LIFE IS EITHER A DARING ADVENTURE OR
NOTHING……
This trip
started on 13th Feb 2014, Reached Dubai International Airport on time,
checked in on time (Spice Jet) roamed around the duty free shops then to
Marhaba Longue. Flights was on time. First time with spice jet , nice
flight good leg space, landed at Delhi 5.20
in the morning, the outside temperature is 8 Degree, it was cold, tolerable and
thick smoke was visible when people spoke.
Our
next destination was Haridwar, the train was at 2.40PM, stored our baggage
at metro clock room and decided to take a spin around Delhi, as bhayya promised
us to take for the best breakfast in Delhi we moved towards
Paharganj, and we got the worst breakfast :( , then we decided to take a
battery riksha and go to India Gate.
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| India Gate |
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| Delhi Metro |
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| Cold... Cold.. & Cold |
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| Trying to Escape from the Cold Wind |
After Clicking few pics we decided to
go to the station as it was raining bad, expecting there will be a nice
waiting lounge, but again got disappointed, we have reached the railway
station on time , as usual Indian railway train didn't come on
time ,train delayed by two hours, it was first time we all are travelling
together in a train. 6 hours journey was good and fun. Ate snacks and
dossed off , there was a good competition between kakka n zeddy.. and
winner is kakka... :) … about the competition let it be a trip secret……
we reached Haridwar by 11.45 PM, our
next destination was Auli, Utterkand , We decided to start our journey only
early morning due to the road closer @ Rishikesh. After a quick shower i went
off to bed and rest were time passing.....
Day 2
after two hours of good sleep, we
were ready to push of from our hotel by 3.15AM, our driver, for coming 3
days, was waiting us there.. nice chap... Sanjay... very careful driver. we
enjoyed his company thru our the trip.
we reached Rishikesh about 4.15
AM, but the road will be opened only by 4.45AM hence we had to wait
in freezing cold. Temperature would be 6 to 7 Degree Celsius.
The road from Rishikesh ran
alongside the river Ganges up to Devaprayag, where the Ganga meets the
Alakananda river. At Devaprayag the Ganga came with a lot zeal and energy
and met Alakananda. The two river did not seem to have any commonality
between them, expect that they both were in the Himalayas. And then destiny
seemed to force them to merge and GOD they did so so gracefully amidst a perfect
setting.
The road was pathetic, you need to
search for the road a midst the potholes. Our driver was good and
used to such roads and hence the drive did not get uncomfortable. We stopped
for breakfast close to Srinagar (not Kashmir’s Srinagar, this is halfway
to Joshimath). The food wasn't that good, or maybe we did not order
the right things.
The drive through the mountains is
unlike the ghats we had traveled earlier (i.e, ascending the mountain one way,
descending the other). Instead we traversed the perimeter of mountain after
mountain after mountain. Seven hours of the same thing.
As we started driving upwards we
could see the snow in the distant mountains. We knew we would be there soon.
The road became more stiff; part of the road was damaged. The journey was
not so smooth it was. The Himalayan beauty is more raw in these areas. Lesser
people come here, which means lesser commercialization of the place.
Occasionally we passed through villages where we spotted few huts and a few
shops, some restaurants. I have the habit of sitting next to the
driver everywhere I go. I feel I catch the best of the views by occupying that
seat. There were quite a few places where I feel my heart pounding.
Deep down I could see the
snake-like road along the walls of the mountains. There is no room for any
wrong turn here.The river which was flowing beside us now looked like a
silver thread down below, wriggling somewhere. There is no sound from anywhere.
We stopped the music in our car. So, it was sound of the engine of the car and the
sound of the Himalayas! A dead silence. I fear to think how the place would be
when it is dark. And what about the place centuries ago when our forefathers
lived in these areas? How did they survive? Even today saints or sadhus
come here to meditate. No wonder this is the place where you get so close to
Nature and everything else in life seems so fragile, short-lived and
meaningless. Is it worth all the fight for existence in life? The fighting and
give-and-take that we indulge in our life and relationships do not bring peace. We
get peace here. These mountain ranges have stood here like this for centuries,
cradling in numerous brooks and rivers, trees and animals big and
small, least of all one of the oldest civilizations of the world! Time has
never been able to wipe it out, neither its contribution. And we are so tiny
and insignificant in comparison. I am humbled.
We are almost there. Joshimath, as
we know last cable car to Auli is @ 4.30PM we managed to reached
there by 3.30 and we were surprised to hear that the cable car is not
functional due to the maintenance work, when we booked GMVN Auli Resort they didn't inform
us about this, we looked around for the option to go to Auli as only 4x4 can
only transport us there as there was heavy snow fall prior to our arrival and 4
feet’s snow on the road towards Auli, we decided to spent one night in
Joshimath GMVN and we found someone to transfer us tomorrow to Auli.
it was chilling cold... our hotel was under renovation and there was no room
heater .
Going through the torture, we went down to have early dinner and
surprisingly the food was better than we expected. It was too cold to venture
out for a stroll. With no streetlights it was too dark as well and so we decided
to go back to our room.
It was hard getting hard to used to the temperature ,
What ever we touched we felt like ice , the wall, the door knob, the key, the
bed even, it was hard using the wash room- one has to touch water, The bed
and blankets all felt like pieces of ice. Once you have slept in one place, be
there. That is the only place that will be warm. Outside your perimeter, its
all cold as ice With this knowledge and two thick quilts over us, we
crashed.
Day 3
Good Morning Joshimath.....
Took us one and a half hour to
freshen up and pile on 4 layers of clothing – thermals, sweat shirt, sweater
and jacket, followed by two pairs of socks and one pair of gloves and one
woolen cap to cover the ears, Gum Boots (This time Dragon Mart Gum Boots helped
us a lot ). Breakfast took another half an hour.
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| All Set for Auli |
All are ready for our day 3 adventurous trip to Auli, Our car could not go the last few kilometers of snow-covered slippery road. So we changed our car to 4x4 with snow chain and reached 4KM away from Auli by 11.00AM.
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| Trekking Started from here... |
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| Way to Auli |
There was couple of
feet of snow around. People tried to walk on them. It was very chilly. we had
to trek 4KM , thank god we got a porter who can carry our
Backpacks if not we will reach may be by sun set, trekking was the tough part,
65 Degree Slops, every 5 Min we needed a short break, we had no water no
snacks, i ended up eating snow , it was fun... some how we managed to
reached GMVN Auli Ski Resort ordered hot coffee
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| Trekking Break.... |
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| Poor Gypsy.... need to wait till snow melts ... another a month may be |
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| Our Hotel out door coffee table and chair |
Day 4 - Auli
Today we decided to try the
Ski, as we are @ Asia's biggest Ski resort, we got a Ski Trainer and Equipment
for 500Rs per person for a day.
The first lesson was “Darneka nahi”
(do not be frightened) followed by how to strap the ski onto your shoes and
what posture to maintain on the ski. So I did about three rounds with the
trainers pulling the ski. I had to learn to use the brakes by then (make an ‘A’
shape with the ski). If I wasn’t able to, I should fall on my sides, neither
front nor back. It wasn’t easy to apply the break when you are coming
down from slops, after few attempt i was managed to apply the break properly...
Phew! Mentally striking off ‘Ski’ from my “To Do” list, it was wonder
full experience, remember one things, when you know you will fall down please make
sure you fall on the side ways not towards your front (which is really hard) or
with your back, you can have serious injury, here is the best example how to
fall :P
we enjoy
almost three hours of ski, then decided to go to our hotel and chill our the
rest of the day as chair car is not functional due to heavy wind we can not go
up to CliffTop to Enjoy the view. with high expectation about tomorrow we
chilled out @ the hotel.
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| MEO Ski Team :) |
Day 5 :
Morning
Auli....... its good news that the weather is clear and chair car is operating
today, but the sad part is that we need to trek about 3 KM down to catch our
cab.
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| Coming Down.. was easy... |
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| Tired... Waiting for the Driver |
we went to
cliff top , 4 of us in one chair lift, the view was amazing . there is a small artificial likes
which is made for the winter Olympics two years back. we spend almost
2 hours taking photos and decided to head back to the hotel as we know that we
need to trek back 3KM and we need to reach the last check point
before road closure for the night.
we managed
to get two porter to carry our back pack as it was really heavy. we took almost
hour and half to trek down 3 KM due to 4 Feet snow on the road and some parts
was very slippery, we didnt take much break as it was downhill.
we reached
our pickup point but our pick up car was not there waiting for the driver
almost an hour. finally we reached Joshimath by 2PM and our driver
was in hurry. since we have a deadline to cross before 8PM.
the drive
was smooth as usual bhayya was not letting anyone to sleep. poor kaka wanted to
sleep badly. had a quick stop at one of the village for quick lunch,
Omlet, Bun and some samoosa's.after 7 PM we don’t know what happened
to our driver he was zooming like but very careful and it was pitch
dark, sitting on the front seat at night is not a good place to be , sometime i
feel like applying the brakes but sanjay knows what to do and what not to we
had full faith in him. and finally we crossed the check point just one
minute before the closure, if not we will have to spend a night in some small
lodge or guest house and we were sure it wont be comfortable for us.
finally we
recehed rishikesh by 10.30PM, next is looking for the room, we checked
couple of hotels near Ganga, but it was really bad , small room n smelly.after
checking 3 hotels v got the best hotel (Anadam Resort) just walked in and got
good discount from the rack rate and the hotel is really nice, hotel restaurant
was closed by then,they were really nice and prepared hot food for us, hot daal
curry and rice for the night, as we were really hungry anything was fine with
us... zeddy had to go back to home as his dad was not keeping well.. we manged
to get a ticket for him next day from Dehradun to Coimbatore.
after chit
chatting about two hours deciding about the plan we slept half past 2........ we
were all excited about rishikesh... yes you are guessing right.. we are not
there for religious trip.. then what is next??????? bungeee and river
rafting...... :)
it’s a
decision making day for me for bungee jumping.. i was in two mood, bhayya was
so confident, he was like jessi there is no force or compulsion, if you want to
do it with full heart and if you enjoy please do it, i was like i won’t let him
do alone...... :) and we dossed off.... next day is rest day for us......
