort any news. anyways, rest of the day went as usual and we reached chandigarh early morning. there we had great food at ashin's place and then took our chartered bus for manali. the driver was driving real slow plus he was repeatedly playing the audio casette of fida, that was real painful but compensated by the good scenic views that we were getting. we reached manali very late night, went to the hotel and soon dozed off.
next day, we boarded the bus that was to take us to our base camp. this time we were also accompanied by our guides who will be later helping us with tents, food etc during the trek. we stopped at a place called "mahri" for lunch. from there, the rohtang pass was visible though still at a great height. after another hour and half drive, in which we covered only 11 kms, we were finally on rohtang top. people clicked some snaps of the beautiful locale with clouds floating all around you. anyways so we started again as we had to reach our base camp before it got dark. the road was pathetic as expected, there were big digs at places least expected and so we were using the services of heavy-weights amongst us to keep the bus balanced. supposedly before "2" kms of our base-camp, the bus was stopped and we were asked by our guides to walk till the place. after 45 min of walking which was aimed at getting us in shape for the coming days, we finally caught sight of our bus. we also realized never to believe these mountain guys for what they say of distances, their notion of 1 km is quite different from ours.
we were taught how to put our tents, it was a nice learning experience as most of us were doing it for the first time. but the best part was the night sky. i don't remember looking at such a clear and bright sky in my lifetime, there were simply infinite stars and that too in big bunches and we had great difficulty in identifying even the simple constellations. another breathtaking view was the "glow of the milky way" which was later explained by pankaj. numerous shooting stars were observed with one having a real long trail. finally a few of us spotted a small object in the sky moving real fast and then suddenly coming to a halt. we started joking that it could be one of the UFOs when ashin commented that it could be the ISS (international space station). we all were like "wow" !!
next morning after breakfast, we started our trek. we had to walk 14 kms (note: the mountain "kms") and reach the camp at Bartal. the terrain was plain but we were having difficulty because of the heavy sleeping bag that we were carrying along with our rucksacks. so we took the first halt after an hour at a waterfall and had some food. of all the things that we were carrying in our lunch packet, only the chocolates looked good. we started again and after trekking for another hour decided to rest adjacent to the Beas river. this turned out to be a long stop, some of us had fun in water, others who were more tired dozed off. the third and last part of the walk was the most painful. the terrain was a desert (really !!), we were not expecting this at such an altitude (and then we thought of the real desert The Gobi). the problems were enhanced by passing sumos/jeeps who were leaving long trail of dust all around us. finally when we saw a bridge 200 mts ahead, assuming that our camp will be after this bridge only, we gave up. it was 2 in the afternoon and the direct sun was taking its toll. just then, a few of our groupmembers came and told us that the camp is just 50 mts from our resting place. so we mustered our courage and asked our jaded spirits to give one final shot and reached the camp.
i will continue from here in the next episode.
posted by himanshu agrawal | 12:45 PM
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