Well, it has been few years since we(me and amma) have been planning for a trip to
Muktinath in Nepal. When we had planned, just before we booking tickets to Nepal, King Birendra & his family were assassinated in Nepal. We dropped the travel plans since Nepal was in uncertain state. Again few years later, when we had reworked our plans, Nepal plunged into deep political crisis and we had to drop the plan again.
And after that, though I wanted to take Amma to Muktinath trip, due to various
circumstances trip was never materialized.
Finally, the time arrived when Juniper decided to have a mandatory shutdown for a week in mid-May 2009 to tackle recession.
I quickly booked tickets to me and Amma, my mamas decided to join us too. Rekha got lucky again, to get leave from her company too! So in total we were six people - me, amma, Rekha, Ramachar mama, Vijji Mama and Satya(Vijji mama's friend).
Rohini, my sister & her family could not make it to the trip. :(
Earlier, we had canceled our trip few times, this time again, just two weeks ahead of our trip, Nepal plunged into political uncertainty due to exit of Prachanda, Prime Minister of Nepal. Many relatives and friends advised us not to go to Nepal and cancel the trip. But we received positive feedback from our travel agents and we were told that Nepal is peaceful for travel.
All of us were all set to go to Nepal on 16th May 2009.
You might be interested in knowing this:
To visit Nepal, Indian doesn't need Visa. Indian Voter ID card or Indian Passport is enough to enter Nepal without much fuss. In fact, Nepal government allows any state or central government identification card to enter Nepal. Cool! isn't it?
16th May 2009
Since we had booked tickets in Jet-Lite, (low cost flight), we knew we were not going to be served for free in flight. Mamas who were accompanying us does not prefer onion, garlic in the food and we knew they prefer to have home-made food. Aware of this, Amma prepared Chapati, Akki-Rotti and Puliyogare to the trip previous day.
Finally the D-Day arrived! We got up early and 5 of us went in Omni reached airport at around 5.20AM. Satya joined us directly in Airport. We boarded Jet-lite flight to Delhi, which was scheduled at 7 AM.
Our itinerary was via Delhi to Kathmandu.
We planned to have the packed food at Delhi Airport since we had almost two hours fifteen minute gap between flights.
Amma had brought Chatni pudi for Chapatis, but chatni pudi was not allowed in carry bags. Hence we checked in our baggage only till Delhi instead of through check-in to
Kathmandu. Flight took off on time and Amma was sitting in flight for the first time.
I was watching her expression as flight took off...but she was cool n calm as if flight journey was every day affair for her. Actually, I was more excited to take amma in flight than Amma! :P
Many things flashed in my mind - it was many firsts for Amma...
First time Amma was traveling in Flight, First time she was traveling out of India and this was first visit to Muktinath, for which she has been yearning for years.
I was very happy and excited that, I was going to fulfill her dreams in coming days...
I expected that arrival at Delhi will be bit delayed due to Air-traffic.
But our flight delay was well beyond my expectation and reached almost 1 hour 10 minutes later than scheduled time. Hence we lost quite a lot of time.
Since we did not do through check-in, we had to collect our baggage again and run to
international terminal. We had no time to have food in airport.
Another thing came as surprise was the distance between domestic and international
terminals in Delhi. We had to catch international-transfers bus to reach international terminal. I think the distance between these two appears to be more than 7-8 km and we had to travel 20 minutes. By the time we reached the counters to check-in our baggages, it was almost flight time, 12 PM! We filled the embarkation cards in hurry and ran to catch the flight.
During whole process, I was little jittery since Amma's name was little different in ticket and Voter-ID card. Luckily, it did not pose any problem, and when we sat in Kathmandu flight it was a big relief for me! :)
Flight left at around 12.15PM and journey was short and sweet!
We had Akki rottis in plane, since everyone were hungry big time, Akki rottis were more yummy...Having home food in flight was similar to the train-journeys, which we had to Rajasthan when we were kids :)
From the flight we could see Kosi River, prior to landing in Kathmandu.
Finally we reached Kathmandu by 1.30PM.
While we collected our baggage, we realized two bags had not arrived :(
We were little tensed since Satya had kept considerable amount of cash in check-in bag! Also we realized, Delhi Jetlite staff did not provide the baggage tag in Delhi while we checked in the baggages again and we had forgotten about this as we were hurried for embarkation process. I was little tensed. I felt to myself that, I should have paid little more notice to it earlier in Delhi since I was the most experienced flier amongst us.
When we inquired with Nepal Airport staff, they asked us to wait till next flight from Jet Airways which was scheduled to arrive at 2.30, and gave a hope to us that, baggage might arrive then.
All of us waited anxiously.
Meanwhile, I met our travel agent Mr.Biswa from Satyam Tours & Travels who had arranged package in Nepal for us. I informed him about the baggage problem.
Jet airways flight arrived on time and we were thrilled to receive our baggage! Big sigh of relief for everyone!
Phew! so much trouble from 'chatni pudi!':)
Little bit on Kathmandu Airport...
Kathmandu aiport is also known as Tribhuvan Airport, named after King Tribhuvan. Airport is quite small and looks like a small resort. It does not have many modern facilities and keeps the whole flight management simple :)
Since Kathmandu had rains previous day, weather was pleasant at 26 degrees.
Mr. Biswa our travel agent along with driver Mahindra took us in MUV to Hotel Manang.
Enroute we passed by Pashupatinath Temple on the banks of Bagmati River and King's new palace.
Bagmati river appears to be similar to River Vrushabhavathi of Bangalore and it is more of
drain than a river.
As soon as we entered MUV provided to us - KIA Pregio, Biswa handed over me a Nepali SIM to communicate with us easily.
Kathmandu town appeared to be in deep sleep in the after-noon and most shops were
shutdown. We exclaimed and questioned why most shops were shut at 3 PM to Mr.Biswa.
Biswa told us that, Saturday is holiday in Nepal, similar to Sunday in India & other
countries.
Nepal being neighbour country, I was expecting Kathmandu to be filled with cars
manufactured in India, but Toyota, Nissan, KIA rules the road. We could see many many new cars & MUVs, which we had never seen earlier.
All of us were impressed with KIA Pregio. It was spacious and had many options to convert seats in multiple ways.
After we checked in our Hotel, we realized that, Nepal suffers from huge Power Crisis and has 12 hour power-cut every day!
After reaching Manang Hotel, we freshened up a bit and headed to explore Kathmandu...
First we visited Swayambhunath Stupa, which is Buddhist Stupa on a hillock.
Next to Stupa, there is a small temple for Buddha's mother and a monestary for Buddha.
We chanted 'Om Mani Padminiye Namaha' rotated chanting cylinders, engraved with "Om Mani padme hum" and did pradakshina of huge stupa.
This Stupa is supposed to be South Asia's largest stupa for Buddha.
On this Stupa, eyes of Buddha are painted on all four directions These eyes represent - Mysterious, Indifferent, compassionate and knowing.
From this place, one can see Kathmandu city. Initially I was thinking Kathmandu is small city, but this appeared to be quite big and much bigger than Mysore.
After Swayambhunath Stupa, we visited Pagoda Palace, which is Nepal King's old palace. We were informed that, entry into the old palace is only during major festivals and one can see the Palace only from outside.
We saw the palace from outside and got a peep into Darbari hall.
After this, we saw dais in front of palace, where king used to address public.
Next to this place, there is a small temple like structure on which one can see, idols of Lord Shiva and Parvathi which is looking from a window.
Belief is that, King's rule is observed by Lord Shiva and Parvathi.
Shedding its old glory, currently Pagoda Palace looks like lovers paradise.
We could see many young couples sitting next to each other holding hand in hand.
Next to this palace, there is temple "Kashta Mandap", built of wood from single tree.
And can you imagine, entire temple is built of wood! People say that, city name "Kathmandu" name comes from this temple. In this temple, we were surprised to see massive pillars made of tree.
There is another theory behind "Kathmandu" name. Few say that, Kathopanishad + Mundakopanishad results in "KathMandu".
Since it was already 7 PM, we decided to head back to our hotel.
Surprise was waiting from our travel agent...
Earlier, Bangalore travel agents(Neptune Travels) had informed us that we were going to reach Muktinath using Helicopter. But here we were handed over Flight tickets from Pokhara to Jomsom and arrangement at Jomsom stay was made much to our surprise.
We were little upset over this as we had planned spacing the time in each place in Nepal according to Helicopter trip. Satyam Travel agent tried to convince us that, they had tried their best to get us into Helicopter in avail.
But we were not convinced and felt we were tricked by travel agents.
Since we did not have much choice, we had food and slept peacefully.
This was the end of exciting first day in Nepal and we were set for 5 more rocking days!
17th May 2009
Plan for the day was simple to reach Pokhara by evening en route visiting Manokamana
Temple. We were informed that, it takes 6 hours to reach Pokhara.
While we were heading out of Kathmandu towards Pokhara in the midst of heavy traffic, we saw something unthinkable!
One guy was riding a bicycle, and a baby of 2 years was clinging onto his back.
Baby was all alone and had all the responsibility to ensure his own safety while his dad rode bicycle! Phew! Amazing stuff...how much care do we take to ensure our kids safety...
As we were heading out of Kathmandu we saw many buses and trucks filled with people coming into Kathmandu. We were told that, there will be massive rally by Maoists.
Though there were plenty of vehicles plying in opposite direction, it was quite peaceful. It did affect on the travel time taken to reach Manokamana temple.
We reached the base station at around 11.45.
Manokamana Temple is almost midway between Kathmandu and Pokhara.
Manokamana Temple is over mountain and we have to reach the temple using rope-way.
We were lucky to enter the queue just in time since lunch break is between 12PM to 1.30PM during which rope-way (Cable car/Gandola ride) is not operated.
Rope way is almost 3.1 km and covers an altitude of almost 1000 meters in just 15 minutes!
Probably this is the longest rope-way ever taken by me. There are around 30 baskets capable of carrying 6 people in each. Every one of us thoroughly enjoyed this journey in rope-way!
Due to steep elevation my ears popped too, just like flight!
After reaching the top station, one needs to walk almost a kilometer to reach Manokamana temple.
Many were carrying pigeons to the temple. People here have a belief that, if ones wish is fulfilled, they bring pigeons are release them here.
This Manokamana Temple appeared similar to our Maramma Temple found in Karnataka.
It is a devi temple, though main idol was not clearly visible.
Many sacrifice goats, chicken etc. Hence I did not like the atmosphere much.
One thing I observed in Nepal is that, each temple is surrounded by bells.
Two small pillars are erected and a beam is placed over it and bell is installed in the center.
Since I could see many small bells were tied next to original huge bell placed in center, I assume that these were tied by various devotees, before or after wish was fulfilled ('harake').
Near Manokamana temple, we could see many shops of wooden handicraft. Here, we found that, materials made of wood are very cheap.
After some amount of shopping, we took the cable-car back to base station.
We stopped for a cup of tea just before reaching Pokhara in small town.
I spotted a peculiar duck in this small town.
About 30 km before pokhara, we got first glimpse of snow-capped mountains.
As we were closing near to Pokhara, We were welcomed with majestic snow-capped Himalayan range in Pokhara. We could see Annapurna Range of Himalaya in Pokhara.
A beautiful peak named Machchapuchare, stood tall among many white peaks.
Macchapuchare is of 6997 meters. Though it is no where close to its neighbor Annapurna, this peak appears taller as it is closer to Pokhara town.
Macchapuchare means Fish-Tail. Since Nepali is very close to Sanskrit+Hindi, I tried to decipher this name a bit. Maccha, probably in Nepali means Machali/Machchi (Fish) and puchare sounds very close to Poonch (Tail).
Pokhara is beautiful town at an altitude of 827 meters surrounded by hills and mountians. Our "New Hotel Crystal" was just opposite to Airport.
After a nice stroll in the evening, we called end for the day, dreaming about Muktinath, which was our destination.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Monday, June 11, 2007
The great himalayan expedition
(May 11th 2007)
I was all excited and geared up for the Himalayan trek since it was planned
several months ago.
My vacation mood was in full swing previous day evening itself and felt why people in
our office cab were so dull...I tried to cheer them up, but soon had to realize
that, only I was going on vacation but not others... :)
The whole trip was comprised of two legs - first was to trek around Gangotri
of around 55km and next leg was to goto Kedarnath.
In total 18 members were in first leg.
17 of assembled at Bangalore airport at around 4 and one person (Keshav) was supposed
to join us in Delhi.
Out of 18, half the people were strangers to me except my cousin Sumi(alias Krupa) and her family.
Was wondering how the trip might go...
Spicejet flight to Delhi was at 5.10PM, but by the time the flight took off it was 6.
After almost two hours, captain announced that we were reaching Delhi in 20 minutes.
Subsequent announcement heard was "Jaipur ke hawaai adde mein swaagath hein!!!",
we thought it was slip of tongue.
But announcement re-confirmed that "Welcome to Jaipur Airport"!!!
Every person in flight was surprised, when enquired with air-hostesses, even they
were unaware what was happening!
Then they informed us that, the weather in Delhi was bad hence the flight had to
land in Jaipur.We were stranded in Jaipur airport for quite a long time.
Now, we had planned to go to chilling Himalayas, but we had landed in "desert"!!!
Our gang members started making fun -
"What is the use of Thermals in Thar?!"
The flight did not take off from Jaipur till 10.45 - well past dinner time.
There was hardly any food in flight to serve the stranded passengers.
Many passengers teased Air-host(esses) for bad service, but they hardly had any control over the things going around.
Each were offered couple of biscuits (not packs!) and water.
As per our plan, we were supposed to catch train to Dehradun at 11.30 in Delhi.
By the time we landed in Delhi it was 11.35!
Unfortunately we had missed the train...
i thought "Phew, what a start to our trip!!! hope things will not be this way for rest of the trip".
Everyone in the group was very hungry. We had dinner in Hotel Balaji at 12.30 in Delhi Airport.
After dinner, 2 qualis & 1 Indica to Dehradun were arranged.
By the time all hopped on to the vehicles & left Delhi it was 2.20AM!!
I occupied the backseat and slept in the space available happily...
Even huge mosquitoes, which had sneaked in to our vehicles, did not succeed in spoiling my deep sleep.
(May 12th 2007)
By the time I woke up, it was already 7 and our vehicle was racing past Roorkie.
We had a tea break on the way and reached to Dehradun at around 9.30.
There was some confusion where to reach in Dehradun, amongst the vehicles.
After the confusion was sorted out, we took a Hotel room in Dehradun for freshening up.
After cleansing ritual, we did "pet puja" with aloo parathas/pooris.
From Dehradun, adventure club organizer - Karan Kutiyal from Chandra Sangh Adventure Club
had arranged the transport for us. We had to travel in 3 Bolero's till Gangothri.
Instead of joining the gang at Delhi, Keshav joined us here - the only person to catch
the train to Dehradun :)
We left Dehradun at around 11. Our next hop was to reach UttaraKashi and stay over-night there.
Enroute we surpassed Mussoorie; as soon as we reached close to Mussoorie, we could feel
the difference in atmosphere - it was much cool and pleasent weather.
No wonder Mussoorie is one of the favourite hill stations in Northern India.
Pretty close to Mussoorie, water falls named 'Kempty falls' is located.
Falls is very beautiful but people have commercialized the place a lot.
I felt it had lost its natural charm.
We got nice glimpses of River Yamuna on the way.
We were racing in the lower Himalayan range which is pretty green.
It does not snow in these stretch and step vegetation/step farming was visible.
The major crops grown here are - Rice, Wheat and aloo.
Dressing style of women (in villeges) here is different.
They wear head-scarf and wear saree as a wrap around to the bottom along with blouse.
Most of the houses were seen with roof of black tiles.
These black tiles are made of black layered rocks, which are widely available in this region.
In many villages, I could see, people had piled small bundles of Hay over the roof.
Bundles of Hay were also mounted over the branches of trees.
I speculated in my mind, these must be the food for cattle, spread aroud to dry.
We had lunch break at Nainbagh and had nice Aloo Parathas with curds.
Further from here, we entered forest region.
The atmosphere was different and the feel was awesome.
The smell of trees/mud was great.
Along the road, there were dark pink small flowers visible.
It was as if they had born to decorate the road borders. Sight was very pretty.
As we chugging along, we had first glimpse of River Bhagirathi at Badethi.
At Badethi, currently dam is being built across Bhagirathi.
In coming years, 'naksha' of this whole area will change when the dam completes.
We had a break at Badethi and had hot aloo bajjis.
By the time we reached Uttarakashi it was around 8.
Hotel rooms were booked in Hotel Everest for us.
We all dumped our bags in the rooms had dinner in near by place and called end of day.
(May 13th 2007)
The plan for the day was to reach Gangothri. I got up at around 5.45 and took nice bath.
Karan provided sleeping bags and rucksacks to everyone.
We were instructed to pack only necessary stuff for trek in the rucksacks and
and to leave unwanted luggage in Uttarakashi.
Most of us got ready by 8. In Uttarakashi, we visited Kashi Vishweshwara Temple.
This temple is not very big, but the surroundings and the temple atmosphere was pleasing.
There are two main complexes in temple - one is for main Vishweshwara temple and
opposite to this another temple for Parvathi.
Parvathi is present here in Shakthi swaroopa - Trishula.
Trishula is massive with approximately 25-30 feet high.
Next to shakti, there are two small statues of Subramanya and Ganesha.
These statues are tiny but attractive ones.
As per the main priest, main deity - shiva is swayambhu(udbhava moorthy).
When I heard that from priest, famous kruthi in Raaga Revathi - "Bho Shambho" rang in my mind.
I wanted to hear this in the temple premises from Ramprasad, who had come along with us.
I requested Ram to sing the "Shambho" song, but due to lack of time, he could not.
But he promised me that, he is going to sing for me during the trip.
Let me introduce you to Ramprasad a bit here.
Ramprasad (my cousin's brother-in-law) is professional carnatic classical singer.
I have heard his renditions many times in concerts as well as cassettes.
He has floored me every single time with his great voice & singing ability.
Though, this is very very small introduction about him (which does not do the justice), I will stop here :)
After having breakfast in Uttarakashi, we left to Gangothri.
On the way, we visited a place called Gangnani.
Here in Gangnani, Hot water Sulphur spring is located.
At source, the water is almost boiling hot!
Kalyaani(what do you call in english?? artificial pond?) has been built, we played in hot water for a while.
As we headed further, 15km to town, Harshil we had first glimpse of Snow capped
mountains. Everyone in the cab was thrilled, mountains were looking like tempting Ice Cones :)
Each mountains were making a fashion statement with different types of white caps.
Enroute to Gangothri, we have to cross Harshil.
In Harshil the river basin is quite huge. River flow was not full.
Bhagirathi had split into multiple streams forming patches of sand in the middle.
In Harshil, multiple streams join River Bhagirathi from the mountain surroundings.
Multiple glorious water falls directly jump into the river
forming fantabulous sight - definitely a feast for eyes.
At one particular place, we had a picture perfect sight of
snow-capped mountain, river, green valley and horse grazing in the river basin.
As I saw the Horse, i went into (day)dream world of riding horse across the river in full vigor :)
Little further from Harshil, group got their first chance to touch the snow.
There was huge glacier formation next to road side. Our vehicles came to halt as soon as we saw the snow.
Everyone jumped out and ran towards the snow.
Water dripping out of snow was chilling.
Gang(sters) enthusiastically smiled for camera holding snow.
We reached Gangothri approximately at 2pm. We were supposed to stay in tents and
arrangement was already made. Tent location was at the entry part of Gangothri town.
We had to get down around 100 meters from the main road into the valley.
When we reached the place, tents were getting erected.
Hot lunch was served to everyone from the cooks.
In the evening, we went to Gangothri Temple. Gangothri temple is situated right next to
River Bhagirathi.I was expecting that, river will flow as a narrow stream at Gangothri.
But, here the river was huge almost 50-80 feet wide. Basin was almost 150 ft wide!!
Then I was informed by Local priest that, Gomukh is the birth place for River Bhagirathi and
Gangothri is the place where Lord Shiva tied her in his 'Jata'.
From temple, we have to get down around 20 steps to touch the river water. Water was extremely cold.
Though I wanted to take bath here, I could not and had to wait for some more days for famous 'Ganga snaana'.
Gangothri is small town at 3048 meter above sea level.
It is built along the River coast and it has one major galli and whole town is built on both sides.
You might be noticing in this blog that, I have been using 'Bhagirathi' instead of 'Ganga'.
The nominclature is, until DevaPrayag, place where River Bhagirathi meets River Alakananda, term 'Ganga'
is not used.
As soon we strolled back to our tents, we were offered Hot Tea and Biscuits.
Oh, I forgot to mention about the tents and surrounding!
There were two big tents were provided and the idea was to split into 9 each in the tents.
The surrounding was very beautiful and tents were in the midst of Pine and Devadaru forest.
We could hear hymns of river flow continuosly from tents.
Though river was not visible from tents. River was flowing in a valley around 50-80 feet deep around 50 meters away.
Nearby, I could also see huge boulders had rolled from top of mountains due to landslide.
I just loved this place, I moved away from the crowd and spent some time for myself in the cradle of the nature.
As it was getting dark, Karan gave "gnaan" about do's and don't during the trek and introduced to
Ravi who would accompany for trek as a guide.
It was early dinner at around 7-7.30.We were offered hot soup.
It was May 13th and it was birthday of my cousin, Sumi and Ramprasad.
So as per Varuna's (another gangster :) ) idea, we all started 'Happy Birthday' song as surprise while sipping soup.
Then Ramprasad, sang couple of songs - 'Jeevan se bhari' and 'Bho Shambho'.
Both songs were beautifully rendered. Sumi and Venu also sang.
Meanwhile, our cooks for the trek had prepared the cake!
Sumi and Ram cut the cake as everyone wished them.
After the dinner, we sneaked into the tents.This was the first day in tent sleeping in bags :)
(14th May 2007)
Suprabhatha was at 5.30AM and sun light was already pretty bright.
When I washed my face, face almost froze due to the chilly water.
It was funny to find others struggling to brush their teeth.
People happily watched others "misery".
Cooks served hot tea by 6 in the morning.
Since we were living in tents amidst nature, our nature calls had to be addressed in the nature.
We had to follow guidelines for nature calls as well :)
We had to create small pit, and discretions had to be buried with soil and leaves around.
There were two advantages with this.
First, human waste will dissolve quickly in the nature.
second, you can avoid offending your fellow mate who may come for his turn :D
It was strange and little uncomfortable feeling but we hardly had any choice as this was part of package.
Everyone were served bread toast and with various choices for bread. I opted for honey.
We had to eat quickly as the weather was turning the toast cold. :)
Tent was packed and we left to trek by 8.45, we got delayed since few had misplaced their things.
Before we left, Karan warned us to maintain the timings from here on.
I called up my mom from Gangothri to inform that, we will be totally disconnected from any sort of communication for a week long duration.
We started the trek passing through Gangothri temple.
As we moved along, our guide, Ravi pointed us to the peaks in horizon and informed they were
Sudarshan, Thelu and Koteshwar peaks.
Little more on Ravi here...
Ravi is a student who who works for Karan during his holidays.
He aspires to climb peaks and also run one of these adventure clubs himself later on.
He says he is currently learning the ropes of the business from his guru Karan Kutiyal.
(Thanks to Prathima(trek-mate) for providing info about Ravi :) )
The total trek for the day was of 9km to Chirbasa.
Journey was not too tough. We could see many small mud covered glaciers on the way.
Few glaciers had formed like tunnels under which river was flowing.
As we strolled, we could see Himalayan Blue sheep (called as "Bharal" in Hindi).
At certain places, we had to cross small streams using small wooden bridges.
The width of these wooden bridges are so narrow that, only one person can go over it at one time.
We could see multiple streams forming from top of mountains.
The way they were rushing, I felt, these streams were very eager to get called as 'Holy Ganga' :)
As we treked along, some were pacy and raced ahead, and few got tired and strolled slowly taking many breaks in between.
As per guides, we should not take too many breaks during the trek, especially not to sit and relax under shades.
If we sit and relax, the body gets used to the shady weather and body cools down and
it takes extra effort and time to get the body back to the rythm.
The weather was clear and pretty bright and sunny.
As we trudged further, we drank water from streams, the cold water was very refreshing!
I was very keen on bird spotting, but I could hardly see any.
All I could here was bird's chirping but found it very difficult to spot.
Finally I reached our destination for the day - Chirbasa by 2.15.
I had reduced my trekking pace for photography, which made me more tired - especially the last part.
People arrived in batches and everyone reached the place by 3.
Chirbasa is a very small village located at 3600 meter altitude from sea level.
Most of the shops(dhabas) cum homes are temporary construction and this area will be completely covered by snow during winter.
People here migrate to different places during winter.
We could see some new type of birds, which has yellow beak, saffron legs and jet black body.
Some people named it as "Chinese crow" and others said Mountain Crow.
After some research over this I have finally figured out that, it is called "Yellow billed chough", which falls in to crow category.
At Chirbasa, the tents were erected at a picturesque place in the middle of valley.
We could see Bhagirathi mountain in the horizon.
We were surrounded by many unnamed peaks, our guide pointed one of the round headed mountain as Mount Manda.
It looked as if it was an icecream top to me.
We were served with Maggis for lunch. Myself, Varuna, Bharath & Prathima started playing cards.
As we were playing cards we were served with Hot Tea & Biscuits.
Everyone gushed, "This is the perfect way to spend vacation! Sipping Hot Tea with Biscuits & playing cards
with friends at picture perfect location"!
It should be around 4.30, one more trek troop arrived from opposite direction to the place.
The gang was huge consisting mostly kids.
After they settled down, we were introduced to a lady Vrunda Ramanan, the person who was leading the group and the kids.
Vrunda Ramanan regularly organizes treks almost every year.
We were also introduced to a nepali lady named Chandra devi, who is 66 year old.
She has conquered many many peaks and has climbed Mount Everest 3 times (not to the peak due to circumstances).
She gave a pep talk and what we might face during the treks.
Chandra Devi is Padmashree awardee(as introduced) and a peak has been named after her for her achievements in mountaineering.
She has been conducting trainings to many including Vrunda.
As per plans, we were supposed to go to Nandanvan, but Vrunda suggested not to trek that part as the weather was pretty bad out there.
Meanwhie, I was very keen to take the dusk shots but talk with Chandradevi went on for quite sometime, till it became dark.
We were also introduced to a humble guy called Chandra Bhai, who has conquered almost 55 peaks!
Keshav exclaimed "He is no less than Napolean!"
Whistle from the cook announced that dinner was ready.
After dinner, everyone sneaked into the tents as it got dark.
Craze to play cards had just started!
So bunch of people played the cards in the tents using torch lights while others had gone to deep sleep by 8!
My day ended at 9.30.
Though the weather here at this altitude is quite cold, we are not supposed to put camp fire to preserve the environment and save trees,
Hence there was no bonfire.
As I had slept early than the usual, I woke up many times in the middle of night to realize morning was still far.
The whole night, I could hear sound of water flow, which was the lullaby for night.
To be continued...
I was all excited and geared up for the Himalayan trek since it was planned
several months ago.
My vacation mood was in full swing previous day evening itself and felt why people in
our office cab were so dull...I tried to cheer them up, but soon had to realize
that, only I was going on vacation but not others... :)
The whole trip was comprised of two legs - first was to trek around Gangotri
of around 55km and next leg was to goto Kedarnath.
In total 18 members were in first leg.
17 of assembled at Bangalore airport at around 4 and one person (Keshav) was supposed
to join us in Delhi.
Out of 18, half the people were strangers to me except my cousin Sumi(alias Krupa) and her family.
Was wondering how the trip might go...
Spicejet flight to Delhi was at 5.10PM, but by the time the flight took off it was 6.
After almost two hours, captain announced that we were reaching Delhi in 20 minutes.
Subsequent announcement heard was "Jaipur ke hawaai adde mein swaagath hein!!!",
we thought it was slip of tongue.
But announcement re-confirmed that "Welcome to Jaipur Airport"!!!
Every person in flight was surprised, when enquired with air-hostesses, even they
were unaware what was happening!
Then they informed us that, the weather in Delhi was bad hence the flight had to
land in Jaipur.We were stranded in Jaipur airport for quite a long time.
Now, we had planned to go to chilling Himalayas, but we had landed in "desert"!!!
Our gang members started making fun -
"What is the use of Thermals in Thar?!"
The flight did not take off from Jaipur till 10.45 - well past dinner time.
There was hardly any food in flight to serve the stranded passengers.
Many passengers teased Air-host(esses) for bad service, but they hardly had any control over the things going around.
Each were offered couple of biscuits (not packs!) and water.
As per our plan, we were supposed to catch train to Dehradun at 11.30 in Delhi.
By the time we landed in Delhi it was 11.35!
Unfortunately we had missed the train...
i thought "Phew, what a start to our trip!!! hope things will not be this way for rest of the trip".
Everyone in the group was very hungry. We had dinner in Hotel Balaji at 12.30 in Delhi Airport.
After dinner, 2 qualis & 1 Indica to Dehradun were arranged.
By the time all hopped on to the vehicles & left Delhi it was 2.20AM!!
I occupied the backseat and slept in the space available happily...
Even huge mosquitoes, which had sneaked in to our vehicles, did not succeed in spoiling my deep sleep.
(May 12th 2007)
By the time I woke up, it was already 7 and our vehicle was racing past Roorkie.
We had a tea break on the way and reached to Dehradun at around 9.30.
There was some confusion where to reach in Dehradun, amongst the vehicles.
After the confusion was sorted out, we took a Hotel room in Dehradun for freshening up.
After cleansing ritual, we did "pet puja" with aloo parathas/pooris.
From Dehradun, adventure club organizer - Karan Kutiyal from Chandra Sangh Adventure Club
had arranged the transport for us. We had to travel in 3 Bolero's till Gangothri.
Instead of joining the gang at Delhi, Keshav joined us here - the only person to catch
the train to Dehradun :)
We left Dehradun at around 11. Our next hop was to reach UttaraKashi and stay over-night there.
Enroute we surpassed Mussoorie; as soon as we reached close to Mussoorie, we could feel
the difference in atmosphere - it was much cool and pleasent weather.
No wonder Mussoorie is one of the favourite hill stations in Northern India.
Pretty close to Mussoorie, water falls named 'Kempty falls' is located.
Falls is very beautiful but people have commercialized the place a lot.
I felt it had lost its natural charm.
We got nice glimpses of River Yamuna on the way.
We were racing in the lower Himalayan range which is pretty green.
It does not snow in these stretch and step vegetation/step farming was visible.
The major crops grown here are - Rice, Wheat and aloo.
Dressing style of women (in villeges) here is different.
They wear head-scarf and wear saree as a wrap around to the bottom along with blouse.
Most of the houses were seen with roof of black tiles.
These black tiles are made of black layered rocks, which are widely available in this region.
In many villages, I could see, people had piled small bundles of Hay over the roof.
Bundles of Hay were also mounted over the branches of trees.
I speculated in my mind, these must be the food for cattle, spread aroud to dry.
We had lunch break at Nainbagh and had nice Aloo Parathas with curds.
Further from here, we entered forest region.
The atmosphere was different and the feel was awesome.
The smell of trees/mud was great.
Along the road, there were dark pink small flowers visible.
It was as if they had born to decorate the road borders. Sight was very pretty.
As we chugging along, we had first glimpse of River Bhagirathi at Badethi.
At Badethi, currently dam is being built across Bhagirathi.
In coming years, 'naksha' of this whole area will change when the dam completes.
We had a break at Badethi and had hot aloo bajjis.
By the time we reached Uttarakashi it was around 8.
Hotel rooms were booked in Hotel Everest for us.
We all dumped our bags in the rooms had dinner in near by place and called end of day.
(May 13th 2007)
The plan for the day was to reach Gangothri. I got up at around 5.45 and took nice bath.
Karan provided sleeping bags and rucksacks to everyone.
We were instructed to pack only necessary stuff for trek in the rucksacks and
and to leave unwanted luggage in Uttarakashi.
Most of us got ready by 8. In Uttarakashi, we visited Kashi Vishweshwara Temple.
This temple is not very big, but the surroundings and the temple atmosphere was pleasing.
There are two main complexes in temple - one is for main Vishweshwara temple and
opposite to this another temple for Parvathi.
Parvathi is present here in Shakthi swaroopa - Trishula.
Trishula is massive with approximately 25-30 feet high.
Next to shakti, there are two small statues of Subramanya and Ganesha.
These statues are tiny but attractive ones.
As per the main priest, main deity - shiva is swayambhu(udbhava moorthy).
When I heard that from priest, famous kruthi in Raaga Revathi - "Bho Shambho" rang in my mind.
I wanted to hear this in the temple premises from Ramprasad, who had come along with us.
I requested Ram to sing the "Shambho" song, but due to lack of time, he could not.
But he promised me that, he is going to sing for me during the trip.
Let me introduce you to Ramprasad a bit here.
Ramprasad (my cousin's brother-in-law) is professional carnatic classical singer.
I have heard his renditions many times in concerts as well as cassettes.
He has floored me every single time with his great voice & singing ability.
Though, this is very very small introduction about him (which does not do the justice), I will stop here :)
After having breakfast in Uttarakashi, we left to Gangothri.
On the way, we visited a place called Gangnani.
Here in Gangnani, Hot water Sulphur spring is located.
At source, the water is almost boiling hot!
Kalyaani(what do you call in english?? artificial pond?) has been built, we played in hot water for a while.
As we headed further, 15km to town, Harshil we had first glimpse of Snow capped
mountains. Everyone in the cab was thrilled, mountains were looking like tempting Ice Cones :)
Each mountains were making a fashion statement with different types of white caps.
Enroute to Gangothri, we have to cross Harshil.
In Harshil the river basin is quite huge. River flow was not full.
Bhagirathi had split into multiple streams forming patches of sand in the middle.
In Harshil, multiple streams join River Bhagirathi from the mountain surroundings.
Multiple glorious water falls directly jump into the river
forming fantabulous sight - definitely a feast for eyes.
At one particular place, we had a picture perfect sight of
snow-capped mountain, river, green valley and horse grazing in the river basin.
As I saw the Horse, i went into (day)dream world of riding horse across the river in full vigor :)
Little further from Harshil, group got their first chance to touch the snow.
There was huge glacier formation next to road side. Our vehicles came to halt as soon as we saw the snow.
Everyone jumped out and ran towards the snow.
Water dripping out of snow was chilling.
Gang(sters) enthusiastically smiled for camera holding snow.
We reached Gangothri approximately at 2pm. We were supposed to stay in tents and
arrangement was already made. Tent location was at the entry part of Gangothri town.
We had to get down around 100 meters from the main road into the valley.
When we reached the place, tents were getting erected.
Hot lunch was served to everyone from the cooks.
In the evening, we went to Gangothri Temple. Gangothri temple is situated right next to
River Bhagirathi.I was expecting that, river will flow as a narrow stream at Gangothri.
But, here the river was huge almost 50-80 feet wide. Basin was almost 150 ft wide!!
Then I was informed by Local priest that, Gomukh is the birth place for River Bhagirathi and
Gangothri is the place where Lord Shiva tied her in his 'Jata'.
From temple, we have to get down around 20 steps to touch the river water. Water was extremely cold.
Though I wanted to take bath here, I could not and had to wait for some more days for famous 'Ganga snaana'.
Gangothri is small town at 3048 meter above sea level.
It is built along the River coast and it has one major galli and whole town is built on both sides.
You might be noticing in this blog that, I have been using 'Bhagirathi' instead of 'Ganga'.
The nominclature is, until DevaPrayag, place where River Bhagirathi meets River Alakananda, term 'Ganga'
is not used.
As soon we strolled back to our tents, we were offered Hot Tea and Biscuits.
Oh, I forgot to mention about the tents and surrounding!
There were two big tents were provided and the idea was to split into 9 each in the tents.
The surrounding was very beautiful and tents were in the midst of Pine and Devadaru forest.
We could hear hymns of river flow continuosly from tents.
Though river was not visible from tents. River was flowing in a valley around 50-80 feet deep around 50 meters away.
Nearby, I could also see huge boulders had rolled from top of mountains due to landslide.
I just loved this place, I moved away from the crowd and spent some time for myself in the cradle of the nature.
As it was getting dark, Karan gave "gnaan" about do's and don't during the trek and introduced to
Ravi who would accompany for trek as a guide.
It was early dinner at around 7-7.30.We were offered hot soup.
It was May 13th and it was birthday of my cousin, Sumi and Ramprasad.
So as per Varuna's (another gangster :) ) idea, we all started 'Happy Birthday' song as surprise while sipping soup.
Then Ramprasad, sang couple of songs - 'Jeevan se bhari' and 'Bho Shambho'.
Both songs were beautifully rendered. Sumi and Venu also sang.
Meanwhile, our cooks for the trek had prepared the cake!
Sumi and Ram cut the cake as everyone wished them.
After the dinner, we sneaked into the tents.This was the first day in tent sleeping in bags :)
(14th May 2007)
Suprabhatha was at 5.30AM and sun light was already pretty bright.
When I washed my face, face almost froze due to the chilly water.
It was funny to find others struggling to brush their teeth.
People happily watched others "misery".
Cooks served hot tea by 6 in the morning.
Since we were living in tents amidst nature, our nature calls had to be addressed in the nature.
We had to follow guidelines for nature calls as well :)
We had to create small pit, and discretions had to be buried with soil and leaves around.
There were two advantages with this.
First, human waste will dissolve quickly in the nature.
second, you can avoid offending your fellow mate who may come for his turn :D
It was strange and little uncomfortable feeling but we hardly had any choice as this was part of package.
Everyone were served bread toast and with various choices for bread. I opted for honey.
We had to eat quickly as the weather was turning the toast cold. :)
Tent was packed and we left to trek by 8.45, we got delayed since few had misplaced their things.
Before we left, Karan warned us to maintain the timings from here on.
I called up my mom from Gangothri to inform that, we will be totally disconnected from any sort of communication for a week long duration.
We started the trek passing through Gangothri temple.
As we moved along, our guide, Ravi pointed us to the peaks in horizon and informed they were
Sudarshan, Thelu and Koteshwar peaks.
Little more on Ravi here...
Ravi is a student who who works for Karan during his holidays.
He aspires to climb peaks and also run one of these adventure clubs himself later on.
He says he is currently learning the ropes of the business from his guru Karan Kutiyal.
(Thanks to Prathima(trek-mate) for providing info about Ravi :) )
The total trek for the day was of 9km to Chirbasa.
Journey was not too tough. We could see many small mud covered glaciers on the way.
Few glaciers had formed like tunnels under which river was flowing.
As we strolled, we could see Himalayan Blue sheep (called as "Bharal" in Hindi).
At certain places, we had to cross small streams using small wooden bridges.
The width of these wooden bridges are so narrow that, only one person can go over it at one time.
We could see multiple streams forming from top of mountains.
The way they were rushing, I felt, these streams were very eager to get called as 'Holy Ganga' :)
As we treked along, some were pacy and raced ahead, and few got tired and strolled slowly taking many breaks in between.
As per guides, we should not take too many breaks during the trek, especially not to sit and relax under shades.
If we sit and relax, the body gets used to the shady weather and body cools down and
it takes extra effort and time to get the body back to the rythm.
The weather was clear and pretty bright and sunny.
As we trudged further, we drank water from streams, the cold water was very refreshing!
I was very keen on bird spotting, but I could hardly see any.
All I could here was bird's chirping but found it very difficult to spot.
Finally I reached our destination for the day - Chirbasa by 2.15.
I had reduced my trekking pace for photography, which made me more tired - especially the last part.
People arrived in batches and everyone reached the place by 3.
Chirbasa is a very small village located at 3600 meter altitude from sea level.
Most of the shops(dhabas) cum homes are temporary construction and this area will be completely covered by snow during winter.
People here migrate to different places during winter.
We could see some new type of birds, which has yellow beak, saffron legs and jet black body.
Some people named it as "Chinese crow" and others said Mountain Crow.
After some research over this I have finally figured out that, it is called "Yellow billed chough", which falls in to crow category.
At Chirbasa, the tents were erected at a picturesque place in the middle of valley.
We could see Bhagirathi mountain in the horizon.
We were surrounded by many unnamed peaks, our guide pointed one of the round headed mountain as Mount Manda.
It looked as if it was an icecream top to me.
We were served with Maggis for lunch. Myself, Varuna, Bharath & Prathima started playing cards.
As we were playing cards we were served with Hot Tea & Biscuits.
Everyone gushed, "This is the perfect way to spend vacation! Sipping Hot Tea with Biscuits & playing cards
with friends at picture perfect location"!
It should be around 4.30, one more trek troop arrived from opposite direction to the place.
The gang was huge consisting mostly kids.
After they settled down, we were introduced to a lady Vrunda Ramanan, the person who was leading the group and the kids.
Vrunda Ramanan regularly organizes treks almost every year.
We were also introduced to a nepali lady named Chandra devi, who is 66 year old.
She has conquered many many peaks and has climbed Mount Everest 3 times (not to the peak due to circumstances).
She gave a pep talk and what we might face during the treks.
Chandra Devi is Padmashree awardee(as introduced) and a peak has been named after her for her achievements in mountaineering.
She has been conducting trainings to many including Vrunda.
As per plans, we were supposed to go to Nandanvan, but Vrunda suggested not to trek that part as the weather was pretty bad out there.
Meanwhie, I was very keen to take the dusk shots but talk with Chandradevi went on for quite sometime, till it became dark.
We were also introduced to a humble guy called Chandra Bhai, who has conquered almost 55 peaks!
Keshav exclaimed "He is no less than Napolean!"
Whistle from the cook announced that dinner was ready.
After dinner, everyone sneaked into the tents as it got dark.
Craze to play cards had just started!
So bunch of people played the cards in the tents using torch lights while others had gone to deep sleep by 8!
My day ended at 9.30.
Though the weather here at this altitude is quite cold, we are not supposed to put camp fire to preserve the environment and save trees,
Hence there was no bonfire.
As I had slept early than the usual, I woke up many times in the middle of night to realize morning was still far.
The whole night, I could hear sound of water flow, which was the lullaby for night.
To be continued...
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