Friday, October 26, 2007

A Walk on Himalaya's



Its quite a long time since the wonderful experience has passed but still I am bound to write about it. There have been numerous moments which have happened during the trek which I can never forget.

The experience took place in north India which involved Delhi, our first and last stop, Himachal Pradesh, where the trek was held and it was been organized by YHAI, India. Our (my brother's and myself) trip started on May 9th of 2007 with both of us meeting up in Delhi. I was traveling from Bangalore and my brother traveling from Hyderabad. We had problem during the start of the trek due to some misplacement of some records and we had to check it up with the organization. So walking around in Delhi not knowing where we are going and at last end up at the right location with the help of a lot of people. Finishing the official matters in about half an hour, we were told to go to a place called kullu which was our base camp for the trek. We left the place immediately and scrambled to the Delhi main bus stand to find out that our bus leaves at 6.30 pm. We wasted the time walking around with our trekking gear in that amazing heat of Delhi till then.

The bus luckily was on time and it was off to our location. Since we were pretty much exhausted we managed to sleep of in the rocky bus.


The location at our base camp was amazing with a river flowing past the side of it and the Himalayas seen from the center of the camp. I really can't put it in words. The trek started of with an orientation and then an aclamization walk. The walk was pretty nice. It was a pretty nice walk through the dense path with trees all round. We had a session of rock climbing and getting down a rock. Taking a bath in these places is not option because you get freezing cold water. I ended up with lose motion during these day and was totally in a state of not going for the trek until one of our group members was doctor came to the rescue.
The trek started of on the 3rd day of our arrival. The trip to the our start point was amazing cause it was the first time that I had been on top of a bus. The trek that day was pretty much tiring just for the fact that the route was taking us 'up and down' and nothing more or less. The camp, Guna Panni, was pretty nice with the food given also pretty well. We tried star gazing that day but unfortunately we were disturbed by hovering clouds. The next day we get up early, do a lot of bird watching and recharging our camera batteries. We start of to our next camp and that was Faul Panni. The trip to there was splendid just for the reason of its scenery. We always stopped for our lunch break and our daily stops for water and stuff were always there. We reached out next camp pretty before schedule so we had to wait out side till it was time. The camp was on the slope of a hill so we were sleeping in a slanted way. I slept of pretty early on that day. The next thing I remember was that I was on the other side of the tent. It was a pretty funny scene that day.
Our journey to the next camp was okay and very tiring just for the fact that we had to climb steep hills. We had a good time there and a pretty nice one holding cow skull.
This day was the best day of the whole trek and you'll find out in a moment.
The next day we had a bit of rain and went past a bit of snow patches and it was nice .The fun part was pretty nice. I almost losing my glasses in the middle also had a part to play in the trek. Now is the best part. We stop for lunch. Everyone takes there Tiffin boxes outside. The scene completely changes with pitch black atmosphere all round. The guide, who was responsible for us, told us take cover since there was a storm coming by. We sit with our backs against the storm. Suddenly snow appears out of the blue. After a while hail pieces turns up. We take cover near the bushes. After a while of getting our senses back together, the guide tells us the storm is far away from finish and we will have to walk through it. We start moving cautiously. We start having snow on the way. With the hail and snow coming heavily on us, we see people slipping down. We move even more cautiously. Most of the weaker gender start breaking up and saying ' No, we can't do' and the line repeated almost every where with a little modification here and there. Then people like me and myself came to the rescue, guided the people through the whole journey. Unfortunately carried their rucksack’s (trekking gear) and completely exhausted, reached the pit stop with absolutely no power left. The scene turned worse with four of the tents had been brought down. I must say a big thanks to the YHAI people who were quite ready for this type of situation and quite prepared. They made two big camp fires and along with that they brought in hot soups and tea to cool us down. They even managed to bring up 2 of the fallen tents up. The day was pretty drastic with the ladies fully psyched out and all of them still crying. The day ended pretty early cause the next day we had to start of by 4.00 am just to miss out on the sun rising. That's cause if we travel with the sun up, the snow would have melted and it would be very slippery.
The next day, I led the way because I was sure that if yesterday's situation happened again then I would never have completed. So why take tension, lead the way. The snow was beautiful. Another reason I like it was because it was beautiful. That’s it. We passed 75% of our way pretty easily with me slipping around here and there. But the last part was horrible. We had to climb a steep mountain and wait there. Man it was exhausting. I reached up and slept there just like that. People woke me up just for the reason that I might lose balance during sleep and trip of the mountain. The next part was awesome. We come down the steep mountain sliding. Damn! That was cool. With that speed and that velocity. It was better than the wildest rides in the best water park. We then continued our trek with me sleeping half the time. The rest of the trek was pretty sad just for the reason that all fun just got over. We had a few cricket matches in the last trek with some koko game also and story telling time also in the middle but leaving that it was not that great.
All n all I would say
'I Enjoyed the trek'
Here are some links to those amazing photo's :

2 comments:

Somayaji Ravi said...

very written post... keep it going buddy... appreciate it

laksh said...

good job dude....I really miss this journey...we enjoyed like hell....but very well written dude.....