My nth attempt to write a post about this, and I am still at a loss of words when it comes to this one crazy hell of a trip that tested me physically, mentally, and my funny bone. I do make it sound like I've conquered peaks but for me this was close enough. There are trips you plan for months, and there are trips you plan in weeks ... this was one that changed in days. All we had planned for sure was destination 'Valley Of Flowers' through Delhi. Two excited pro-back packers + two excited yet unsure about the 'plan' travellers makes for a memorable trip that still cracks me up when I think about it. It wasn't just about us goofing around sometimes it was how the plot itself turned out to be.
When we first started planning for this, the only thing that went on in my head was how my brother used to passionately talk about his friends that used to trek to the base camp or some exotic location in the North-east. I was excited to say the least. Plans fell into place and our journey pretty much started when I found Jeru and Shirley standing on the wrong platform at the station. Unfortunately, I had my brother with me to whom this was shocking in the world of travel. I swear I did hear him say ... Excellent! under his breath. Our 24hr long train journey was just about ok with Shirley shaking the hell out of the little tea cups, Jeru sharing more ghost stories, playing cards(extremely unpredictable I must point out), and a co-passenger later turned friendly who abruptly pleaded us to stop bitching about Telugu engineers (we obviously didn't know he was one till he stopped us)!
After a bit of a struggle, Jeru's pics with the morcha, and meeting up with Roma, we hired a cab ride to Rishikesh. Unlike the cab guy promised, we were hot and sweaty. Ofcourse! what were we thinking, the cab guy had our best interest... I felt better once when we got to Haridwar where my camera and I had a tete-a-tete with him...
My love for him my girls said was almost blasphemous as I was pretty much obsessed with him.. still am! I would like to think of it as what Meera probably had. The evening only got better with a beautiful sun set on the hill side while we drove to our destination. One thing I've only gotten better at is taking chances with hotels and once in a while depending on your Lonely Planets'. Our cabbie suggested, and we followed not to be disappointed this time around. It was a nice place with basic rooms, and a brilliant view of the Ganges. Just to make us feel we were in the weed zone was an aptly placed sadu baba with strings of rudraksh and some random jewellery that westerners would be charmed by for Indian tribal jewellery. He sure did take some pics of foreigners modelling in his jewellery to add strength to his silent sales pitch. The garden was converted to an open air restaurant that made our dinner a very relaxed one. We got back to our elements with feeding and cuddling up with the 'wolf-dogs' as I call them and ended the evening by catching fire-flies and sticking them on Shirley's forehead. Not sure how much fun she had but knowing what a good sport she is we didn't stop :) It was just the sort of evening you want when you are on your vacation.
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| Bad blurry pics but good memories! |
The days to follow took us through a range of things we didn't imagine ourselves to be in but am glad we were. We kickstarted our day at 5 in the morning with a cab to take us right up to Govindghat as opposed to our original plan of going to Joshimath and then trekking to Ghangharia. Our first pitstop was 5 mins away from our hotel to quickly collect some Holy Ganges water for my mom, needless to say she was thrilled to have some. Our cab driver this time was an extremely chatty ex-army man who pretty much acted as our tour guide too. Little did I know that we would actually be passing by all the Prayags that I had only seen in pictures and wondered if they were really that beautiful and daunting at the same time. Prayags geographically are confluence points of two water bodies. Devprayag, the Bhagirathi & Alaknanda confluence, was the kickstarter to an incredible road trip. Our driver who was at that point still sane stopped for us to finish our duty as a tourist to click pictures and gasp in awe. Gasp I did but not because we were supposed to but because thats your reaction to something that intimidating. I now understand first-hand why there are seasons for rafting in Rishikesh. If mountains make you humble, valleys can drag you right down to where you belong and show you hell while at it. That vicious flow can leave you numb because you won't have the time to feel anything. Nevertheless, they are beautiful and picturesque. The almost organized flow of positively brown confluence is massive and energetic as hell. Been there done that picture is clicked and we are off cruising along Alaknanda. The rest of the prayags were no surprise. We stopped by in between for some not so yumm food but its what we had to do considering we were anyway stuck in a traffic jam. Huge stones were being hurled into the valley by an SUV sized bull dozer and the mud leveled onto the road. Post lunch our journey continued on narrow winding roads at altitudes a couple of thousand feet high that held us back for more than our share of standstill due to mud slides, and wild streams with super clean drinkable water that would give mineral water bottles a run for its money. Another really long wait at another mud slide zone brought the best out of our stupid citizens that yet again failed to think about the bigger issue and just went about zipping around creating more of a jam on the muddy slippery barely 30 feet wide mountain road. It finally took a bunch of army men and a handful of smart people, among a queue of 20 odd buses filled with people, to bring about order and clear the path. This is how it looked like:
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| The prettier side of the queue... you can actually see the line of buses extend all the way to the left. |
Needless
to say, this and the lunch made post-noon a tad bit tiresome and evidently so
when our driver started to take cat naps while driving. Me being me, had my eye
on everything and noticed him trying to multi-task. Sleeping beauty was almost
going to ram right into a parked Alto when I screamed bloody murder, and we
knew it was time for a tea break!
Apparently, that wasn't a great idea either. Now an
inexplicable hurry seemed to possess him and he went racing up gravelled high
mountain roads with Schumacher confidence which I have to say got us a bit
worried about our lives and Hindi movie style I started praying and thinking
about all the mean things I said last to people and 'I love you mom.' The North
Indian in that asshole made him step harder on the gas pedal whilst we begged
him to slow down given the valleys were quite deep and waiting to pop us in
like a peanut. His argument, while he proudly waved his hand out of the window
probably indicating he could beat speeds of light, sound and wind, was that
this is home, and he knows what he is doing. I had to step in and save my
friends lives which I hesitated for a long time because it involved something I
had to do which I knew would come back and bite me in the ass real hard but the
caring me did get coaxed into doing that. Turns out calling him 'Bhaiyya'
throughout the day wasn't enough to clarify my stand on a possible one-day
courtship.
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| The roads we rushed through .... |
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| .... and where we would end up... isn't that a pretty picture! |
Our 14km trek to Ghangharia started at 7 in the morning. You only have two ways to get to Ghangharia - by Horse or good old feet. People usually send their luggage as well by horses or porters that carry it all the way up to Ghangharia to the hotels. We had hardly done our first km through the cobbled path pasted with horse shit and we found two main attractions - Marijuana plants & a really good spot for our first set of pics on the trek. I won't say much about the finer things in life but the picturesque ones were the green valleys, the low hanging clouds and the strong currents flowing all of which brought about an eclectic rhythm and a mood that puts you to peace immediately. The initial climb was alright, we were curious about every berry around and our enthusiasm levels the highest for the day helped forget the pain of trekking. But as the sun rose and we were close to our Maggi break synonymous with the hills, we were one down. Paroma chose the horse over her feet. I was tempted to but resisted. Here is when we met a colleague that we fondly started to call the Human Mule. He was I swear!! He was quite fast and tireless and didn't need the Maggi. Almost 5hrs up, and we had just about done around 7kms. We had now gotten to a point where just a few feet below by the rocky banks was Ganges flowing full force and freezing cold. The mountain goat quickly spotted a way down for a good 10 min break. Our feet thanked us when we kicked off our shoes and dipped our feet in the freezing cold water. It's definitely not the part of Ganges to take a complete dip for you wouldn't resurface. We also did the customary pee break behind the bushes.
I don't know how Jeru and Shirley were that calm about their persistent tiredness or they probably didn't feel that tired but 'I am gonna die' had soon become a chant for me. The last 1km was the worst as it had started to get dark and some Langurs decided to keep us company. We struggled it out and that day was a slap on my face in terms of how fit I was. I have to say the route was fun to trek though because of 70 yr old Sikh men that charged on tirelessly, returning Sikh pilgrims that distributed those orange candies and Glucon-D to tired passersby, friendly Sadhus bordering Hermits who offered us tea (not the creepy ones), and the absolutely gorgeous landscape itself that was a constant treat to the eyes.
The government guesthouses are extremely basic rooms and are not super clean in terms of mattresses, quilts, bathrooms. There are the much more expensive private camping places though.
Paroma and I chose to follow the other two an hour later the next morning for the trek up Valley of Flowers. Apart from an embarrassing situation with a porter, the trek up to the valley is brilliant to say the least. I am no Botanist, and it doesn't take one to see the beauty in this almost untouched part of the Nandadevi Biosphere. Once I hit a huge rock in the main part of the valley, all I did was sit myself down and listen to Lisa Gerrard's 'Now we are free' while staring into the blue skies, the far away snow capped peaks, and rugged mountain wilderness of the UNESCO site. There is a sense of calm and peace that places like these bring into you and like I've always said nothing makes you feel as humble as the mountains do.
The entry to the valley shuts by 3pm and it can start to drizzle as it gets late and because of the climate camping is also not allowed in the valley either. There are points during the valley where you practically need to hop over huge stones or a shaky tin sheet to cross not so very small streams. I now have the hang of going down like a goat on a foot wide dusty trail that clings on to the mountain on one side and flaunts a hundred feet drop into the river on the other side. We ended the day in an extremely rigorous foot massage session from a local massage guy who can give the Latitudes Spa guys a run for their money as the art to massage runs in his blood as weird as that sounds.
I still curse the moment we decided to take horses down the trek back to Govindghat in spite of watching the kid wail her lungs out on our way up. Yes, we are guilty of jeering at the poor kid as the horse very effortlessly kept tossing her up like a ping pong ball while making his way down carefully enough to avoid the drop down. At one point there were so many horses coming down that to give them way I had to cling on tightly to a rock close by like a bug and scream once again 'I think I am going to die!' My trek back on the horse wasn't any different. I started the uncomfortable ride back with a 'Kamala(Horse), please!!!!!.' Worse even, the cute guy in bad pants that was around when we laughed at the little girl ... he was grinning looking at me now. Ladies & Gentlemen, however tough the trek is never ever take a horse back down. Horse on your way up is cool. On your way down.... uh uh! Here is what happens, the horse is going to very carefully concentrate on making his/her way down but will keep slipping on the smoothened stones along the path, will stop for snack breaks and bend right into the valley side to grab some greens on the walls of the mountain while giving you a very clear view of how far and scary the drop would be(I cried at this point), and will take off not understanding the master was being silly and the rider is having a heart attack from the surprise thrown at her. How can we forget the blue love marks the ride leaves.
Our next destination was something we decided on trip, Badrinath. It was pretty much a 'might as well do it since its on the way' stop. My mom was more excited considering I was that close to the holy place. If the previous few days were beautiful for the landscape, the next few were brilliant for the silly things we did. A two hour drive and after checking in to the hotel at Badrinath, we asked around for the ATM, got back to our room and figured we just had a day's room rent. The suspicious hotel admin figured they should take the first day's rent before hand just in case. We quite confidently handed it over like it didn't pinch us at all. We walked straight to the ATM. Places at these altitudes run into these problems, and we experienced it first hand. Being a very tourist heavy place during that time of the year, the one ATM in the entire place keeps running into shortage. The way up to one of the most prominent char dhams is fraught with pockets of landslide areas so bringing cash on time can be a bit off the mark. With just about 1000 bucks among the 4 of us, I seriously considered selling my gold rings because the ATM gave us no guarantee of spitting out the crisp notes next evening and stories of landslides around had already reached us or we imagined it. Either way, we were in soup. We stuck to sharing Maggi plates that night and enjoyed watching a smoked up sadu dance around in joy. Paroma and I visited the temple and brought back some holy goodies. We followed Paroma's idea to walk it up to Mana, the Indian village on the Indo-Tibetan/China border. It was a super-easy trek through to Mana. A couple of hours of sitting in the chai shop helped us bond with the local folk who told us about a goods carrier sort of cable car that can help us get to the other side of the river. This obviously was followed by a warning that absolutely no one takes the cable car simple because its unreliable. We got to know later on that the Army doesn't use it either so we felt quite good about actually taking it. Its a typical cable cage pulled across manually!
A 10 min walk and we found ourselves infront of an army camp. I realised that day that Jeru and I shared the same love for men in uniform. I love them! Something about them when they ride in on their green bullets, army uniform, crew cut, & aviator glasses. Dodge that! Could you blame me for not watching my step? After being rejected permission to enter their premises, we almost lost hope of any interaction with that world. I guess asking to let us drink tea sounded pretty lame. We laughed at it ourselves! But a certain 'caught-my-eye' act got us through to the camp, this time around the excuse was to play volleyball which apparently is a better excuse. The 'Captain' as we fondly continued to address him took a special interest, arranged for a volley ball match and served us some hot pakoda's. The match was so much fun because I didn't know I still had it in me to at least serve so well as to win points against army men. Our team won most matches... and no they weren't nice because there was one girl on the team. They did put their game face on. It's a shame the girls didn't want to play. We were asked to dine in as well. At that point the one thing we were relieved of was that it was 9 in the night, and we din't know if the ATM was going to work might as well hog on the free army food we were lovingly being served!
We had a couple of army men and a lovely dog escort us back to the hotel. The walk back was equally beautiful. The star lit night skies, the cold, and money in the ATM. It couldn't have ended better but we spoke too soon as the hotel guys sent out a 'search party' for us as they assumed something had happened to us because we were out so late. I still stand by my impression that they were more worried about their payment than anything else. They claimed that if anything would've happened to us the police would've blamed them and things would get ugly for them. It could be true but I still think there was the whole money angle to it as well. After an hour long discussion about our duties as hotel guests we retired to our rooms to ghost stories and screams. The hotel room looked exactly like the high roofed old maternity hospitals with green double doors that had 1x1 glass windows on the top half.
A bit of travel trivia here. The total distance from Delhi to Govindghat(the last place you can drive till for the destination) is approx 500kms. Here's how our unplanned itinerary turned out to be:
Day 1: Hyderabad - Delhi by train
Day 2: Delhi - Haridwar - Rishikesh
Day 3: Rishikesh - Govindghat
Day 4: Govindghat - Ghangharia
Day 5: Ghangharia - Valley of flowers - Ghangharia
Day 6: Ghangharia - Govindghat - Badrinath
Day 7: Mana
Rishikesh -70- Devprayag - 34 -Srinagar - 20 - Rudraprayag - 52 - Nandprayag - 55 - Joshimath - Vishnuprayag - 20 - Govind ghat - 14 - Ghangharia - 3 - Valley of Flowers
Comments
All in all - this sounds like just the trip for me as well. Will come to you for advice:)