First trek in Himalayas: Valley of flowers and Hemkund Sahib

These are the views which Valley of flowers and Hemkund Sahib that soothed my eyes in August. 

Hemkund Sahib

Carpet of flowers

I had strong desire to visit valley of flowers from 2011 after seeing some stunning pics on Facebook of friends album. 2012 went as 1st year in job, 2013, the disastrous floods and 2014 it was closed. In 2015, working on weekend in office in July, a sacrilegious sin, I hatched a plan to cover valley of flowers and came to know Hemkund Sahib can also be done in the same trip. I did some background research sitting in office and I decided to go with IndiaHikes. It will be a honest review of IndiaHikes as I was going for the first time through them and neither I knew anyone in my friend circle who had opted for IndiaHikes.

Searched air tickets and I got a good deal on Air Vistara tickets from Hyderabad, same price band as the low cost flying carriers and coupled with credit card, got a pretty amazing deal three weeks prior to the trip. Train tickets were booked onwards from New Delhi to Haridwar. With some shopping of clothes and medicines done, I was all set for the trip.

8th August:

Hyderabad had cool weather early morning and I requested my cab driver to not switch on the AC. Zipped through Hyderabad and reached airport. Air Vistara has brand new aircrafts and it is divided into three sections, namely business, premium economy and economy. I always opt for back seats of plane as thrust experienced is maximum and you get uninterrupted view. The food served onboard was exemplary and we landed at T3, IGIA. Moved to aero express line. As I soon I stepped from the metro railway station, it was so humid, that the five minute walk from aero express line to Ajmeri gate side of New delhi railway station exhausted me. I was carrying a backpack and I was sweating as if I am in coastal area of India. As I was carrying my luggage at station, I chanced upon seeing the board of IRCTC executive lounge and checked in. At lounge, my two and half year old Nexus 4 started misbehaving and it gave me jitters for some time. After some relaxing, I checked out and boarded 12055 New Delhi- Haridwar JS which started bang on time. Crossed western Uttar Pradesh and entered Uttarakhand, the land of Devbhoomi. Haridwar was a complete mess due to some festival going in the city. I had booked a dorm through IRCTC at station itself and it was manageable for me to stay at the same as my transport to Govind Ghat which was arranged by IndiaHikes was to start from Haridwar Railway station. The railway dorms are decent place to retire for night for as low as 100INR. 

9th August:

After contacting the transporter of IndiaHikes at 0600 hours in morning, I reached our tempo traveller. We started around 0730 hours as five trek mates train got late. Due to some coordination issues between IndiaHikes and the transporter, we six people had whole tempo traveller for us. More on how we negotiated with them regarding the sharing of cost of the tempo traveler for six people at the end of travelogue. We were till 0900 hours in Haridwar city itself due to huge traffic jam. Since reaching Rishikesh was impossible due to festival, it was decided by driver to enter Uttar pradesh and back to Uttarakhand skirting Najibabad and going through Kotdwara, Satpuli and Srinagar to get back to our original route. Once we left Kotdwara, the route became scenic and we were gulping miles till we joined our main route at Govindghat at 1600 hours. It was race against time as commercial transport is not allowed in Uttarakhand after 2000 hours. Seeing the snow line of Himalayas for first time en route was blissful experience. Innumerable landslides had occurred and one looked to cleared just two days prior. We reached Joshimath at 2015 hours and were stopped by police. After much pleading we were allowed to go ahead to Govindghat while a private car from Delhi was not allowed as it was land slide prone area. We reached  Govind ghat at 2100 hours. We stopped only twice during entire journey due to risk of spoiling our trek on first day itself.

Our camp leader, gave a introduction of himself, told us do’s and don’ts and collected non disclosure and medical forms from us. They advised us to take our last bath at GovindGhat itself as people in batch before us took bath at Ghangria and fell ill. We were 14 people in the batch from varied background. From now on India Hikes is taking care of us. We had a good dinner nearby where we were placed and trek starts form tomorrow. 

10th August:

We started early at 0700 hours from our hotel to our base village Ghangria. I was carrying my 11 kg back pack with me. We got ourselves registered near the main arch of valley of flowers and then we continued our 14km trek to Ghangria. The main leader trekked ahead while sweeper of IndiaHikes was behind me all the time. We would be gaining an altitude of 3000 feet in course of 14km. We saw few Tata Sumos going up on the road. Later we found out that the Tata Sumos go till 3 kms to some village. We all started slowly as we were getting acclimatized to the hike and slowly we covered 3km motor able stretch. Then the trail narrowed and we were continuously climbing big stretches of up gradient followed by small but insignificant descents. We covered 7 kms by 1030 hours and they had arranged our lunch at the midway hotel. 

The lunch was pretty decent and tasty. We started around 1130 hours. After lunch, carrying a 11 kg backpack was the toughest part of trek. After one kilometer, we all had a good time besides the bank of Laxman Ganga. After may be 8 km or 9 km mark, the trail started climbing steeply to Ghangria. We were gaining height very fast and after 11 km, I felt the drop in temperature. I was dead carrying my back pack and had fallen last in the group. The sweeper of India Hikes then carried my back pack and I carried his light back pack. After too much huffing, we finally reached the helipad of Ghangria at 1630 hours. The 600 meters board looked deceptive as we took half hour to walk to Ghangria. We all were dead tired. IndiaHikes put us at some under construction hotel at Ghangria. The walls of some rooms were damp and we had to raise our voice so that we had our quilts and bedsheets changed as we felt it was damp. We had good dinner and slept early.

11th August:

Today, we were trekking to Valley of flowers. Since we had trekked 14km and our body had got acclimatized at 9000 feet, this 4 km trek to valley of flowers was not that tough for us. We started around 0700 hours from our hotel. The trail was medium grade and thankfully no mules on this route. The weather was cool in the morning and we crossed many temporary man made bridges. And finally, we reached the valley of flowers. Below are few HDR pics from my modest phone Nexus 4.

Climbing the 4 km trail to Valley of flowers

The trail to valley of flowers

Photosphere pic of valley of flowers

                                              Tomb of botanist Margaret Legge

The valley of flowers had opened after two years. Though the flowers had bloomed, the pop or carpet was missing this year. I walked the extra mile and visited the grave of Margaret Legge, the botanist who documented all the flowers at 11000 feet. Unfortunately, she slipped and died in this valley. Roamed the valley for two odd hours. The misty fog was scaring us but it used to clear in few minutes. But around 1300 hours, the mist was thick and we could see clouds were coming towards us. Our India hikes team lead told us that the weather was deteriorating and told us to descent. It started raining and I took out my poncho. The path had become slushy and some people were slipping on that path. After descending some 2000 feet, the weather cleared up. We reached Ghangria at 1530 hours. Relaxed at the hotel. 

The previous batch of IndiaHikes completed Hemkund Sahib and we lit a bonfire in the verandah of the hotel. The team lead of that batch was taking active participation and our team lead was dead tired and slept in his room. We had a good time with other batch. After covering so many kms in span of 2 days, the pain in the legs had started to disappear. I kept on drinking loads of water. Everything is sold at double rate in Ghangria due to lack of road to this area. Again slept like a log as tomorrow was going to be toughest day of trek.

12th August:

Hemkund Sahib is the pilgrimage site for Sikhs and a Gurudwara is present at a height of 14500 feet. It is accessed by a very tough 6 km trail. We woke up at 0530 hours, I quickly freshened up, had breakfast and carried some lunch given to us by IndiaHikes. The trail is very steep with no flat surface anywhere. After climbing some 2.5 kms, I could see the trail of Valley of flowers which we took yesterday. I was around 12000 feet. I had crossed the tree line and could hear the chants of reading Guru Granth Sahib. At my pace, I would be reaching Hemkunt Sahib around 1230 hours. I didn’t want to miss out all the views from the top and wanted to spend some time at the lake. Took a pony midway for 400 bucks and reached top at 1045 hours. I had some hot tea and dal Kichdi at langar which felt something like out of heaven. Few people from my group had reached the Hemkund and were contemplating taking a dip in the lake. I just dipped my hands and feet in the lake and it was bone freezing cold. Four to five people finally took courage and dipped themselves in the lake. They came out as quickly as they went inside the lake. We visited the Gurudwara and after climbing a small hill overlooking the lake, we got some good views whenever the weather cleared up. The high point of the trek was at this point that we felt we have have achieved something remarkable and the effort to reach this place is worth every penny. Since at such altitude, there is chance of getting hit by altitude mountain illness, I decided to descend down at 1300 hours. 

Few pics taken from Nexus 4:

Steep trail to Hemkund Sahib

The serene lake at the top fed with glacial waters

Yours truly.

Valley of flowers trail is in opposite mountain

The descend was again painful and exerted too much pressure on toes. Then I decided to descend sideways by putting pressure on side. And lo, I had a side tear in my shoes. It took me 3 hours to descend at a leisurely pace as weather had not deteriorated like yesterday. The feeling of waking on flat land after 3 hours is something which I can’t describe. Again we had a good dinner, lit a bonfire, shared some crazy stories and then went to bed as tomorrow was last day of our trek.

13th August:

I am not that much interested in dev bhakti and I planned to go to Auli instead of Badrinath. Started around 0730 hours from Ghangria by thanking cook who served us some excellent food for three days. Raced down like anything as target was Auli, a ski resort. By 1000 hours, I was halfway. Took some rest at a hotel where I had lime water. Started the race to Govindghat. The shoes which I had side tear were giving tugging along with me. Reached Govindghat and then came bad news of landslide. The previous group had not left the hotel where IndiaHikes had put us. The landslide was very bad as the team lead of our group went till the point of landslide as it was just 1km from our hotel. IndiaHikes advised our group to leave Govindghat as there is less possibility of road opening again. 

We 12 people took collective decision to leave that day itself. We got news of one more landslide. And there goes my plan to reach Auli down the drain. It was decided to halt midway at Rudraprayag.

We started in same tempo traveller as we were still haggling the price for 6 people from Haridwar to Govind Ghat 9th August. We covered some kilometers quickly and at 2000 hours, we were at Rudraprayag. The hotel was overlooking the river Alaknanda. 

14th August:

I had a good sleep at that place and then we started for Rishikesh. Rishikesh was reached at 1230 hours. We did some haggling with tempo traveler fellow as it was not our fault that 6 people had to pay 11500 INR for transport, the extra 1500 as we took some long route. The return was flat 10000 INR which we 12 people settled without fuss. After some calls, we six people who traveled by this tempo on 9th August paid 6500 INR which I felt was reasonable. We told the tempo traveller guy to take remaining money from IndiaHikes as they had cancellations and six people were given a tempo traveler due to it. I visited Laxman Jhula at Rishikesh. Since I had to board early morning train at Haridwar, decided to give Ganga Aarti a miss and headed to Haridwar. 25 kms took some 1.5 hour due to three railway crossings. Checked into hotel, rearranged my stuff in back pack went to sleep.

15th August:

Independence day. Took 12056 DDN NDLS Janshatabdi from Haridwar at 0620 hours. Reached NDLS at 1120 hours. Forgot to take my trekking pole from trains rack, realized it when I sat in airport metro express. Spent time at Delhi T3 reading book. Caught flight to Hyderabad at 1730 hours and reached home by 2100 hours.

I had a good time throughout the trek. It was my first experience with the mighty Himalayas. Planning Rupin Pass next year which will be done. One Himalayan trek every year from now on.

Joy and sorrow of Inside out

After a harrowing day in office debugging some crappy functionality of a braking product of my company, it was time to head to watch inside out. I had seen the trailer of the movie only once and it was impressive.

So I and my colleague walk to an multiplex behind our office, the only positive thing about the place where I work. The movie portrays a story of girl in Minnesota until a change happens.

And boy, some people hate change and some simply love the challenges a change puts in front of them. This movie depicts how our mind reacts to the change. The five characters,  joy, sadness, anger, disgust and fear complement each other in our real life.

As you can see in the trailer men can rarely listen to two things at a time. The brain of a man switches off when he sees himself imagining about football match. They have telescopic vision which got developed as main job of ancestral men was only hunting for which you need to concentrate on a single object for a longer amount of time. And the mother, quickly saw that the her child is not in mood and tried to ask her about het first day at school. A mother is much more aware about her surroundings. In short she can see behind her back. How did this quality get ingrained in her? When ancestral men went for hunting, the women folk had to be very careful about the surroundings and had to keep an eye on everything in surrounding. That's why when we were young, before making some move behind her back, we used to get caught.

Coming back to movie, we can't have happiness everywhere. Life is made of sadness too and they co-exist with each other. I feel this was the strongest message of the movie showed in fun way of glass balls rolling in our brain. We have to sacrifice something to achieve and try to keep looking forward to something positive ahead in our life.

What I loved about the movie is how they showed the brain, our memories, how they are stored, dumped in a deep valley. We all have good and sad memories. They will remain with us through out our life. How we react to situation depends upon how we have encountered a situation similar to one before it or else we act hesitantly.

The movie is definitely a must watch with something new to introspect about yourself
and enjoy with your friends and family.

Distractions

I have been lately reading a novel after a hiatus of eight months, ‘The narrow road to deep north’. It has some beautiful Japanese poetry embedded into it. One month is over since it arrived at my place. I should have completed reading it. But wait, I had distractions in form of internet buzzing everyday on phone.

Data consumption through phone is phenomenally high for me with superfast 3G and an awesome Wi-Fi that never dies unlike the internet which I had at home and was provided by a government service provider. It was crappy and I used to pray for a decent connection every day. I survived on it for more than four years. And here, the internet connectivity is superb. The service provider here alerts you when there will be down time. I hadn’t experienced this kind of internet service. The drawback is your phone is constantly connected and you end up reading whole lot of now stuff beaming on ‘Reddit’, Travel blogs, NY times or twitter. Today, I was reading one article on NY times that actually lambasted the managerial skills of Marrisa Mayer, the CEO of Yahoo. For some two years, Marissa was praised for leading Yahoo but this article actually painted a completely different picture. You are under complete scrutiny if you are leading a giant which is falling apart. Also I rarely visit Yahoo, so do many people. That says it all. The article was longish and chronicled her two years. The article link is here

I read many things beaming even through twitter timeline. Sometimes it gives you good insight but it comes at a time when you are neglecting your current task of completing a beautiful novel. There were days when I used to get hooked to book and used to be get disturbed only by your mom yelling at top of voice for idling.

You need to remain focussed with the task assigned to you. The other day I found that YouTube streams in my office. And I started streaming some Hans Zimmer music for one hour. Though I will complete the work, no one around me uses YouTube in office. I need to stop it.

I hope to complete the novel as early as possible but Saturdays and Sundays have turned dysfunctional for me. And weekdays, even after you come back home even before six, things start to look bleak. I just touched some 170 pages and it’s a long way to go for Dorrigo Evans to get out of Burma and me to do something that is fulfilling my mind.

A quarter life completed

Just realized that I hadn’t written for the past one year anything on my blog or posted any note on Facebook. Also yesterday, I completed 25 years of life on earth. Nothing extraordinary has happened with me up till now.

Life away from home has been interesting. You realize how many days you have wasted doing nothing.

Lately I have been reading a lot of stuff on web, books. Be it science, astronomy, travel blogs or some novels brought online. Lately, space exploration has caught my interest. Mind you, it’s not after watching Interstellar. What amazed me is for achieving so much in space, human kind has done which was thought to be impossible some 50 years back. Look at International space station, which can be seen with naked eye orbiting our earth. Also I want to witness a Soyuz launch from Baikonur cosmodrome. Also to become an astronaut or cosmonaut, you have to rub your ass very hard against the ground.

Life turns too much turns at each corner of the road. You never know what will happen next. Sometimes it depends on luck but always remember that luck is matter of preparation meeting opportunity.

I guess I should move to tumblr and write every week random thoughts like I didn't know what is Telugu translation of ‘Yes’. Never heard my colleagues or people say it. All I heard is ‘no’ in telugu. Looks like there is too much negativity around us. I should write more observations around me.

I know I just scribbled some random shit, but I need to write more.

The co-passenger blues

When you are damn sure that you are going to spend 12 hours in train, the first thing that anyone wants is good co-passengers. After all, for how much time you can remain immersed in a book, do train spotting and see scenery when it is pitch dark and police wants you to close windows to avoid getting robbed. Scanning the reservation chart list at the station is one of the few things you can do if you arrive with a healthy lead before departure. The eyes drool over finding co-passengers having age F-18 to F-24 and cursing yourselves when you find aged aunties in your bay of six. I am not a taxonomist but here is assorted list:

1. The Oldies:

Only God can save you in such a situation when the oldies pull down the middle berth at 20:00 hours sharp leaving you nowhere to sit. They eat around 19:00 hours and go off to sleep early. I have seen oldie who had his daily quota of whisky before dozing off. It was his medicine that emitted a foul smell in the whole AC bay. Also they snore a lot that the whole coach vibrates and you can say good bye to your sleep until you fall asleep to the rhythmic snoring!

2. The Middle aged people:

This group of people I feel is the best for the company when traveling for one night journey. They understand the need of youngsters and at least try to pull the middle berth by 22:00 hours. They off course have endured more ups and downs in life than us and chatting with them is pleasant experience. They have too much knowledge and give useful advice to us. I have seen a SBI assistant general manager explain me homoeopathy with a new twist to a cement industry manager giving me good insights about why men and women behave differently in nature. This group of people accounts to best conversation I have ever had with the some unknown people.

3. The aunties:

They are sometimes caring, nagging or jealous with you. The first thing they ask is for lower berth which you have booked for window seat. They ask all about your personal life, where do you stay, where do you eat and all sort of stuff as if they are writing my biography. Some of them are kind enough to share food with you.

4. The young couple:

The young couple is sometimes occupied with a small child with whom they have to play a day and night game. The small child is centre of all their attention that they hardly interact with the co-pax. Sometimes when they do they get time after a child falls asleep, they open a plethora of information about themselves and have met a Ph.D. who had done his doctorate in oncology to a scientific writer in pharma industry. I have also seen a young couple who boarded with me at a particular station just pull the curtains of the side lower berth and drink their “homemade magic potion” while emitting a strong stench again in compartment.

5. A large joint family:

It looks to me that the head family has bribed the loco pilot of the train to halt for extra time so that they whole joint family can board the compartment with all assortment of luggage and place it wherever they find place below the seat. After the dust settles, they start munching which has been bought from outside. Looks to me that they have even bought a tomato ketchup sauce bottle to keep them company for everything they have bought from outside. Finally the munching stops when it is time to sleep and they sign it off by eating pills for easy digestion. Just imagine the horror the other people might face at night in closed AC compartment.

Advice: Use train toilet before they wake up!

6. Youngsters:

This is the best group you can have for company. At the start they can be slow to start a healthy conversation but slowly you can have a good time with them that the time passes quickly. You can talk with them about ‘chaos theory’ to the popular sitcoms in the town to sports. I have been a group that was awake till 3 a.m. at night which was one of the best journeys I ever had in my life.

7. F18-F24:

Nothing much to say as they don’t talk with anyone. I leave it to your imagination!

The lost battle against Cancer

Around eight to nine years back, I came across a story about a man who had won tour de France after finding one morning that he was spitting out blood in the wash basin. That story was the small part of autobiography of Lance Armstrong translated into a vernacular language in a daily newspaper.

A chain of events forced me to read his autobiography some six months back and in the way the autobiography was written in the book, “It’s not about the bike: My journey back to life” convinced my heart that he did not dope.

Cancer is a disease which requires a brave heart to defeat it to the core. If you always stay with the fear of remission, the cancer will deal another blow to you. I had read two good books in which cancer afflicted people had taught us how to lead life and what they see when death bed is closing on them. This made me realize that life is not cheap and we should always try to justify the every molecule of air we breathe. The pain which a cancer patient goes through for seeing a small ray of hope among all tubes clinging through his body can’t be described. The nurses who infuse the poisonous chemo in your body know that it will burn your skin but they have no choice as the cancer stuck patient sees a glimpse of hope even in that poison fed into your body. You wish good luck for the poison to work on you. Such becomes life on the bed of cancer patient.

Coming back to Lance Armstrong who recently admitted to doping said that it was a perfect story made me aghast. The can of worms spilled out only in 2009 but took three whole years for the realization to take place. A well-orchestrated musical show suddenly sounded noise to the ear.

It is always said that the thief is always one step ahead of the police. That applies to sport also. Scientists try to build drugs that can’t be detected in the blood test while another group tries to decipher it. It’s a cat and mouse game which will never end.

The desire to win always makes us do things that we never dreamt of in our life. If we want the result by hook or crook, we go at great lengths to achieve it. The same thing happened with the Lance. A vicious circle developed around him and he had to be part of circle to continue the fairy tale having a happy ending.

Who was the biggest loser in this entire scenario?

Cancer. Millions of patients who looked upon him as that ray of hope might be feeling uneasy with the thought of seeing an icon fall from top to the bottom of disgrace.

 It’s the conscience that makes us believe that people are clean but the world proves it otherwise. Such deceptive and funny the world has become that even the conscience takes a bow in front of them.

Mapping the city

I have been to Pune ‘n’ times during the last 15-17 years but I never knew how to reach from Pune railway station to my relatives place scattered all over the Pune city. I used to trust the rickshaw driver and he used to correctly drop me at the place where I wanted to be and I used to get charged according to the meter. Even if we had gone to Pune by our car, my relatives place was so near to the NH4 that I never needed to enter city. Once in my relatives place, they used to take me all over the city. In the comforts of an AC car and chit-chatting with them, I may have toured the whole city but never knew which route they took because I never bothered to remember and note down important landmarks in Pune. I never travelled in ‘Pune Municipal transport’ buses. When these buses used to take a circular round on a traffic island, I used to comment that PMT buses have a very long and dangerous tail. In short, I never mapped Pune in my brain.

And seven months back, a new city, Hyderabad awaited to welcome me. From somewhere, the virtue of alertness came in me. When you want to get dropped at some place in Hyderabad whose name you can’t even pronounce, saying that name to the bus conductor wrongly and getting stared from your co-passengers became a routine thing to me. The transport system was tough to deal at the start but it was the cheapest way to roam the city. Unlike Mumbai, the rickshaws in Hyderabad don’t go by meter even if they have meter installed in them.

I used to remember important landmarks in the whole city, be it an historical building, KFC restaurant or a small tea shop and used to carefully listen what other people are saying to the conductor and where they used to get down. In this way all the stop names became clear and I was able to say them clearly like a native. Once I boarded a bus to go to ‘Punjagutta’, but the conductor said that the bus will go to NIMS and not ‘Punjagutta’. I blatantly said yes to him and took out my age old smartphone, searched what NIMS meant (It’s actually Nizam’s institute of medical sciences), tracked down how far are both of them and got down at the proper stop which was walking distance from where I wanted to actually go. Such quick decisions really helped me. I also tracked down a bungalow in a posh locality in Hyderabad which had a Rolls-Royce and it was my landmark when the bus passed from the front of the bungalow. Plus once I sat beside the conductor when the crowd in the bus was thin, and the good guy explained me all the bus routes in Hyderabad. After that, traveling in Hyderabad was a cake walk for me. If you meet good people in your life, it can make things really simpler.

Last month I covered all the major roads in Hyderabad in the public transport system. I can say that I mapped Hyderabad in less than 6 months flat. The situation is so good that I can direct a new comer in Hyderabad. A sense of achievement and satisfaction of taming a city is immense and one should experience it at least in our own country or a completely a foreign land.   

:D