When I first received THE call from WWF offering us a project to design a brochure on the topic of high altitude wetlands, I almost dropped the phone. Similar waves of pleasure gently hit us repeatedly through the next 2 months to its completion. The costing wasn’t an issue, since we would have done the project anyhow.

The initiative goes by the name Saving Wetlands Sky-High! or SWSH in short. Under this project WWF is striving for conservation and sustainable management of the high altitude wetlands in the 5 Himalayan countries of India, Pakistan, China, Nepal and Bhutan.

A note of personal achievement before I start talking about the design:
We have been to 6 out of the 13 wetlands currently under the focus of this project – Tsomoriri, Tsokar, and Pangong Tso in Ladakh; Nako Lake and Chandratal in Spiti, Himachal Pradesh; and finally Tsomgo in Sikkim. Two were missed by a whisker: Gurudongmar in Sikkim (cause we had polished off our vacation fund by then) and Manimaheshwar (cause of lack of planning and proper winter clothing). A note to self: 7 more to go! And well 4 more countries.
One of my photos got used as the back spread for India. Not the tiny inset ones, but the big one.

Gradually, through the days, the design was converted to a folder-insert format as opposed to a brochure in order to make it more flexible in terms of addition of information later on. The outer cover is a simple folder with 2 flaps, one with a map and the other with some excerpts from the introductory text. One can see the intro text on the left side, while the right side holds all the inserts. There are 6 inserts in total, one each for all the five countries and the last one on the topic of regional programme. Each insert carries the name of the country in bold, flanked on the right with a bird or animal endemic to that specific region. Along with that, what forms a part of the template is a blue box at the bottom with another symbolic icon from the country. The reverse side has 3 photographs each, with a more topical information on the specific wetlands.

From our end, we considered this project a lot more personal than measuring it about its cost effectiveness. It wasn’t asked of us, but we rummaged through all possible encyclopedias on birds and animals, looked through zillions of ineffective photographs and zeroed in on a few successful ones. After each stroke of curve, we tilted our heads back to admire the difference. Chewed off our fingernails till we got to see the printed version. And whenever we got a visitor, we rushed to show it off, with the happiness of flaunting a newly acquired toy.

Why? This is a question that won’t have a logical answer, but perhaps I can answer it with a few more questions. Why did I spend Rs 4000 on trekking boots, and not buy instead of it four shoes of different kinds? Why do I want a cottage in the Himalayas overlooking a lake? Why don’t I have 40 thousand rupees in my bank savings, but a drive of 40 GB on my hard disk dedicated to travel photographs, fast approaching its capacity?

…and the final product has in fact surpassed our own expectations.

We didn’t really think of Yuksom as anything more than a ‘starting-point’ of a trek. And considered it to be true even upon our arrival. As our jeep entered a relatively open area after hours of winding, climbing, empty road, all that we could see were a couple of hotels and 3-4 restaurants, kind of shacks. It was almost dark and bodies were too lazy to venture out on walks.

It was only the next day that we could marvel at our beautiful surroundings. Neatly spread out houses, within an area of a square kilometre, a small murky lake and a temple gave the whole area an impression of being some sort of a ‘model’ village. Our guide offered an explanation; Yuksom lacks a direct view of Khangchendzonga or for that matter any mountain range and so this place hasn’t seen much ‘development’. All that you could see around you would be land rising to a couple of thousand feet with thickly forested slopes of Rhododendron and oak. And that’s where in lay the beauty of this place. It seemed disconnected from the outside world and yet one could feel the presence of colossal Khangchendzonga just behind one of those hills.

Yuksom (1780 mts.) literally means meeting place of 3 lamas, the lamas who crowned the first chogyal of Sikkim here in 1641. It’s now called Norbugang Park. And so Yuksom is supposed to be the first capital of Sikkim. The Norbugang Chorten still has the evidence of the consecration ceremony in the form of stone seats and a footprint of the head lama on a stone.

We had to leave early, for we had a long day’s walk to reach our first camp at Tsokha village (3050 mts.) and so couldn’t really venture out into other attractions of the place. On the top of the agenda should be a visit to Dubdi monastery (45 minute’s trek). Established in 1701, Dubdi gompa is touted as Sikkim’s oldest monastery. Then an additional whole day could be spent relaxing at the beautiful Phamrong waterfall, which is roughly 8 kms from Yuksom.

For more of WYSBGT, please click here

So, THAT is what I have been doing wrong!

Taking off from i-sol’s earlier post about planning before a holiday (he himself has confessed that I am one of the subjects in his post), I have to admit that I revel and, in some shameful cases, snatch and grab the opportunity to plan holidays. I don’t know whether I should be ashamed because many others have said that they would rather leave the planning to someone else and not bother about the logistics. As for me, I just LOVE it. And not to mention, the planning stage somewhat turns me into a raging, impatient, semi-loony, obsessively checking PNR status of train tickets every minute, control freak. I am not very lovable at such moments.

But about planning: From the prospect of holiday, to searching for train tickets, the perfect hotel, the detailed itinerary, to put it mildly, I just get off on such things. Needless to say, I am put in charge of reserving tickets on Indian trains (not a pleasurable job unless you like searching a million trains and dates for available seats), which brings the idea of a holiday closer to me. Of course, after reservation, I go nuts collecting money from everyone and reminding them everytime I see them or call them because I have to pay my credit card bill on time coz I never miss a due date on ANYTHING (did I mention I am a control freak?).

So, for the next new year holiday, I failed to get a reservation, which, needless to say, put me in a super-foul depressive mood for days. I take lack of bookings very personally. But fortunately an alternate was found quickly and the rest of the holiday-makers (friends) were quickly convinced that the alternate is much better.

But on a more personal note, the thing is every step of planning takes me that much closer to the holiday and intensifies the anticipation. Maybe just for me, but the anticipation does reach fever-pitch till the day I leave. I want to make each holiday matter much more than the previous and be another experience of a lifetime. It could be a way to show off to others, but who cares? Finally it is the experience which matters and then there are a thousand unseen things that can go wrong.

So for those who think I plan way too much or control way too much, try doing it once. I can assure you, you will come crying, crawling back and beg me to take over…

…with a secret desire to be a travel agent.