Virgin Beauty

Planning a trip is always cumbersome; more so if you are unsure of your companions. After a few 11th hour pull-outs, four of us reached Manali to start a journey to our dream destination -- Ladakh. I had been to the state of Kashmir twice before but never got an opportunity to visit the barren mountains of Ladakh. I always had the feeling of missing something in life. I got a big vacation this time though, thanks to my 'unemployed' status. And I was joined by Chetan, Amol and Pavan for this endeavor who literally put their jobs at risk to get a leave of absence. Damn the managers!

In the Manu's land

We all reached Manali on the first morning of July'12. I reached early from McLeodGanj and booked two rooms for us on a hill-top in Manali city. Yes, our hotel was actually on top of a hill where auto-rikshaws were hesitant to ride and we had to climb up by foot with all our luggage. The awesome threesome landed a bit later in their jet plane from Chandigarh. (Don't get confused, there is no air connectivity to Manali yet.) Their journey to Manali is a different story that deserves a blog post in itself. We had the day free and decided to hit the ground running right away. We went to a valley called Solang valley, trekked for an hour to reach an altitude of 2500 mts, and then hit the ground in just another 7-8 minutes with a paraglider. Woohoo! Look at the picture below.

It was an amazing experience to fly like a bird. The wind was at its best that day and we were brought down in a smooth helical motion. As a result, we got an amazing 360 degree view of all the surrounding snow-clad mountains.

The journey that never ends - I

We started for Leh early next day. We had booked a cab for two days. The distance from Manali to Leh is about 470km and our target for the first day was a place called Sarchu which is ~220km from Manali. Spectacularly, we missed the target by a whopping 100km. You would soon know why.

The path to Leh passes through many mountains and as many passes. The first one is the dreaded Rohtang pass. It's notorious for frequent blizzards and landslides it experiences. We witnessed an after-effect of one such landslide. There was a huge traffic jam on the ghat to Rohtang when we reached. There are a few narrow sections on the ghat where only one vehicle can pass at a time. The vehicles jammed in such sections are needed to be cleared for traffic from the other end to flow. And this task has to be done by the people stuck in the traffic -- that is by us. We proudly did our traffic control duty that day. In fact, our Pown (aka Pavan) went all 

the way to the location of the land slide where an army bulldozer was engaged in clearing the slide. He befriended the guy operating the heavy vehicle and guided him. (rather got guided by him!)

The jam lasted a measly 7 hours. Yes, 7 hours it was! Effectively, our plans to reach Sarchu and stay in a tent-house there were shot off. We also had to ditch a plan to spend an hour playing snow at the Rohtang top. None-the-less we were happy to move ahead. The other side of Rohtang was thankfully very pleasant. The roads were smooth. The surrounding mountains were alternating in lush green and snow white. Some were further ornamented by streams of water gushing down. The next picture showcases how happy we were to be in this place.

On our way, we saw a government project sight where they are trying to build a 13km long tunnel in Pir Panjal mountain ranges to bypass the entire Rohtang. It's a 10 year long project which would not only save a distance of more than 50km, but also and more importantly, a time of about 9-10 hours (taking into account the traffic snarls on Rohtang top).

Towards the evening, we encountered two rivers, one called 'Chandra' and the other 'Bhaga' that provided us a nice company for rest of the day. From one of the rivers, I got an amazing snap with my mobile camera. It's an exercise for you to guess whether it is the Sun or the Moon.

Further ahead, we found our first petrol station for the day. You find this signboard towards the exit of the gas station which would make you reverse your vehicle and fill up the tank again. Because there is no other filling station until Leh. (In fact, as we would find out the next day, there is no housing of any kind in that region as well.) So we filled our tank completely and called it a day. We had only managed to reach Keylong, off by 100km from our target. We were bothered by that a little, but after an assurance from our driver to cover the distance the next day, we felt relieved and happily went to sleep.

The journey that never ends - II

We started early next morning. We had to. The days are pretty long during summers in this region. You have bright light available starting 5 am and lasting up to 8 pm. It was Pavan's birthday also. We got this cake there, if you can call it so, and celebrated during our breakfast. 

It was a bright sunny day. And we again had huge snow-clad mountains for our company. While passing through one such mountain, we stopped over to play since we had missed out on Rohtang top earlier. That guy in photograph, by the way, is our driver Beeru.

Hidden in snow-clad mountains, we unearthed this small beautiful aqua-colored lake. We would visit its bigger sister two days later. More on it ahead.

We reached Sarchu at about 11 am. Sarchu is the midpoint between Manali and Leh and it is also the place where state of J&K starts. There is an army camp stationed there with one make-shift restaurant. We were told that there won't be any food available for a while, so we had an early lunch there. 

After crossing Sarchu, we found a sudden change in surroundings. There were mountains, but snow cover was nowhere to see. Only bare mountains everywhere! This was a signal of our arrival in the virgin beauty of Ladakh. It's an interesting location from the viewpoint of geography. It's the region where Himalayas create a rain shadow. The monsoon clouds can't cross the Himalayan peaks to enter Ladakh region. So there is hardly any rains witnessed here, and effectively no vegetation. The only source of water is snow-melted water. The region is also known as a high altitude desert.

There were some interesting patterns naturally created in the mountains due to wind flow. The picture here shows one such structure. We found many such patterns on the way. At one point near Pang ground, I was just clicking photographs-after-photographs for 15 minutes continuously.

We passed through three major passes during the day viz. Naki la, Lachulung la and Taglang la, all at an elevation ranging from 15k-18k ft. (The word 'la' means 'pass' in Tibetian.) The following picture shows panoramic view taken from Taglang la, the highest of these passes.

All this while, I didn't talk about the condition of roads. It's a very tough job to maintain roads at such high altitudes. And the situation was very bad at many sections of the road. Our vehicle was following a zig-zag motion both horizontally and vertically continuously. It's a tough job driving there. There is one horrible section of a desert between Pang and Taglang la, about 55km in length which has a thick cover of sand and no trace of road visible. 

There are patches where your wheel would get depressed in the thick mass of sand. So you have to be careful and try to follow the path of vehicles that passed before you. Not to mention, driving during night time is strictly impossible here. There is another problem caused by the sand. If you open glass shades of the windows, sand would come in due to wind and if you keep the shades closed, you would suffocate. We opted for sand bath and were duly punished with cough and broken lips.

During the long journey of this desert, there are occasions where you feel a bit of loneliness. The mountains start looking all the same. No life barring some herds of Pashmina sheep is sighted. You don't find even any trees which so often, unknowingly, give you a pleasant company during long journeys. Thankfully, there are a few snow-clad mountains to add some color. (For me, white is more colorful than beige any day.) You can concentrate on snow to come out of the feeling of loneliness.

As we approached Leh, the color of rocks and sand turned maroon. The mountains were showing shades of white, black and prominently maroon. We also encountered one of India's major rivers, Sindhu. The name Hindustan was derived from this river and so we were all very delighted to witness it. It was flowing very rapidly that day carrying a lot of sand with it. And due to the sand, it was looking maroon in color. It was really a sight to behold. I have heard of 'red sea', not sure if it looks red in color (and whether the 'black sea' looks black), but I can now claim that there is a 'maroon river' in Ladakh which actually looks maroon. Huh! 

It was getting dark by the time we reached Leh. Because of that we could not see the surroundings properly. Not that we had any enthusiasm and energy left after the long tiring journey. There was just a feeling of satisfaction after reaching safely. We found a hotel, had our dinner and went to sleep.

Monastery city

We had planned a stay of three days in Leh. As we were tired because of long journey from Manali, we decided to do some local sight seeing on the first day. A funky guy, Ali showed us around in his van. There were a lot of monasteries and palaces in our itinerary. 

First thing that impressed me about Leh is that there is a good amount of vegetation in the city unlike rest of the Ladakh valley. The area surrounding Sindhu river has a thick cover of trees and they also grow a crop of wheat there. The following picture will surely please your eyes.

We started our tour with Hemis monastery which had a nice museum showcasing history of the region. We then visited Thiksey monastery, Shey palace and Stoke palace. They all are built on small hills.

Amol is at Thiksey monastery in this picture trying to have a cozy chat with Llamas. I didn't find the monasteries much impressive structurally. Architecture is not a strong point of Ladakh region surely. You could say that even by looking at the houses. They are pretty ordinary in stark contrast with those in HP where every house looks like a palace from outside.

The high point of our tour came soon after our lunch. We visited Kargil war memorial -- Hall of Fame. All the memorabilia from the Kargil war are put together in this small museum, right from war-stories to the captured weapons. We got absolutely overwhelmed reading about the valor of our army-men. There were a few letters put up which were exchanged between our warriors and their family members. The one in the image is written by a 22-year old army Captain to his family just before the war. (Find a readable version here.) He wrote that he was going to sacrifice himself for the nation and he had no regrets for doing so. He also requested his dad to donate Rs. 50 every month to an orphanage in his memory. So much maturity and courage this man showed at an age of just 22! There were many more such letters and stories. So many soldiers sacrificed themselves at a tender age to safeguard the nation. I can just salute them from bottom of my heart and say that every proud Indian must visit this memorial once in his/ her lifetime.

After an emotional experience of Hall of Fame, we moved on to Sindhu ghat, a holy place for Hindus, where ashes of dead people are immersed. The picture shows us relaxing at the riverside.

We concluded our day with a visit to Shanti Stupa, a beautiful monument showing life of Buddha through wall scriptures. This one too, is built on top of a mountain and surprisingly, is aesthetically very pleasing.

Our plan for next day was to visit Pangong lake. Since it's in Indo-China disputed territory, we needed a special government permit. Our hotel manager, a-lady-who-took-offence-at-being-called-aunty (Chetan knows better!), looted us for Rs. 2000 to arrange the permits. (Damn the managers!) We fools realized it much later that the permits cost no more than 100 bucks. I regress. We collected the permits, arranged for a cab for the next day and retired.

We recovered completely from our travel stress (from Manali-Leh journey) the next morning and started for Pangong with a fresh body and mind. Pangong is about 140km away from Leh and we again had to gain some altitude since the lake is at 14,000 ft. We didn't know that we would actually go much higher (about 17k-18k ft) en route. That's when we passed through Chang la (pass) midway. There was a thick cover of snow around the pass. You would get an idea of it from the next photograph.

We could not resist the temptation to play in this ultra-white snow. Due to a lack of oxygen though, we could not stay much longer there. Army was serving an awesome herbal tea in the vicinity. We all enjoyed it and moved on.

The scenery was amazing once again. It was a gloomy day, but that didn't hamper our spirits at all. Our driver for the day, the best we got in the trip so far, was playing classic Kishor Kumar numbers throughout. The surroundings were livelier than those on Sarchu-Leh road. The next photo was taken when we got a first look of the majestic lake.

The Pangong lake is a mammoth one. It's about 140 km long, of which 40% lies in India and rest is occupied by China. Since it's in a disputed territory, it's constantly surveilled by military, using ships and helicopters. Tourists are allowed only in the first kilometer stretch.

Interestingly during winters, entire lake freezes and forms an ice cover so hard that vehicles ride on top of that. Amazing!

We had an awesome time at the lake. It reminded me of movie '3 idiots' which was shot there. Don't we look like completely intoxicated in this photograph?

The movie 3 idiots had a big positive influence on entire Ladakh region. Before the movie, the tourism in the region was limited only to the monasteries.

For Indian tourists, J&K meant only Kashmir valley and Vaishnodevi shrine. Post the movie though, people have started to visit places like Pangong, Khardung la and Nubra valley. The school where a portion of movie was shot is also a tourist attraction now and is called as 'Rancho school' by the locals, name of the lead character of movie. Sample this, there is a restaurant in the name of Amir Khan at the lake. Apparently, Amir has helped the region recover from the cloudburst of 2010.

Finally, a panoramic view of the Pangong lake.

We had a short third day in Leh as we had to start for Manali the same evening. We decided to visit Khardung la, believed to be the highest motorable pass of the world. It is just 40km away from Leh. The same road goes to Nubra valley which borders Pakistan occupied Kashmir. They say, a Pakistani village can be viewed clearly from Nubra top. We sadly didn't have enough time and missed out on Nubra valley. (and a Ladakhi camel ride!)

Khardung la is about 18,000 ft high and is controlled by Siachen brigade, our elite army unit. We spent some time with a few soldiers there who had stories to tell, of frostbites and what not. They have only 2-3 months to enjoy during summers as the climate is bearable then. The rest of the year is all about survival.

You know what, a Formula 1 car has been on K-top (Khardung la). This video shows a RBR car zooming through all the amazing places in Leh. Project HIMANK maintains the roads in the high altitude regions of Ladakh. They are really doing a wonderful job there.

An eventful journey

When we started our return journey, I didn't imagine that I will have anything to write about it. Because that's how return journeys are, boring and uneventful! So wrong I was! We didn't know that our driver had planned so many thrills for us.

Sonu! Sounds like a name of some innocent kid, right? No. That was our deadly driver. He was holding a grudge against us for bargaining the price. He kept reminding us of that all the time. He wanted to finish the journey in a single day. So he picked up speed right from word go. We were fine with it till there were roads. But once we reached hilly areas, we literally started jumping in our seats. This guy though, wouldn't care. During our descent, he took all possible shortcuts on offer. We almost climbed down vertically from the mountain peak. At times, we felt as if we are going down in a giant wheel.

Sonu was a chain smoker as well and he didn't have a courtesy of not smoking inside the car. We requested him initially but he simply responded saying that he couldn't afford stopping for cigarette. He wasn't just smoking Tobacco but also Opium, which is a banned substance. The people in HP, especially the drivers get an ample supply of these substances as we found out the same night. After our repeated requests to stop for dinner break, Sonu finally relented and took us to a tent-restaurant owned by his friend. The reason he stopped was to get his daily supply of drugs. He had earlier taken a special paper used to inhale drug powder from a lady at Pang. All his friends there enjoyed a long session of these drugs with him. This was all going on in front of us. As soon as Sonu swallowed some powder, his nostrils swelled up and eyeballs expanded abnormally. It was a scary sight. It was raining at that time and temperatures had come down drastically. We were informed that all other drivers that had started from Leh that day had all stopped somewhere on the way and would only resume the next morning. Not our Sonu though. He was all geared up for the night drive with the stimulating drugs he had.

Imagine a lone vehicle running on himalayan mountains in a freezing cold night with heavy rains for company. That's exactly what we were doing. Chetan had taken up the duty to sit with Sonu and to keep chatting with him so that he stays awake. The music was changed to Vaishnomata devotional songs by Sonu. The streams of water gushing down the mountains were sounding so terrifying. Never in life, have I experienced such a dreadful night. Sonu, though wasn't concerned even a bit and was speeding through water-filled roads.

There were still more events in store. At around 3am, we had a flat tire. The good thing though was that Sonu, being an experienced driver, had a car repair kit with him. We managed to repair the puncture after some trial-and-error. In this process though, we got delayed by an hour to reach the dreaded Rohtang pass. Needless to say, we got stuck in a traffic jam again. Sonu was so frustrated that he started hurling abuses to every person he would see. Once he got tired, he decided to sleep for a while and asked us to stay out of the car till then. We were also feeling sleepy but had to stay out on the road in freezing temperatures. After about 3 hours, we managed to clear the road and in another 3 hours reached Manali. Sonu refused to drop us at our hotel and instead dropped us at a bus stand when it was raining heavily. We found two auto-rikshaws, quickly transferred our bags and left for hotel. I had a great satisfaction of finishing the dreadful journey safely.

We each slept for at least 10 hours upon reaching Manali. Next day was thankfully very pleasant. We did some shopping for our parents and friends, roamed around famous Mall road and had an awesome Punjabi food. With a refreshed mind, we started for Delhi in a tourist bus. Another return journey, time for another event. Yes, another event it was!

We had just crossed Kullu. Suddenly, a few policemen stopped our bus. Two of them entered, asked bus conductor for a list of passengers and then came towards a thin guy sitting alone. After a few questions, they took him out of the bus. We were clueless of what was happening until the bus driver requested all of us to come out. The policemen were checking our baggage and asked all the passengers to identify their bags. Apparently, the guy who was caught up was refusing to claim any baggage. He was a Nepali citizen and was travelling without any ticket. Police were suspecting a conspiracy of bus driver and the Nepali guy. Once everyone identified their bags, 5 big bags remained unclaimed, each weighing 40kg. Police opened the bags and found rare herbs being transported in them. They seized the bags, arrested the Nepali guy and filed a charge sheet against bus driver and conductor. We were allowed to leave after this.

As I was informed by a farmer in Dharmashala earlier, the region of HP grows herbs that are used to manufacture a drug in China to cure cancer. For this purpose, these herbs are smuggled to China. You can read about another such incident here.

So after another eventful journey, we reached Delhi wondering what's next. Thankfully, we had a nice uneventful day when we visited India gate, Birla temple, Qutub minar, Rajghat and a few other places. We boarded Rajdhani in the evening and reached Mumbai the next morning bang on time.

Overall, it was a memorable and thrilling experience. There was some planned adventure (read paragliding, trekking etc.) and some which we were not prepared for (our return journey!). We got an opportunity to explore a geographical wonder that Ladakh is and enjoy the beauty of Himalayas. Mountains of all colors and textures were on display and that really made for one hell of an experience. I would just like to conclude saying -- "Be a traveler and enjoy the world!"

"Yehi Toh Adventure Hai"

This summer, I participated in a 10-day mountaineering program, organised by Regional Mountaineering Center (RMC), McLeodganj in Dharmashala. We were a bunch of 26 people, most were affiliated to IISc.

McLeodganj is home to a lot of Tibetan expatriates including the Dalai Lama. It's a serene place on top of mountains where people from all over the world visit mostly for meditation. If you have seen any cricket match happening at Dharmashala stadium on TV, you'd have noticed huge mountains in the direction of mid-wicket boundary. One of those is McLeodganj. 

Our base camp was also at a beautiful hill, surrounded by a thick forest of Silver Oak trees. We reached in the evening of our scheduled first day (thanks to our toy train from Pathankot moving at a snail's pace). We all were allotted a single dorm with bunk beds and were immediately called up for our first exercise. There was a track made of a few hurdles of varying kind; walls, tunnels, ropes etc. and we were asked to do two laps of it. It was fun despite us being tired from long travel.

Amazing Triund

On our second day, a short day-long trek was planned as a warm-up exercise. The destination was Triund, part of Dhauladhar range of Himalayas. It's at an altitude of more than 9000ft and the distance from our base camp was about 7km. We started our climb through the forests of Silver Oak early in the morning.

It was an easy climb. We enjoyed the view of Dharmashala town while going up. There were some tea shops along the way too. They use mules to transport goods up the mountains as can be seen in the picture.

Before noon, we reached the Triund top. It was an amazing sight. There were huge snow-clad mountains of Dhauladhar range right in front of our eyes, albeit beyond a valley. Since there was no easy path to cross the valley, we contented ourselves with Triund. Not that, it was any less beautiful as the following picture shows.

We ate our packed lunch on the lawns. As soon as we were finished, it started drizzling. Soon it got heavier, so we rushed to a restaurant hut. It was amazing to find a restaurant at such an altitude where not many people venture. It rained for full two hours. People found shelter wherever they could as these three ladies in picture.

Once it stopped, we had our 'fall-in' ritual where our instructor Malkeet enlightened us on the geography of Himalayas, Triund in particular. After that, all cameras came out and we had a group photo-session before starting our descent. That's our entire group (including our leader dog) in the next photograph.

Camping

Over the next 6 days, we had to stay in various camps nearby and had to do some small activities there. It started with Ghera, a village 5km away from McLeodganj. We had our breakfast at the base camp, packed a rucksack  and started towards Ghera. It was largely a straight walk, though there were patches of steep climb and descent. Once we reached there, we were allotted 4 tents and given a sleeping bag each.

It was time for our first activity -- river crossing. There was a river (I forgot its name :-( ) close to our camp. Our instructors, Jeevan Thakur, other Thakur (I forgot his name too :-( ) and Sapana took us to the river. We were given a lecture on various methods of river crossing and then were asked to perform it using the easiest of the methods. With the support of a rope tied to rocks at both ends, we had to walk across the flowing stream. People did it with ease and then played in the water for a while.

Evening was free for us after river crossing. Perfect time for a game of Rummy, isn't it?

New day, new destination! We moved from Ghera to Harnala in the morning. It was again a moderately difficult trek of about 6km. 

We gained some altitude though and thus the scenery was a lot better at our second camp. A water stream was flowing down the mountains and passing close to our tents. Due to various reasons ranging from unavailability of hot water to sheer laziness, some of us were not taking bath regularly. So when Jeevan Thakur asked us to join him for swimming at a nearby pond, many people jumped at the idea. We enjoyed there for at least an hour. In the evening, instructor Malkeet gave a talk on camping covering many topics from camp hygiene to handling emergencies. His fluid style of speaking to go with knowledge gained from experience made it a captivating talk. He also taught us a few basic rope knots that are used during mountaineering.

Evening was again free for us. Some decided to use it to prepare themselves for tough tasks ahead like this gentleman in this picture. He, by the way is leader of Bhoopathy gang -- one of the two rival gangs formed during the camp. (The other being Sarath gang!)

There was a camp-fire planned in the night after the dinner. But rain gods had some other plans and we had to stay inside the tents. It was a perfect opportunity to unleash my favorite game -- Mafia. It just needed one round of the game for people to start arguing (an indication of people enjoying the game!) and we could have only three more rounds when it became too late to sleep.

For the next day, we were again stationed at Harnala. We had our second activity in the morning, and third as well, that of rock climbing and rappelling. Instructors took us to a nearby place where there was a big rock of about 30-40ft tall. 

A few guys managed to climb up easily. But most required help from instructors, particularly from Sapana who was pulling everyone up using a belay rope at the highest point of rock where there was no easy grip. Rappelling though turned out to be a much easier task. 

Pramod wanted to make his mark, and mark he did, albeit on a different rock as you can see in the picture.

In the afternoon, we tried our hand at putting up tent. Then came a surprise event -- tug-of-war. We had 5 sub-groups in our group based on our formation. Instructors conducted a tournament among these 5 teams and it was decided that they would play against the winner. All the guys put up a great show and we had a lot of close fights. Surprisingly, the final was a much one-sided affair and wonder-of-wonders, it's our side that came on top. Instructors had no place to hide. They promised to give us a prize for beating them. It turned out to be quite a surprise as you would find out in a while.

Our camp in-charge at Harnala (Damn, I forgot his name too :-( ) was a jolly good fellow. He took us all to nearby villages just to show us around. Amazingly the villages, all built on edges of mountains, had all basic facilities like schools, hospitals despite the geographical challenges. The camp in-charge had a lot of stories to tell on the way -- his encounter with leopard, his fight with bear, his football trials for Indian national team, herb smuggling in the area and so on. It was a good time because of his company.

The one thing we missed out on the day before was camp-fire. There was no rain interference this time though. And we had a long session of performances at the fire. There were songs after songs, sung solo or in group. Our instructor Jeevan told his story of love and break-up through songs ably supported by male singer of the day -- Javed. The female singer of the day, Jyotsna had a few old Lata and Asha numbers in response. The mood was lightened by Tamilarasan who moved it with the Madagascar number and by Ashwin with dialogues from the legendary Angrez. There was a group performance also where Rajesh and co. performed a small skit. And then there was a Munni-Sheela jugalbandi between two items -- Venkatesh and Giridhar. Quite a night!

On our fourth day of the camp, we moved to a place called Reuittee. It was a pleasant 8-9km trek up the hill. We encountered many ladybirds and a lot of rare plants on the way like this Cobra plant in the picture.

As we came close to our destination, it started raining and when we reached, it transformed into a hailstorm. Once it settled after a few hours, we were informed that the place observed second highest rainfall in India, after Cherrapunji. Ah, so that explains the hailstorm.


Our main attraction of the camp -- Kareri lake was in the itinerary for the next day. It's a fresh water lake at a high altitude (~9000ft) in the Dhauladhar range. It took us about 2-3 hours to reach there. The lake was shallow in most parts making its base clearly visible.

There were a few snow-clad mountains on the other side of the lake and further ahead was beautiful Kangra valley. We wanted to touch snow and since we had some time, we put our bags to a shed near the lake and started marching towards a closest snow point. It took about an hour to climb up. We all were excited and played with the snow for quite some time until it became cloudy. There were signs of big rains around, so we rushed back to the shed. As soon as I reached, it started pouring hails again. People squeezed in the shed and waited for clearing of the sky. Our lunch was prepared by the time everyone returned. We were served an awesome Khichadi, the best food we had had at the camp.

We came back to Reuittee once it cleared. As there was nothing else to do, evening was spent in playing dumb charade and mafia.

After a wonderful experience of Kareri, our return journey started the next day. We were supposed to reach our first camp at Ghera in one stretch. Return journeys are often uneventful. Well, this one also was until we started solving logical puzzles on the way. Vikas anna had a handful of them and I too had some. We had Samrat, Jyotsna and Bhoopathy for company. We were walking alongside a stream of water. Rest of the group was at some distance from us. After an overdose of puzzles, Jyotsna and Samrat got bored and quickly crossed the stream not knowing that that was not the right way. We three too followed them and soon we all lost the way. There were 3 streams of water in that area and we didn't know which one to follow. There was nobody around and we didn't have network as well. We saw a few huts at some distance and went in that direction. Thankfully there was a man there who showed us the right way. But we wasted more than an hour and at our intermediate stop at Harnala, found that the rest of the group had moved ahead and only Jeevan had stayed behind. He was about to come looking for us when we reached. We then covered the rest of the journey quickly and reached Ghera by lunch time.

In the evening, we had our last activity of the camp. It was a very interesting task. We were divided in three groups. Members of each group were tied by a single rope and were aligned in a row. Each member could control distance between his/ her closest partners using the rope. We had to run a lap around the camp that included a river, a forest and a road following cairns. We had to move synchronously to finish faster. It was a challenge crossing the river jumping on rocks at same speed. But that was the essence of the task and after a few initial hiccups, we managed it quite well.

It was time for a surprise in the night. Remember, instructors were due for a gift for beating them in tug-of-war. And our gift was - a survival night. We were neither given any food nor any shelter in the night and were asked to spend the night at a ground under the sky. Huh! The only saving grace was that we were allowed to carry a sleeping bag and other necessary things. So we smart people included packets of biscuits and nuts in the necessary things and 'survived' the night successfully.



Back to base

So after a joy ride of 6 days, we came back to RMC base camp in McLeodganj the next day. There were no activities for the rest of the day. So we went out to explore the town. We visited Bhagsunag temple and then a local market. Momos is the most famous street food in this area and we got real tasty ones with an awesome chutney along with it.

We had our dinner also in the town and this time I tried the other Tibetian dish, Thupkas. It was nothing but soupy noodles boiled with meat balls, a healthy dish.

The next morning, we had our felicitation program. Everyone was presented with a badge and a certificate. There were two special awards too. 'Best trainee', given to Rajesh and 'Keep the Himalayas clean initiative' award, given to Nagaraj. The head of the institute, a retired army officer, Mr. Gulati delivered his speech and our program came to an end.

Our instructors did a tremendous job managing us. We guys were never on time for any activity or fall-in, but Jeevan and others didn't complain. Though I feel they could have done with being a little more stricter. The mountaineering camp in Pahalgam which I attended earlier was a lot more disciplined. It was needed to be  so since most of the activities there demanded big effort and needed to be taken seriously. This camp was more of a fun trip and so the friendly behavior of instructors was justified in some sense. The photo below shows the four instructors that were with us throughout -- Malkeet, Monty, Jeevan and Sapana from L to R. You go with any problem to them, the first reaction would be, "Yehi toh adventure hai" ("This is what adventure is all about...") :-).

The camp wouldn't have been such a joy ride but for the participants. We had a variety of people -- PhD students, research assistants, lecturers, lawyers and a few national treasures (read IIT undergrads!) as well. This eclectic group of people made it for such a wonderful experience. Amod, Pramod, Nagaraj and others did a great job in cleaning the mountains by collecting plastic wrappers and bottles on the way. Javed was an informative person and great to have discussions with. Jyotsna had an energy of a kid. IITians-to-be (Ashwin, Quarter Sid, Samrat) were also an enthusiastic group of people along with Silicon guys (Bipin, Vikas, Nagaraj). Sarath and group carried the responsibility of staying at the back end faithfully :-P. The fantastic four, the ladies, everyone else were a great company during this camp. Cheers!

Photos courtesy: Sandeep, Bhoopathy, Siddharth, Javed, Gayathri.

The Swiss Adventure

I was going to Germany for an academic conference. After the conference, I wanted to spend a weekend there before returning to India. My friend, Vinodh put forward a plan to visit to Switzerland. I said, "Why not? Let's see how the heaven looks like." And so started our Swiss adventure.

We smart people had booked a train that reaches Zurich midnight at 2am. I was praying silently for the train to get delayed. But unfortunately such miracles don't happen in Europe. And we reached Zurich sharp on time. We had to go to a friend's place in the city. But there was no public transport available at such an odd hour. The earliest tram would start at 6am. So we had to stay at the railway station till then. It was very cold and we were trying to stay awake. Believe me, it was not an easy task. There were quite a few groups of spoilt youngsters who were fighting each other under the influence of alcohol. Thankfully, we survived the night unscathed.

We reached Shan's place in the morning and gave a small rest to our heavy eyes. We couldn't afford to relax much as we had only two days in hand and wanted to make full use of them. Our earlier plan was to visit Interlaken, a famous tourist destination (remember DDLJ?). But it was too far to cover in a single day. Also it was too late to make any arrangements for staying there if we decided to. So instead we decided to go to Lucerne, another tourist attraction which is only two hours away from Zurich. Shan, though couldn't take time out of his work and dropped out. But he packed a delicious home-made lunch of Rice and Veg. Korma for us. 

Journey to Lucerne was very pleasant. Entire route was surrounded by lush green meadows. The grass was neatly cut eveywhere. As we approached Lucerne, snow-clad mountains started appearing. It made for an awesome sight. Once in Lucerne, we decided to do a quick walking tour of the city. 

There is a beautiful lake in the city. While walking on the banks of this lake, we saw a flock of geese. They were looking very lovely.

The next picture shows a view of the city across the lake. Wonderful, isn't it?

We had coupons of free Swiss chocolates, thanks to our city tour guides. And as a true Indian, who love to flaunt anything 'free', Vinodh is proudly showing his assets in this image.

We also had coupons of free Swiss spoons. Yeah, you read it right. Not the Swiss knives, we brought home Swiss spoons!

This is our very own Swiss bank in the photograph. Was that a controversial statement?

One of the major attractions of Lucerne is Mount Pilatus, a 7000ft tall mountain in the Alps. After our quick city tour, we took a bus to the base of this mountain. There was a cable car facility to reach the top. But we decided to go for hiking instead. Though it was difficult to cover the distance in whatever little time we had, we just wanted to experience the thrill of hiking in the Alps. Initial part of the trek was a lush green terrain. It was like a walk in the garden, with some ascent.

There were quite a few people hiking there. Importantly, there were a number of families going up together. In India, the family outings rarely involve physical activities. So it was a bit of a cultural shock for me. People coming down the hill were greeting us. They would say something in German to which I used to respond with a smile and a 'Hello'. Vinodh, who was learning German, told me later that they were wishing us the best of luck. And all this while I was responding with a 'Hello' instead of a 'Thanks'. Phew!

We had walked for almost three hours and hadn't covered even half the distance. We found a mass of snow piled up there and decided to make do with it. There was a children's park nearby. (The families must be trekking till this point.) We sat there for a while and started our descent.

I don't know why, but I love next photo, that of a desolate little tree taken while coming down the mountain.

We returned to Zurich in the night after a hectic day in Lucerne. We made sure to catch a full night's sleep this time.

There were again no plans for the next day. After googling for a while, we came to a conclusion that there was no good place outside of Zurich that could be covered in a single day. So we were forced to do a local sight seeing. Zurich is the largest city of Switzerland, but not a major tourist destination. We walked around the Zurich lake and visited campuses of two universities, ETH-Zurich and University of Zurich.

Shan gave us a bit of a shock when he showed us a Krischna (not a spelling mistake, that's how they spell it in German!) temple. 'Hare Krishna' society runs it in an apartment and they serve free Indian food to all on every Sunday. I was again at the right place at the right time. :-P The people inside were all speaking in Tamizh, I was wondering why. Shan told me that they were all Srilankans who have taken an asylum there following the wars between LTTE and Lankan government. 

There was a street performance going on near the Zurich lake where the guys presented a peppy Arabic song. It was a great entertainment.

I want to write about a funny incident happened with me in the evening. We three were standing at a tram station. There was a group of friends chilling out nearby. Suddenly, one of the girls from the group came towards us and asked me, "Hey handsome, would you like to join us?" pointing her finger towards her friends. They were all shouting "Say yes, say yes". I felt very awkward and just excused myself. There were oohs and aahs from that group. But they all moved away. Shan was listening to their conversation for a while and knew what was going on. He told me that the girl that asked me was soon getting engaged and they were celebrating that. And it was a dare given to her. Now it was time for oohs and aahs from my side.

I flied back to India the next morning after this wonderful experience of Switzerland. Although it was too short a time to explore the majestic country, it was a case of 'better less than nothing'. I would certainly like to go back in future, with more time to spend and with a heavier wallet.