A travel bill can be an invaluable source; it can help someone locate contact numbers of a hotel or a service, might provide an insight into generic costs of/at a place, or may simply look exotically beautiful to some. To us, it was all of these plus an additional desire to catalogue our travels and memories of the wonderful trips that have taken us not so far but quite wide (we didn’t want them to fade away, or die tragic deaths in the washing machines). Not that the hundreds of GBs of photographs we click on our trips aren’t already doing an amazing job of it, but BILLS tell different stories, stories that may seem nondescript when actually travelling but later generate a whole lot of curious thoughts worth exploring.

So here it is, BILLS, a visual catalogue of some of the bills we managed to hang onto from our travels. Here’s hoping to landing more visitors through “taxi bill”, “hotel bill” and all such, as well as wishing that we keep adding to this catalogue.

If any of you wish to add your bills to this site, please do email us.

travelling teadom on georgia 2012 calendar

This post contains personal experiences which I found interesting enough to write about (actually it’s been so long since this specific trek that these are the all I could think of to write, or remember). These are some of the memories that have still lingered on after all these years. They may or may not happen to you or might’ve or might not have already happened to you.

Route followed: Sankri (1450 mts.) – Taluka (1800 mts.) – Seema (2500 mts.) – Har-Ki-Dun (3566 mts.) – Jaumdar (jaundhar) glacier – Har-Ki-Dun – Osla (2559 mts.) – Taluka – Sankri

river at har-ki-dun :: © 2008 Sriparna Ghosh

Day 1 (17^th May): Dehradun to Sankri (starting point of treks to Har-ki-dun)

If you plan to get to a remote place like Sankri where roads are just dug out mountain sides, and the taxi operator in Dehradun offers you an Ambassador as a ride, chances are you’ll be changing vehicles towards the end. Just ahead of Mori at Netwar, we stopped for what we thought to be a break. But it was essentially a negotiation time for our driver who went off to look for our new ride. And though we didn’t have to care about how the agreed upon cost to Sankri was split (a meagre 12-14 kms more), it still meant waiting for around half an hour. Our new ride? A Mahindra Maxx jeep with a capacity to seat around 14 people, but had to make do with just the 3 of us rolling in its insides!

Drive from Purola (1524 mts.) to Mori (1130 mts.) is one of the prettiest I have been on. Dense forests around Jormala (1800 mts.) make it quite scenic, and the traffic on this route is very less too.

sankri fields :: © 2008 Sriparna Ghosh

Day 2 (18^th May): Sankri to Taluka in a jeep, Taluka to Seema on foot

Building of roads are bad for trek health, real bad. We were told that we could ‘save’ a day of our itinerary by skipping the walk between Sankri and Taluka (12 kilometres) thanks to a road connecting these two villages. And the road would get us within a kilometre of Taluka. So we agreed, not before realising what we missed out on. The forests between these two villages are just fantastic with an amazing bird life to be enjoyed. It felt so untouched and so old that we could have easily been in a place hundred times remoter than we were in.

Day 2: At Taluka      

We had a stone thrown at us. Perhaps some sort of game for a couple of playing kids. And when we tried to scare them off by giving them dirty looks we were at the receiving end of verbal volleys of their granny. Hostile lands we thought.

We then ate in a dhaba; the best potato curry ever made (according to the then frame of mind) was consumed here. But the strangest sight of all was a BJP political meeting (locals in their traditional attire) on a rooftop that went on for the entire duration that we were there for. And weirdly we didn’t see participants talking a lot; it was more like a community sun soaking time out.

dhaba at taluka :: © 2008 Sriparna Ghosh

Day 2: First-day walks

‘First-days’ (umm, and last-days too) have to be the most notorious of all days’ walks. Not for any risk factor involved but for the insanely huge distances they make everyone walk right in the beginning. It’s as if they are rueing the fact that they are the very first day of a trek and have unfortunately nothing to offer in terms of grand vistas, and hence make sure the trekkers don’t forget them, by making them go on endlessly. So did we; kept on going, along the river, up and down, never actually gaining height, crossing a number of fallen trees as bridges over areas otherwise made impassable by thick undergrowth or landslides. We stopped at a spring for lunch which I secretly thought should have been the first day’s stop. Agreed I was quite overweight then and in no decent physical condition, but a while later I learnt that same thought had occurred to the other poor trekkers too.

When was the last time the attack-of-the-first-day-of-trek happened? The yuksom-tsokha trail on the dzongri trek; it was so long that we were walking with our head-torches on way past sun down, and were close to exhaustion.

Day 3 (19^th May:) at Har-Ki-Dun

We noticed that our porters and guide were getting a bit restless when we were about to reach our destination. So much so that the moment the GMVN guest house (our stay for the coming 3 nights) was in sight they shot off hurriedly showing us the route that remained. We thought maybe they were tired of having to deal with our pace. We were in for a quite a shock. 7 young boys (all guides and porters), our crew included, were playing cricket at an altitude of 3500 metres! So how do they deal with the bounciness of a cricket/tennis ball on such an undulating terrain? They don’t have to. They make their own ball by tying together pieces of cloths. This way they make sure the ball doesn’t shoot off to distances which would require a half day retrieval trek. So I tried my luck at batting with this kind of a ball. First delivery, I tapped the ball gently, and it landed just where it hit the bat. Having got an idea of the strength it would need for me to hit the ball to some distance, I infused all my energy into the next shot, only for the ball to land in a fielder’s hands at the short leg position. This wasn’t meant for me. We played on for a while and then preferred being spectators. The bat is a permanent fixture at the guest house though. Read more on this here.

swargarohini peak seen from har-ki-dun :: © 2008 Sriparna Ghosh

Day 4 (20^th May): at Har-ki-Dun

It was interesting to see how different people had different priorities. An amusing contrast was noticed between a Bengali group (2 men) and a huge Gujarati group (8-10 members). On this day, we had the company of the former, and the only memory I have of them was that one of them was standing out in the porch holding a thermometer. He was apparently obsessed with knowing what minimum temperatures can be like at this place. The ritual was repeated the next morning. They left after breakfast and were replaced by the latter group by late noon. Cold was too much to bear for them and so most members decided to stay indoors, most of the time. And when they came out, it was to discuss the menu with the GMVN cook. “Thepla?” “Can you make Thepla?” Having figured out cook’s helplessness at the questions, they came down to inquiring about raw materials’ availability for themselves to make some. Obviously they ended up disappointed.

While on the topic of food, I must mention that rajma and spinach were the only two available food items. Apart from roti and chawal, of course.

Day 5 (21^st May): weather and the Jaumdar glacier

On this important day, we knew how badly we needed the weather to behave. Throughout the trek we had faced an inclement weather. We were sadly forced to shuttle between in and outdoors most of the time while at Har-ki-Dun. So on this day we set out with much hope, despite a grey sky overhead, and crossed the great meadows at Har-ki-Dun. The walk wasn’t challenging and we did it leisurely, occasionally stopping to click pictures of flowers, blooming all over the meadows. Towards the end of the meadow the route starts to ascend. We walked till a spot which would have offered a clean shot of the entire glacier with the Swargarohini peak, if the clouds cleared, and decided to wait here. Even an hour’s wait couldn’t help our cause. We would catch glimpses of parts of the glacier and the peak through openings in the ever moving and ever-regenerating smoke of clouds.

meadows at har-ki-dun :: © 2008 Sriparna Ghosh

Day 6 (22^nd May): at Osla

Okay, so we could no longer hold back our thoughts. 5 days of going without any sweets meant we were day dreaming about our favourite sweets. And so we took it up with our crew. Our guide thought on it for a while and asked “kheer chalegi (Will rice pudding do)?” Our wide grinning faces at the sound of pudding must have given out a wrong message to him; for when we sat down to have lunch we were in for a shock, though we tried to restrain our emotions. Lunch was pudding, and pudding alone! In ‘Himalayan’ quantities! I can take in any amount of dessert, but for the rest two, it was one difficult meal.

Sometime later, after lunch, when it was time almost for the evening snacks, we ask our guide again “maggi milegi (Can we get noodles)?”

our stay at osla village :: © 2008 Sriparna Ghosh

Day 7 (23^rd May): at Taluka

Playing cards is an amazingly captivating game. Not only for the player but onlookers as well. We bought a pack of cards in the beginning of the trek, and were glad we did that. Most of the evenings were spent playing cards with the three crew members. We were taught a new card game here, by these guys, called gadha patti (literal translation – donkey card). And we were so smitten by it that our last day of trek could pretty much sum up our obsession with it. We reached Taluka at around 2 in the afternoon, had lunch and waited for some vehicle to come by, which could drop us on its way back to Sankri. We walked a bit on the road and then decided to wait at a spot which offered views of the winding road for pretty much upto a kilometre, just outside the village. So all of us sat down (8 people, 2 locals tagged along for a ride), mixed 2 decks of cards, and started our game, spread out in the middle of the road! The game had to finally stop after around an hour when we had to give way to a pickup truck, which was to be our ride back to civilisation.

lunch at sankri :: © 2008 Sriparna Ghosh

osla to sankri walk :: © 2008 Sriparna Ghosh

a musician at the osla temple :: © 2008 Sriparna Ghosh

thick forests between seema and har-ki-dun :: © 2008 Sriparna Ghosh

view from gmvn at har-ki-dun :: © 2008 Sriparna Ghosh

M magazine spread :: © 2011 Sriparna Ghosh

SATURDAY
Delhi – Haridwar – Barsu
There was much for us to be thrilled about, even in terms the departure from Delhi, which is usually sweat-soaked and hectic; a Shatabdi ticket, 9 days of imminent cold weather and the prospect of frolicking in the mountains by the same afternoon.

4.5 hours, a few sadhus, many beggars and a larger than life statue of Shiv later, we found our ride out of the still sweltering plains.

Our rest-point for the day, and the base for our trek, is far removed from the regular tourist and highway map. And just to prove that point, a 3km link road cuts away from the Gangotri highway to end at Barsu (2200 m). The next day, we would continue on foot.

SUNDAY
Barsu – Dayara (around 3300 m)
We woke up to tent-tea, a certain ritual we would get used to, over the next week. Having met the six crew members in the darkness of the previous night, we had to ask for a re-introduction to the team, which included Raja (the leader and cook), Harsh, Pathan, Viki, Ashish and Aryan. All, apart from Raja, are shy. As the trip unfolded, the crew abandoned its inhibitions as the trail got tough. But all ice was broken, literally and otherwise, when we fished out a pack of playing cards.

Post a muesli-and-eggs breakfast, the three of us departed ahead of the rest, knowing very well that they would soon catch up and overtake. We wandered for a bit in the village, which clung to side of the mountain, and waited for the rest to catch up. They did and so did the rain.

It was a zigzag uphill trudge. The first hour of our trek was a big test on my lungs. Clouds started pouring in like mist from all directions, and thanks to an oversized poncho and persistent rain, my glasses started to fog up. It was not an easy task to hold up a poncho daintily like an Armani gown and ever so often wiping glasses, and all this, while climbing.

The path remained stubbornly uphill and after about three hours of walking, some wet and some super wet, we turned pros at poncho-packing (imagine stuffing a cow in a handbag). We panted a bit less at the Barnala Meadows. Drooling at the possibility of some piping hot Maggi, we continued up, till we reached a pagoda (a sort of umbrella like shelter point), which offered views of a mini lake, MughdhaTal and wide swathes of rolling meadows. Slivers of sunshine managed to breakthrough a Teflon layer of pregnant clouds momentarily, both warming and teasing us.

And then there was more uphill and now, a new adversary, snow. And finally we reach our first night halt: Dayara Bugyal. The stretches of undulating white landscape still bore a look of winter. There was very little to cherish that evening, except the crackling warmth of our bonfire inside a shepherd’s hut. Snow fell soundlessly and thickly outside, as our tent sulked by itself 200 metres away.
Post dinner, we had to trudge reluctantly to the tent, which was by now buried under the snow and hard to find. And we spent the whole night slapping the tent from inside, hoping it doesn’t cave in.

MONDAY
Dayara – Ghagoru – Morapara
Tent tea and we zipped the tent open to see fresh snow all around. Scenes so incredible, I suppose, appear very rarely in one’s life. Everything was enveloped in snow. My feet were the first to squish through the virgin snow. And trees lazily dumped the snow on them in dull thuds. All this while, the Bandarpoonch range and the Swargarohini peak looked down mightily from their icy heights.

The second day’s trek will always reign at the top trek days of all time; in terms of danger, fear and intentions of giving up. The initial high spirits, thanks to a glorious morning, slowly started to give way as the path got steeper, narrower, and scarier. And the shoes got wetter. Keeping Bandarpoonch company on a crystal clear day, we conquered paths we never thought possible. Two steep ascents, and two similar descents later, we felt like we had been punched in our stomachs. My compatriots even lost some feeling in their big toes temporarily. The first few hours snatched away my initial confidence and reduced me to a quivering, hesitating, failing pulp of a Delhi girl. Sometimes I was down to knee-deep snow, and sometimes I was slipping down towards the valley.

During a lot of breaks, our guide pointed out to various points on the opposite valley, but my mind was lusting after a bonfire, and a warm sleeping bag.Though snow, rock-bottom confidence and hunger, however, we reached our second night stop, Morapara.Over the day, rain and snow clouds had built up to a looming storm. The evening was spent in quiet bonhomie as we lounged around a bonfire, drying our shoes, munching buttered popcorn and sipping hot tomato soup.But, night-time inside the tent was a living nightmare. Precipitation in all forms possible, in huge quantities, coupled with the thunderous lightening was an apocalyptic monster in our dreams.

M magazine spread 2:: © 2011 Sriparna Ghosh

M magazine spread 3:: © 2011 Sriparna Ghosh

TUESDAY
Morapara – Bebra
This was the easiest of days, and the most beautiful of trails. We walked through moist green canopies and carpets of moss and grass, stopped at bridges over pretty forest streams to click calendar shots and for the very first time met the river Assiganga (80 ganges). Legend holds that when 80 hermits were meditating around this valley, they became thirsty and they asked God for water. God obliged, and gave them 80 rivulets, which join and form the Assiganga River.

Beyond the river, lurked a steep climb, which meets the ‘trekking highway’ leading from Sangamchatti. Two more kilometres of level walk from here, a bit of a climb and we found ourselves at our lodge for the night, fully equipped with mattresses for beds and a family of three-inch sized spiders.

WEDNESDAY
Bebra – Dodital
This was the day we were to reach the lake. Tingling with the excitement of being able to rest our eyes on Dodital today, we made our eager way up the 14-km stretch. We were told that today’s trek was a predominantly level walk, only to find that the initial stretch till Manjhi (nine kms) was a gradual climb, and levelled out only after Manjhi (3150 m). The path is bright and rich, with rhododendrons, various kinds of fungi, unidentified white and purple flowers, and packs of Langurs.

The last five kms tested our patience, annoyed us, depressed us, and in a whole lot of ways, created a vacuum, which only a view of the lake could fill. It wasn’t so much about the ups and downs of the trail as its never-ending nature that was frustrating. After two dhabas at the lake, a bright green mini-bridge crosses over the stream originating from the lake. Right when you stand next to the bridge, the lake in its entirety is in front of you. On the left is the brightly painted Ganesh Mandir, which is the beginning of the path circumventing the lake.

Dodital, situated at a height of 3045 metres, is surrounded by lush forests of deodar, rhododendrons, oak and pine. It forms the centrepiece of a mountain bowl, sometimes glistening, sometimes reflecting, at one end gulping down a stream, and at the opposite end giving birth to the Assiganga.

A few Forest Department constructions dot the surrounding area, leaving a suitable flat land good for a match of cricket. Our trek to Darwa-Top (4150 m) was abandoned in favour of a rest day and more publicly due to the five-feet snow en-route. There was cricket, there was music on the radio, there were deep discussions about kheer, there was gaddha-patti (literal translation being Donkey-Cards, a local card game, we learnt on a previous trek, found to be equally popular here), and many cups of chai.

M magazine spread 4:: © 2011 Sriparna Ghosh

M magazine spread 5:: © 2011 Sriparna Ghosh

FRIDAY-SATURDAY
Dodital – Bebra – Agoda (2250 m) – Sangamchatti (1350 m) – Kuflon
The next two days are spent walking down to lower altitudes, to villages with cable equipped TV, flies, heat and cars. The return slog also throws up a surprise in the form of a chance meeting with an old acquaintance from Delhi. Who would consider the possibility of exchanging business cards on a trek?

barnala meadows :: © 2011 Sriparna Ghosh

Bandarpooch + swargarohini :: © 2011 Sriparna Ghosh

Dayara morning :: © 2011 Sriparna Ghosh

Dayara Bugyal :: © 2011 Rohit Chaudhary

walking through Dayara :: © 2011 Rohit Chaudhary

Leaving Dayara bugyal :: © 2011 Sriparna Ghosh

Apocalyptic Evening at Morapara :: © 2011 Sriparna Ghosh

Forest stream :: © 2011 Sriparna Ghosh

Descent to the assiganga valley :: © 2011 Rohit Chaudhary

Langur :: © 2011 Sriparna Ghosh

Ganesh Temple :: © 2011 Rohit Chaudhary

Dodital :: © 2011 Sriparna Ghosh

Dodital :: © 2011 Rohit Chaudhary

Manjhi :: © 2011 Sriparna Ghosh

Manjhi from afar :: © 2011 Sriparna Ghosh

Forest opposite village agoda :: © 2011 Rohit Chaudhary

Forest before sangamchatti :: © 2011 Sriparna Ghosh

Sign board :: © 2011 Rohit Chaudhary

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view from bedni bugyal :: © 2011 Sriparna Ghosh

The very first 200 metres of the trek to Roopkund offer a trailer of what is in store along the 100-kilometre route that meanders through scenic Himalayan alpine meadows to the legendary lake at the base of Trisul massif. If you can brave the punishing climb and treacherous weather, the trek can be rewarding. Roopkund, set at 5, 029 metres in a windswept landscape, is a desolate high-altitude lake tailor-made for eerie stories told around a campfire. Add some human skeletons dating back to the 9th or 10th century strewn along the edges of the glacial lake and you have bones to back your horror story.

The skeletons belong to a 500-strong group of pilgrims though the exact reason for their annihilation is unknown. It is believed that they were killed in a hailstorm or blizzard of epic proportions but the icy winds lashing the area preserved the remains surprisingly well. Local lore, of course, adds a more dramatic twist to the story: a king took along his pregnant wife along on the pilgrimage. To the displeasure of Goddess Nanda Devi, whose writ runs in the area, he took a troupe of dancers and musicians for entertainment. The king, it is said, had pooh-poohed the advice of wise men and saints, and decided that a party was called for. Moreover, the wife had to go on and deliver her child in the badlands, which angered the goddess no end. And that was it – the party was over.

Ours, however, was just getting started. And on a bright, chirpy morning our team of seven and three mules set off for the green rolling meadows, Bedni Bugyal (bugyal means meadow), via the little village of Wan. Wan (at 2, 450 metres) is reached via a bonecracking short road journey from Lohajung, the base for the Roopkund climb.

We scrambled to the top of the Wan Ridge. Unlike some of my fellow trekkers, I hadn’t read up anything about the trek. But even my well-read colleagues were not prepared for what we saw – a giant, upright monolith that looked impossible to scale. And to reach it, we had to go across a river. So we climbed down all the way to the river and climbed back again;negating the hundreds of metres we had toiled to climb for an hour – zero sum game.

It took us a good three hours till Bedni top with nothing much to report scenery wise, as the walk is steeply up through a forest, with no peak views. Near the end, I was pretending to stop to take photos but actually catching my breath to avoid any cracks about my climbing skills.

The weather was also the harbinger for the rest of the journey. Clouds and dense fog took away our aha! moment as we left the tree line and meandered to the gorgeous pasturelands. We only got a sense of the wide, empty, green spaces when the fog lifted briefly. We had to wait till the following dawn for a 360 degree view of Bedni, which has the monstrous Trisul peak behind it and the Chaukhamba, Nanda Ghunti and Haathi-Ghoda peaks on the side. Bedni and Ali Bugyal make up the stretch of the prized alpine pastures of the Garhwal region to which shepherds and goatherds flock every summer. But our picnic on the meadows had to move on.

The subsequent hurdles didn’t inspire confidence. Sinister stops with names like Ghoda Lathaniya, Paathar Nachaniya and Kalu Vinayak dotted the path to our next campsite, Bhugwa Basa. Cloudy weather kept its date and we climbed the much-feared ascent to the Kalu Vinayak pass, which holds a tiny temple of Ganesha. Vikram Singh, a part of our support staff, was convinced that the bad weather was punishment for not praying to the elements at the start of the trek. But we did pray as we negotiated the semi-treacherous, slippery, wobbly rocks to Bhugwa Basa, where all hell and hail broke loose. We managed to pitch our tents on a slippery slope as the clouds moved in for the night and pulled in the curtains on the peaks. The mules, smart beings, tried to make a run for Wan in the night but were stymied by a roadblock set up by Laxman, their owner.

A sleepless night in sub-zero temperature later, we started on the last ascent, or so we thought, to the lake. We had not anticipated the overnight frost on every rock, which would have made a great silent comedy if it weren’t so painful. But notwithstanding the mild altitude sickness, freezing winds, and a slippery path, we forged ahead, very slowly.

We had targeted two hours for the five-km ascent and proudly made it in two hours and five minutes. Truth be told, the lake itself is a bit of a letdown but the tale of the skeletons is true – we had to be careful hat we didn’t step on anything. We weren’t particularly religious, but we didn’t want to offend any spirits by stepping on an ancient femur.

From Roopkund, one can also hike up to the Jura Gali, a short ascent, for a full view of the massive Trisul Peak from its base. The trek can also be extended to the other side over the pass, via Shila Samudra to Homkund and down. Mules, however, cannot make this journey and porters will need to be employed.

We were lucky. We got our half an hour of sun at the lake while a small group right behind us missed out on the view. The weather from Kalu Vinayak to Bhugwa Basa is unkind and unpredictable, giving the landscape its otherworldly, inhospitable look but also making it exceedingly difficult for hikers to decide when to go.

On the way down to Paathar Nachaniya, we had to race back in the face of a hailstorm. And suddenly, the jokes we made about divine interventions and punishments were not so funny anymore. Paathar Nachaniya is a tricky spot to camp as water sources dry and spring up randomly here. Nonetheless, the position of the campsite is spectacular, with views of both the valley below and the peaks above.

Trekkers usually head back down the same way, via Wan. We chose a different route via villages Kanol and Suthol, extending the trek by a day. The hike from Paathar Nachaniya to Kanol though is fairly long, at approximately 18 km, with steep ascents and descents and a seemingly interminable last leg through a forest. But the village has one of the prettiest forest resthouses I have ever seen. Ringed with a small garden with blooming flowers, it is the perfect place to pass out at the end of the day. The next village, Sutol, is a disappointment though the forest between Kanol and Sutol is one of Garhwal’s finest with towering, decades-old pine and oak trees and wildflowers in full bloom. This is especially so in September, post-monsoon. The undergrowth contrasts beautifully with the stunning magenta and scarlet harvest colours of the cholai crop in the villages.

Sutol is disappointing but we did get a flat bed and a concrete loo. Though comforting, these are also signs of approaching urban life – cellphone signal, tap water, paved sidewalks and, even Facebook. If you can imagine life without these for 10 days, then the Roopkund trek has all the trappings of an adventure – storms, cliffs, stellar peaks and a creepy lake.

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18 September: Lohajung (8.00 am) – Bigan tal (11.30 am) – Break (70 mins.) – Lohajung (2.40 pm)
19 September: Drive to Wan (45 mins.). Wan (8.30 am) – Gheroli Patal FRH (1.00 pm) – Lunch (45 mins.) – Bedni Kund (3.00 pm)
20 September: Bedni Kund to Ali Bugyal and back (4 hours)
21 September: Bedni Kund (8.00 am) – Ghodalauthaniya (10.00 am) – Paatarnachaniya (10.45 am) – Break (15 mins.) – Keluvinayak (1.00 pm) – Lunch (15 mins.) – Baguwabasa (2.00 pm)
22 September: Baguwabasa (7.30 am) – Roopkund (9.30 am) – Break (45 mins.) – Roopkund (11.30 am) – Campsite pack-up (45 mins.) – Paatarnachaniya meadows campsite (2.00 pm)
23 September: Paatarnachaniya (8.30 am) – Kunol (4.00 pm) – through Wangbhandar and Memphada: hell of a long day!
24 September: Kunol (10.30 am) – Sutol (2.00 pm)
25 September: Sutol – Setail (everyone was depressed to be going back and so no one took note of time, but must have taken 2 hours)

forgetful drops :: © 2011 Sriparna Ghosh

You can either check out the e-paper, or alternatively read the online version.

Indian-Express-11-June-2011

But all I see is one totally-boggled-fido-dido-type-looking-person, who is saying something in the shape of Sri Lankas landmass. OR, he is just smoking, and creating puffs of smoke like Lanka.

All this came after a heavy day of work, and perhaps I look a bit like him. But its a nice thought, that sometimes a design will create itself, and all I need to do is blog about it

This is the largest sized image that I could retrieve from the map.

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to parashar lake :: © 2004 Rohit Chaudhary

We were in Manali (a hill station in the Indian Himalayas), during the summers of 2004. We didn’t have much of a plan coming into this vacation and it was purely the magic of a few framed pictures hung up on our hotel galleries that pointed us in the direction of Parashar Lake. So we look it up in a map that we were carrying. It didn’t have any distances marked to this place beyond a certain village. But judging by the distance between Kullu and Manali, we took an approximate guess at the distance of the lake from Kullu. And since it was off the highway and seemed isolated, we were quite thrilled about the trip.

We managed to leave on time in the morning. We had the company of two antique Yamaha bikes (RX100 and RXG), not in good shape. At least visibly. And since we were no masters of machinery there was no way of determining if they will last the day. We didn’t have to be concerned for long since one of them broke down, one hour into the drive. Going back all the way to get a new bike seemed like wastage of time. Moreover a local mechanic we fetched from a nearby village said that there was some issue with the sprocket and replacement was the only option (which he didn’t have). We had to move on. We couldn’t let an old piece of junk sabotage our ‘plan’. So we left it in front of a hotel, informed its owner of its untimely demise, and moved on with a single bike.

It was a tough going, with weight of over 180 kgs forced onto one poor bike. After all it was no Harley Davidson or Bullet. The progress was fairly ordinary with usual breaks to click pictures, so much so that we had lost track of time. And by the time we reached the forest office to inquire about a trek we had planned to do in the coming days and chatted with the officials there, we had already wasted the better part of the day. It was almost 2 pm. When we did manage to move on and reach the diversion that branches off from the main highway, a couple of people presented helplessness and blank stares on being asked directions to the lake. This worried us. If we were in fact correct with our estimate of the distances, then it shouldn’t have been too far ahead. The next person we asked plainly suggested we spend the night in Kullu and leave the next day for the lake since there was still some distance to cover.

Against his suggestion we continued our movement. The highway gave way to a bad road, and steep ascents, which meant most of the time our bike would overheat and stop. And then, to top it all, it started raining. What this meant for people like us, who had left thinking they would be back for dinner, was that there were no spare clothes in the bags. A really stupid revelation, when it dawned on them. A couple of kilometres ahead we crossed a village, with minds almost made to stop and take shelter from the rains. But the adamant fools inside us, confident about a lake just around the next corner, continued moving. And the rains got harder, fiercer, to the level that we had to stop. A well situated Forest Rest House was our saviour.

Forest Rest houses officially aren’t allowed to let people in without permission, which needless to say, we didn’t have. But the constant rains forced us to beg the guard to let us stay a night.  The guard, during our dinner conversation, willingly cleared our misconception about the real distance to the lake. An additional 4 hours from the rest house it was!

The next day we were on the road again. To the lake that is. As we left behind one village after the other and crossed valleys after valleys, we were within the last 12 kilometres to the lake. So what was special about this stretch? For one, there seemed to have been a mini battle fought out there on this road. It was all gravel throughout which made navigating through this stretch a nightmare. And second, the forest around was too dark and dense. There was no way both of us could have made it on that bike, on that steep an ascent. So we waited for an hour before setting our eyes on the first vehicle we saw that morning, a small pick-up truck already filled with people. There was space for people but not for a bike. It was decided that I go ahead on the truck and my friend, the better driver between us, was to drive the bike to the lake. So there he was, all alone on the bike for forty five minutes at a speed at which any animal would have easily gobbled him down its throat; the only thought that occupied his brain for most of the time (something that he revealed to me later). But that was to never happen and we were finally there, chilling at the beautiful lake.

We calculated backwards. 2 pm is when we needed to leave for Manali to reach by around 8. So we started our journey back. An hour down and the bike went into reserve mode. Petrol! Why weren’t we thinking of petrol ever! It had to end sometime! A few kilometres max is what we would have gone and some locals passing by informed us of petrol available in cans at a village some distance away. We wouldn’t have made it. Thankfully most of the way was downhill. So bike was switched off and the slope was taken advantage of. But on one of the stretches, the road seemed unending, without any vegetation on the valley side of the mountain, and sloping massively. This intimidated me and while trying to avoid loose gravel the bike skidded. We didn’t break any bones and both of us were still conscious. So we got up and declared everything was alright to the relief of each other. Just then I noticed a pool of red liquid on the ground. Scary enough for us go frantically body searching, again. No trace of any wound. It took us a few minutes to realise that the liquid on the ground was the leaking oil from the bloody tank of the bike. We laughed off the moment and resumed the silent bike journey.

We drove some, we dragged a lot, and we finally got some oil, got a puncture fixed and started our last leg of the journey. It was already 6 pm and dark and the route entered another long patch of thick forest full of noises, mostly a fabrication of our overtly attentive brains. This was the area around the rest house we had spent the last night.  We remembered our talk with the guard about the animals that inhabited these forests, especially bears among others. Now the problem was this: most of the journey in this leg was uphill. That meant excruciatingly slow speed. And since the bike came from an older era, the intensity of the light that came from head lamp was negligible. So we had practically zero visibility in front of us and not a single vehicle had crossed us on this route for hours now. And it was extremely chilly by now, something we weren’t prepared for and possessed only a bed sheet. So this bed sheet was used to cover my friend who was driving now, to shelter us from the chilly winds and I took out the torch I had in the backpack. I kept my hand on his shoulder to aim the torch on the road ahead to add to the dim bike light. And once in a while that torch was used to scout the neighbouring forests of potential dangers lurking out there. And my other hand went into the bag again to search for a dagger that we were carrying and kept it secured in the fist. Just in case! Stupid but understandable given the circumstances we were in.

A couple of hours later, we ended that painful and hair raising journey. But the destination was still far. We were back on the main highway, amid loads of trucks, Volvo buses and human presence, to reach Manali for a late yet safe and warm 10 pm dinner.

We made it back, unharmed, but definitely not as per the schedule. And being out in the wilderness meant no phone calls (absence of network on mobile phones) were possible to our family members either. So it had worried them. A brief scolding session separated us from that lovely dinner.

Pangong :: © 2010 Sriparna Ghosh

After the almost-three-months long hiatus from this blog, one would expect us to come up with something fresh. But that expectation will not be met this time around, as I am about to post a blog which was published on travelwell (Lonely Planet India’s online presence). Yes, it also became a pick-of-the-week and yes, I was also supposed to win a Victorinox Swiss Army Knife for that (but that never arrived). One of my photographs currently adorns the travelwell homepage. But I don’t know for how long. Here is the direct link to the post, or you can read it below:

“First view of world famous Pangong Lake”, is what the sign reads as you approach the lake, 4 kms before it, marking the viewpoint. This viewpoint is a respite for us travellers, whose parched eyes are searching for the colours blue, having had enough of the brown and its many hues. This sight is enough. The next 4 kms are full of frenzy. Getting the cameras out, checking for the memory card and battery. And further we just latch on to our window. The first view of the panorama of Pangong isn’t so much a pretty sight as one would imagine. Strewn with SUVs and people who were in those SUVs, the banks of the magnificent lake seem littered and not so much out of the coffee table book we had expected. Pangong is world famous now, as we see. And it is all thanks to the movie 3 idiots (as our travel agent informs).

We ponder whether this fame is a good thing or not and travel far from the crowds and nearer to isolation. Our day is planned at Spangmik, where we have Pangong just to ourselves. The quiet waves, the cobalt blue and the multi-coloured prayer flags are ours for the day. And that day will always be famous.

I want to stop gloating, but I missed a point. Photo no. 2 was also printed in the Lonely Planet India Magazine. That’s all : )

Pangong :: © 2010 Sriparna Ghosh

Pangong :: © 2010 Sriparna Ghosh

Pangong :: © 2010 Sriparna Ghosh