Part 2, When the going gets tough, the tough get going..

So, where was I ? Yes, I'd made it to Rishikesh, all in one piece. That's where I finally caught up with the others. Sid, Baccha and Adrian, who had been slightly more fortunate than me as far as travelling logistics were concerned (only slightly though, for their version of events click here). From there we took a taxi, a fairly decent Ambassador all the way to Govindghat, our pitstop for that night. There are share taxis and buses to Joshimath, from where Govindhghat is just an hour away but we opted for the relative opulence of the clapped out Amby to save on time.


The taxi ride was fairly uneventful. There were a large number of rocks and boulders lying by the roadside, remnants of landslides from some days before. We were forewarned that July-August is landslide season in these parts, but the size of some of these boulders did get my heart rate up. The entire ride we followed the Alaknanda river, and we traced it as it cut through valleys, tracing it almost up to it's very origins. The scenery throughout was jaw-droppingly amazing. I enjoyed almost none of it though, with my head moving like a pendulum, as i drooled on one neighbouring shoulder and then the next. Occassionally I'd awake from this stupour and start clicking photos like a mad cockaroach with a bad case of the twitches before I reverted back to 'rest' mode as suddenly as I'd broken out of it. I followed this pattern for most of the entire ten hours our journey took. Even my driver was very sypathetic to my case and bore with a smile the frequent head butts he got on his shoulder as i nodded off to sleep in the front seat. The tip was definitely well spent on some jandu balm for his bruised shoulder.





I must say though, taxi drivers have the most bizarre taste in music! Mine was no different. Do they have music stores dedicated to cater to their eccentric tastes? I still remember one of the songs. The girl kept crooning about how she had lied at home about going to the temple but kept a romantic rendezvous instead while her lover reassured her she hadn't lied as she had come to the temple of love (pyar ki mandir or some such rot)! This one had us in splits and when it played again (and again, our driver's taste in music may have been eccentric but was limited to two tapes, which he played over and over) we were singing along with it too!


We were at Govindhghat by sunset and took up lodgings at the first in a long line of hotels, Kuber Guest House. Rooms were decent and bathrooms clean, so no hotel horror stories to report. We were there for just the night, as we had an early start the next day. The place was jam packed with pilgrims, Sikhs coming in from all parts of the globe to pay homage at Hemkund Sahib, the highest place of worship in the world! After visiting the local gurudwara, we had dinner at the restaurant getting the most foot traffic (Nano's, Nany's, or something like that). The food was standard Punjabi fare, with all it's desi ghee goodness. This was followed by gulab jamun and a glass of whole milk at the adjoining halwai (sweet shop). I could see my diet flying out of the window and rolling down the grassy slopes of the Garwhal mountains.


The next day we started out at 5.30am so that we could get a headstart and not get stuck in the pilgrim traffic. A good head start meant we were at the next town Pulna at 7.00 am, by which time we were ravenous. We stopped at the last in a long line of shops that lined the route and sat down for some well earned Maggi and chai almost at the foot of the Pulna waterfall. As we resumed our journey, we saw our 'restaraunteur' following us with a plastic bottle in his hand. Upon enquiry he informed us that he was out to go behind the bushes to complete his morning ablutions. Only on further enquiries was it revealed that we'd actually woken the poor bugger up from his sleep to make us our breakfasts! I was amazed! I would have been breathing fire if four city slickers woke ME up early in the morning demanding plates of Maggi and cups of tea but this man seemed remarkably well composed. Incredibly nice of the fellow I thought. If I were British, I'd probably say, 'Jolly good, old chap'.



The trek up to Gangria was long and ardous. We were breaking our backs to complete the 14km. Our backpacks felt like bags of lead dragging us down. Frequent Maggi stops not withstanding we'd have collapsed on the side of the road and been killed by a stampede of mules, who would have then probably defecated on us in contempt for blocking their path with our corpses. So imagine to my consternation when we came across a septegenarian(at least) Sardar who was slowly but surely making his way up with what seeme like no great exertion on his part. On seeing our sorry state he felt it was his duty to give us some advice. 'Akke baar guru ke darshan karne nikal padde to phir guru apki kalai pakar ke neele ghode pe baithake le jaata hai. Aap jisse bhi bagwan maane chahhe wo ram ho ya rahim bas usko apne dil me baitha lo aur aap phir rukoge nai baas chalte challe jaoge aur apne manzil tak zaroor pahunchoge', he said. He went on to say much more. Very profound stuff. Only one problem, my Punjabi, at best, is atrocious. So most of it went way over my head(except for something about a blue horse). I wish I'd paid more attention. Apparently it made the trek a lot easier for the others, but I do remember this: The intense conviction and faith that some of the old-timers seemed to have blew my mind away (even with the flying blue horses still floating around my head). With chants of "So bole sohnihal" following which the entire valley would echo with a "Sasriyakaaale...." these people were making their way up at an age when their peers may find an evening walk a challenge. It was truly inspirational. To me it really showed the power of faith and made me question my own views on God and religion.





The scenic beauty was another real show stopper for me. As we trudged along we came across innumerable spots where we just HAD to stop and stare in wonder. The river powering down the valley in full force was another aspect of the trek I found quite soothing. The only real annoyance was the packs of mules and horses taking pilgrims up and down. The more trips they made, the more money the owners could make, which meant that they were made to hurry up and down the hill side as many times as possible, even if it meant barging into the pedestrians and pulverizing them on the rocks to one side or plunging them into the river on the other.



Many a waterfall, and many a cascade of horseshit later we were finally at Gangria. We flopped into one of the first hotels we could find and settled in. We went out exploring the small town, taking in the sights, and generally limbering up for our next stop, the Valley of Flowers....

Valley of Flowers, An Adventure in many parts

Part 1 - Going, going....... gone!

Ladakh downscaled to Valley of Flowers. Ten days to four! And after some earnest pleading and reasoning upgraded to five. My feet were itching to move. Get the hell out of hot, grimy Noida! I planned, and planned and planned some more. Things were set, tickets and co-travellers arranged and I was all ready to go. There was nothing to stop me now, or was there?

I anxiously awaited the 13th of August, when I could escape the confines of my drab cubicle to the wild outdoors. Usually dates come too soon (like exam dates!) or take too much time (like birthdays), but this one arrived with near perfect timing. I brought my backpack to work so that I could head straight from there to a friend's place for some chole batture before hopping on the bus to Rishikesh.

Somebody up there must have a wicked sense of humour because he decided to have some fun at my expense. By testing my resolve to travel. The first sign came straight after lunch. My boss comes up to me and asks me to join in on a site visit and before I could say ,'but...' he was off in a flash to get an early start on the long weekend! Since I have spent most of my time here rueing the fact that I don't really have much work I felt I shouldn't complain when I do. Anyway, it would take just two hours and I should be back by 5.00pm, enough time to make it for dinner at Sid's. Being the sticklers to punctuality we Indians are known to be, we left propmtly at 4.45, reducing significantly my chances of having a much awaited home-cooked meal. Still, my hopes were up.

First stop, Ghaziabad. The floor manager sat us down in his plush air-conditioned office and fed us tea and biscuits, which I proceeded to gulp down like a shot of tequila, scathing my tongue and palate in the process. It didn't help matters much that the rest of my party were treating the tea as if it were fine wine, sipping it at leisure while making all the approppriate appreciative noises. To cut a very long story short, it turned out that the part we had come to inspect was in a totally different factory all together, where we were plied with more tea and biscuits, most probably to ensure that those portions of my tongue which escaped being scathed the last time could get it's due retribution. The time was now 6.30pm, and my chole batture aspirations had all but evaporated. Frantic phone calls were received from friends. Reassurances were given as to the possibility of making it to the bus stop in time. Alternate plans were made for the chole and the batture to simulatneously reach their final destination, ie. my tummy. Due to further unavoidable delays (note the sarcasm), and the fact that Schumi hadn't come out of retirement to drive me to the bus stop I found myself stranded in god forsaken Ghaziabad with not a chance in hell to make it in time to Connaught Place.

Time for quick remedial action, and like Chacha Chaudhary, my brain works faster than a supercomputer at times of crisis ( the rest of the time it still works as fast as a supercomputer, but with the power plug pulled out). The driver was asked to drop me off at the railway station from where a general class ticket to Rishikesh was purchased. I got on the next train to Rishikesh, the aptly named Delhi-Rishikesh Passenger. So happy was I with myself that I was oblivious to the hordes of sweaty people I had to share the oven that was my railway compartment. The dreamy look and smile plastered all over my face as we rolled out of Ghaziabad made me look positively silly. I awoke from my stupor when I saw the brand name of the coolers which almost half my co-passengers were carrying : "Murphy's". Definitely a sign of things to come....

Murphy's Law !!!



Ingenuity, thy name is sleeping in general compartment!!!



Sure enough, at around two in the morning the train came to a standstill at Sahranpur and quickly emptied and soon it was just me and the cleaners. I smelt something fishy, despite being nowhere close to the coast and decided to investigate. I reached the engine just in time to see the engine driver packing his bags and hopping off! I blocked his path and said he better take the damn train to it's intended destination as mentioned in bold black one it's bright yellow board : "DELHI RISHIKESH PASSENGER". And here I was, a passenger who was neither in Delhi nor Rishikesh. Something had to give right? Wrong. Apparently the train doesn't go beyond Sahranpur after August 7th and I had the misfortune of travelling on the 13th. After that the train's name is just a ruse to trap innocent people like myself into visiting Sahranpur. 'But I have to go to Rishikesh', I squealed, and just like in the nursery rhyme, 'Oh!', said the engine driver, 'I don't care!'.



So, very relcutantly, I got off. It was half past two in the morning, and Sahranpur station was bustling eith activity for this ungodly hour. Yet, it felt like the site of some major tragedy. Scores of bodies lay motionless end upon end, the only sign of life being the slow guttural snores emnating from them, almost in symphony. I hop, skip and tripped my way to the exit from where I got a bus to Haridwar. Around this time I get a call from my friends who managed to catch the bus. The driver was taking his own sweet time getting to Rishikesh and had just stopped for 'lunch' at Meerut (if you want to compare I crossed Meerut at 8.30pm, before they'd even started!). They didn't expect to get to Rishikesh before nine in the morning. This left me in quite a fix, because I would be in Haridwar at 4.00 am!


Dead or Alive?


On reaching Haridwar I was mobbed by touts for hotels, motels, rooms,taxis and what not. I had a few hours to kill so I proceeded to 'Hari ki Pauri' , which is where devotees take a dip in the holy waters of the Ganga. The recent rains meant the river was flowing with tremendous force, free of all her inhbitions. There were plenty taking a dip in her ice cold, silt rich waters. There were plenty of sadhus , all decked in bright orange in ash ready to perform pujas for my redemption, all for a price which was quite aggressively advertised. The place was kept remarkably clean by normal standards and there were quite a few 'govt. officials' asking for donations for it's upkeep. One caught me and tried to extract as much as he could (they must have targets to meet). Asked for Rs.501, expected Rs.101, and got Rs.11. Imagine the stink eye he must have given me, triple it and raise to the power of ten and you will only get close to the look he gave me.


Haridwar, 4.00 am


Hari Ki Pauri




Daybreak


I spent daybreak loitering about here and was wondering where to visit next when my friends called again. The driver' suddent burst of energy post-Meerut meant that they had crossed Haridwar and almost reached Rishikesh. I quickly made by way back to town, rescuing a couple of Japanese tourists from the clutches of an evil auto driver enroute before catching a shared auto to Rishikesh, where I finally, finally, FINALLY caught up with my friends whom I was supposed to meet at 8.30pm the previous night. It was 8.30am....



The trip was on!!! Save a few landslides, there was nothing that could stop us now. Stay tuned for more adevntures.............................