Wednesday, June 24, 2009

The Unending Adventurous Trekking to Uttarkashi – Dodital (Manjhi)


To spend a long weekend August 15-17, we (Amar, Potey, Kundan, Rajpurohit, Thakre, Sandy and I) planned to move out on a trekking. The place to visit was not unanimously chosen, but we didn’t have much time to think of an alternative. Potey was somewhat apprehensive of the possible landslides in the rainy season in the hilly areas and for a while we contemplated an alternative destination, Jaisalmer. It was raining heavily on Thursday, August 14th evening; so heavily, that the news flashed over all the channels and people back home began worrying about our well-beings.
Anyways, our adventure began even before we began our journey. The cab that we were supposed to take refused the service at the 11th hour and we began rechecking the strength of our will to move out. Somehow, the consensus was built to set out for the trekking. Meanwhile, an alternate vehicle was being looked for. Even though, it was getting late, but we finally managed to find one. An Innova arranged by Manish, came to our place at around 01:30 AM on Friday, August 15. In the meantime, we (at K 62) caught little naps.
We set out at around 02:00 AM from K 62. The journey started with fun and chit-chatting. We decided that not all of us will carry cash at the same time, so Rajpurohit, Kundan and I withdrew some cash (2k each) from South Ex. I had taken the front seat at South Ex. By the time we passed by Delhi, people had started sleeping including the driver, Vicky :-S. When I realized that Vicky was not fully awake, I got scared and I began persuading him to stop for getting some refreshment. But, he was stubborn about moving on. Anyhow, with some more persuasion from Potey and few others, we stopped at a dhaba (perhaps near Mujaffarnagar). We all took tea and asked Vicky to sleep for a couple of hrs before moving again. But, by that time it was morning already, around 6 AM, so he said he won’t be napping anymore and we moved again. Passing by, Haridwar and Roorkee, we stopped at Hrishikesh.
At Laxman Jhula, I bathed in the Ganges (sare paap dho liye maine… ;)) while others just sat and relaxed. Then we went inside a restaurant immediately by the river side. We placed our order for lunch and while waiting for the order to arrive, we started playing some indoor games available there. Amar and Purohit played a couple of rounds of chess – once disturbed by me. Then, we played carom for a while. After finishing a delicious lunch at the restaurant (including Puri-sabji that Purohit had brought for all, packed from home), we decided to move on. By the time, we were relaxing at the Laxman Jhula, Vicky took a quick nap of at least a couple of hrs.
By 3 PM or so, we left Hrishikesh for Uttarkashi. Passing through mountains with clouds flying around us, sometimes moving through the clouds… it was so exciting and so much enjoying. While others were sleeping, I was coaxing them very much to open their eyes to relish the scenic beauty. Annoyed with my shouting, Potey said that it was only me, who had come to such a place for the first time, whereas others have been to hill stations for numerous times and that is why they weren’t so much excited. Indeed, it was only my 2nd visit to a hill station (1st time being to Ooty), and I was enjoying the journey very much. I then had a thought that it is better to visit different types of places than visiting similar places, i.e. visit beaches, hill stations, forts,… rather than visiting only one kind of place. By around 6 PM, we reached Chamba, where Amar and T withdrew some cash from ATM. To find an ATM, we really had to look at many places and had finally got one at Chamba. Chamba onwards, it had started getting dark and the road seemed dangerous with mountain on one side and valley on the other. The sound of the river flowing down in the dark valley added to the fear factor. Slowly, creeping along the mountains we reached Uttarkashi at around 9 PM or so. Found lodging in a hotel on the river side in the main town. On the other side of the river lied a mountain line – imagine how picturesque the view would be from our balcony. While Kundan was busy negotiating for tents and guide for the next day’s trip, we bought snacks for the trip and found a place to dine. We also bought enough liquor for the trek. We planned to leave early morning by 8 AM and went down to sleep.
Saturday, August 16: When I woke up in morning, it was such a beautiful sight outside – slight drizzle, cover of mist over the river and the mountain line shrouded by slowly moving clouds – possibly the most beautiful morning I had ever seen.
Slowly, everyone got up and got ready for the trip however, it was still raining. We waited for couple of hours for the rain to subside but, when it refused to do so, we started thinking of alternate plans like leaving for other close tourist places. However after some time, showing some guts, we decided that we would do trekking in the rain and hoped and prayed that the sun comes up soon. We left our hotel for Sangam Chatti at around 8 AM. In the way we purchased some plastic raincoats. Rain had slowed down and it was so beautiful – everything around was so good until, we came across a beautiful waterfall crossing the road. Vicky refused to take Innova ahead through the running water and we had to walk around one and a half km to reach Sangam Chatti, which delayed our trek further. Some of us thought of bathing in the spring; it was so enticing. However, we decided that we would enjoy the cool shower in the spring during our return journey. At the waterfall, we had covered ourselves with the plastic raincoats and were looking like ‘Jadoo’ of ‘Koi Mil Gaya’. At Sangam Chatti we stuffed ourselves with Maggi and omelets.
At around 11 AM we began our ascent. The beginning itself was quite challenging. We kept moving up through the wild bushes on wet and slippery slopes. Since we had started little late and it seemed unlikely that we would be able to make it to Dodital by evening, we took the road less traveled – I mean, we took short cut and it was full of thorns – wild thorns. We took our first tea break at Agora, 6 km up from Sangam Chatti. There we saw the harbinger of what was to come ahead. I found a leach on my leg and it was so horrific to me – for the first time, I had actually seen a leach. I was petrified by it. Anyways, we didn’t get anything to eat there and decided to have lunch at Manjhi which was 10 km further up; we expected to reach Manjhi by 4 PM or so. After a 15 min break at Agora we started moving again. By the time we reached Bebra, we realized we were badly attacked by leaches and we all were bleeding hell. Sandy was the worst victim. At Bebra, we removed the bloody leaches from our legs. It took us around 25 minutes in doing so and all the while we were swearing like anything. Rajpurohit however had moved ahead earlier only and was not even aware of the parasites buffeting on his blood. When we caught up with him and described him what took us so long, he too got horrified by it, but decided to keep moving. By this time, we were too tired and were merely crawling up somehow. We took a short break at a hut midway. I had suffered a pull in thigh muscle by the time we reached the hut. At the hut, RajP removed leaches from his legs and we also did further cleaning of our legs. Not to forget, it was raining all this time and we were feeling cold. We looked for our dear friend RS in our bags and realized that one bottle was broken which saddened us for the irreparable loss. Anyways, we had other two bottles. We opened one of them to get some warmth :).
Most importantly, the sight around was awesome all along the way. However tired we might have been, we appreciated the scenic beauty with every tired breath we took. Somewhere around 5 km before Manjhi we ate all our snacks. We had finished our bottled water earlier and were dying of thirst now. The irony was when we had bottled water with us we came across various springs but when we ran out the bottled water, we didn’t find any spring for approx 6 kms from Bebra. However, we kept moving and it was approx 3 km before Manjhi that we came across a spring with water clear enough for us to get a lot of relief. But, then we were just too tired to move even one step. Every step we took now was each individual’s daring and courageous move. Approx 1 km before Manjhi we were all dead with Amar and I leading the pack of zombies. At this point of time, we just somehow wanted to reach Manjhi before it gets dark. No one even dared to think of Dodital now.
After taking some turns and somehow moving ahead, Amar and I waited for others to catch up and also for the guide, as we were not sure which path to take out of a possible diversion ahead. Meanwhile, we finished the last packet of biscuit, which I had hidden in my bag… ;) When the guide came up and told us it is right up, where we could see some smoke coming up. It was hardly 50 meters ahead. We all suddenly got a new rush of energy and ran towards it. As we climbed the last hillock, it was such a pleasant relief to all of us. There the guide arranged for our stay at a hut. Some of us gathered around fire at the old man’s chulha to warm ourselves, others decided to seek warmth from RS. There came another blow – the remaining liquid of the bottle opened earlier at the hut had trickled off somewhere in the way due to loose cap. So, they had to contend with only one of it. Among all of us, Thakre was the worst hit. We tried bringing him back to life by giving him some medicines and warmth of the chulha. We waited anxiously for the old man to cook just anything for us. He prepared some poor quality rice and some vegetable. But, we were so tired and loved the food like anything. We ate a lot of food and then, the old man served us hot milk which seemed to us like icing on the cake. Now it was time for us to catch some sleep. Well, here surfaced another trouble – our sleeping bags were wet… :’( The old man again came to our rescue. He provided us some quilts and mats. We somehow managed to find a place for each. After that, we were all dead asleep to feel any lodging discomfort.
Sunday, August 17: When we got up in morning, Thakre was alive too. Some of us even pondered to move up to Dodital and back. I even suggested all to take Monday off which would gives us one extra day – we would go up to Dodital, relax and enjoy there and we would get down next day. But, some did not dare going further up (killed by exhaustion), others were not willing to miss office on Monday (Potey and RajP had some indispensable work). Finally, after our breakfast of paratha with pickles we began our descent at around 9 AM. Descending was easy neither; the number of springs had more than doubled due to the incessant rain since yesterday; the path was more slippery and dangerous to walk on. It was still raining. Further, during the descent our guide kept moving way ahead out of our sight and we at many places felt lost. Cursing our guide all the time, we kept moving downwards with the thought that at least we will reach some place down, from where we would find out how to reach Sangam Chatti. Somehow we managed to get down directly at Sangam Chatti.
It was around 2 or 3 PM and it was still raining. We ate maggi and omelets. At Sangam Chatti, we were told that there was a land slide just 500 meters ahead of us and stones were still falling from the mountain and we were suggested to be cautious. By the way, we had asked Vicky to reach by 11 AM at the spring where he had left us yesterday. It was already too late; we also feared that Vicky might have left for somewhere. There was not even network available to our mobiles to connect to Vicky. We started moving from Sangam Chatti for the spring and after moving hardly some distance we encountered the land slide. Luckily there were not stones falling, still we quickly crossed the area. However, T was at the end of our group and stones began falling again while T was crossing the muddy land slide; Luckily, T managed to escape the stones just by seconds. Moving further, we reached the spring and much to the respite of us we found Vicky there waiting for us. We very much enjoyed bathing in the cool and fresh water of the spring.
It seemed to us that the adventure had ended and by Monday morning we would be able to get back to Gurgaon. However, the adventure was yet to end… While returning, when we were yet to reach Chamba and were passing by the valley, the road ahead of us got closed due to land slide. The fears of Potey almost came true. We got stuck up in traffic due to land slide. It was around 9 PM or later. Like others we too waited for some hours for some laborers to come and clean the mud and rocks from the road. People were hopeful that the laborers would finish the work in half an hour or so and then, everyone would move on. The reality was that everyone was doing nothing but waiting for things to get better. In the meanwhile, some large vehicles and small vehicles with high ground clearance succeeded in passing through the accumulated mud on the road. However, vehicles like Innova, which had little ground clearance, could not pass through. The wait seemed like never ending. It was around past midnight when we got the word that the laborers would come in morning. We then tried looking for some place to get some comfortable sleep. All possible places in the nearby small village was occupied by people of other vehicles, so we decided that somehow we all will try somehow adjusting in the Innova only. But then, the devil in me got aroused and I suggested to everyone that why don’t we try some idea to clear just enough mud to get our car through. As suggested by Vicky, we needed to remove the mud from in between the trail left by the vehicles already passed by. By doing so, the bottom of our vehicle would not get stuck in the mud. We tried looking for some tools but failed to find any. Somebody told us that laborers had come with tools, but had returned saying that they would clear the mud in morning. We tried searching in vain, that by chance if the laborers had left the tools here only. Failing to find the tools, we gave up all hopes. But, the devil in me had not slept yet and I jumped into the mud and began doing the work with my bare hands. I told to all that rather than waiting till morning lamely I would not give up until I have done all I can. Well, seeing me working there with full enthusiasm, others too slowly began putting in their efforts. Then, came another idea that the mud and stones which we were removing, we should fill the trail with them so that, we get double output with same amount of efforts. After an hour or so, many of us had got our clothes dirty but, that was not for nothing. Our planned track was ready J. The earlier trail was higher by a layer of rocks and the middle area was slightly lower. Vicky was hopeful that this should work. So, we cautiously gave it our first shot by driving slowly on the heightened trail. But, Vicky could not drive straight and the tyres slipped in the mud. We had to push back the car. Then, came up another idea – laying the branches of a broken tree in sequence over the trail to widen the trail lest the tyres should slip away again. This also further heightened the trail. We had higher confidence now and we took the second shot. But, the tyres slipped again. This was like breaking the last straw. We finally gave up hope, cleaned ourselves at a nearby handpump and went on to sleep somewhere somehow. Most of us slept in Innova whereas, Potey and Vicky slept in the back of a truck. Hardly, had we slept for some time, the truck in which Potey and Vicky were sleeping decided to leave and they woke up. By then, it was early morning of Monday, August 18. Luckily, some people woke up who had some tools. These people were sleeping hard in their vehicle in night and were unaware of our efforts. Potey woke us up and with the help of the tools of these people we repeated the same process as in night and this time, we made it through. Hurrah! Finally, our efforts paid us handsomely. The victory was ours to take.
We then reached Chamba after a couple of hours. At Chamba, we all refreshed ourselves and got some breakfast. We felt very much relieved. We prayed to God to not to make our journey any more adventurous and began our return journey again. But, fate had something else in store for us. We got stuck up in another traffic jam due to land slide at another point in the valley. But, we were not so unlucky this time. A group of laborers were already in action and we hardly had to wait for an hour. Luckily this time our journey continued non-stop till we reached Haridwar. We took a break there. We took our lunch at the famous Mohanji-Puri-wale. The food joint was highly recommended by Potey and the food there lived up to our great expectations. We continued our journey backwards to Gurgaon. During the whole return journey on Monday, almost everyone was on phone some or the other time regarding their respective works in the office. I was busy too, in conversations with Pavan regarding rework of a deliverable. Anyways, it was by 8 PM that we got back to K 62 and our unending adventurous trip came to a final halt.

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