Shan, one of my dearest buddies, took one hell of a risk...he travelled all the way from kerala to join me(i actually lied to him i had all things planned!) on one last adventure to see a part of India, we knew till then only from textbooks. The beauty of our trip was that it was unplanned, we barely knew where we were going, if we realized a jeep was going close to our destination, we would hop in, hoping that another vehicle would take us from there closer and closer to yamunotri. When nothing came our way we hiked, the rain-gods seemed intent on accompanying us for the whole trip and ruining it, the cold fear at seeing landslides on every curve wondering which one would take us away, the happiness at seeing a hotel to rest our tired bodies for the night(there were many, thanks to the Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam Ltd(GMVN), and having a few pegs of whiskey to call it a day. I know the fotos we have here are not the best...i'll need to start a flickr site to upload the scenic ones...here we are the protagonists and our faces had to feature in the snaps...eitherways we both kept squabbling all thru the trip on who was the worser photographer...compressed these pics 20 times over to get it to 50kb!!!
Through Haridwar we reached Rishikesh and the faint beginnings of the Himalayas showed, besides for the first time in my life I set eyes on the Ganga. So majestic from afar, enjoying a position of superiority amongst all the rivers of India, but cursed with a people intent on destroying its aura. The sight of human refuse at the Triveni Ghat which looked so clean in the movies was jarring, the brown colour of the water was disconcerting...just for the sake of it we dipped our hands and feet...will that suffice for my sins to be forgiven?
From Rishikesh, we took a jeep to Dharasu, 100 kms away. The road here diverges into two...one to Uttarkashi, Gangotri and the other to Yamunotri. From Dharasu we get a mini-bus which dropped us at Barkot, the last village/town where civilization as you and i know it sort of ends. From there another mini-bus took us to Hanumanchatti, 80kms away where we decided to cool our heels for the night at a GMVN inn.The snap is from there.
We begin our trek from Hanumanchatti to Janakichatti, 9 kms away hoping a jeep wud pass-by. The scenery from here-on is absolutely breath-taking...the snap here shows Shan all-edgy, next to a cliff, with the Yamuna beneath in all raging fury, with me fumbling with the camera as always. We pass by several locals...all very people, infact we noticed all through uttaranchal the women were hard at work while men mostly hang around tea stalls.
We had walked 2kms and not a single vehicle was stopping for us. The place where we took this snap looked eerily similar to the ones in Yodha. We threw our bags to the floor here and decided to wait for a lift. I saw some kids hard at work here...we had not seen a single school for about 75 kms. Would people in Kerala be able to associate with something like that!
And Behold!...along comes a tractor and the good man in the pic takes us along. It must have been the bumpiest ride of our lives...but we enjoyed it immensely. After all, how many people get to travel on tractors when they are on vacation! The man wouldnt take any money from us...in contrast the rich jeepvalas where charging Rs.15 per head for traversing just 3-4 kms. He lets us off with a warning to watch out for stray rocks falling from above.
Shan mournfully mulls wetting his brand new sneakers...what the hell did he expect...a tarred road!!! The whole place was littered with marble rocks that came down in previous landslides. In that part of the Garhwal, the pavements and milestones are in marble...i sincerely hope quarrying is banned there knowing how expensive marble is elsewhere.
We reach Janakichatti where the road ends, and began a 5km grinding trek to Yamunotri. We huffed and puffed our way up in 3 1/2 hours upto what was a height of 5000mts. Yamunotri is for all purposes a pilgrimage, we had to keep greeting pilgrims with Jai Mata Di, Jai Yamuna Mata, and i forget the other slogans. Young men were taking pilgrims up on their shoulders, on palanquins and ponies which made us trekkers real miserable. The air was thin, we struggled to breathe, the temp must have been 2-5degs, the rain continued to irritate us and foiled our plans to trek further to SaptarishiKund 14 kms away where the actual glacier that feeds the Yamuna and overlooking a beautiful valley of flowers where a mysterious BrahmaKamal flower which has an intoxicating smell and in which Saraswati Devi supposedly resides. We stayed that night at the Kalindi Ashram hotel at Yamunotri and started our return journey the next morning.
If Yamunotri symbolized what must be the most beautiful creation of Nature we set our eyes on, we headed out next to Agra and the Taj where Shah Jahan gave expression to human creativity at its zenith, the sight of which totally blew us away. We were speechless, just gaping at the magnificence in front of our eyes, amazed at the power and the riches the Great Mughals commanded over India...Shan vowed that when he would marry, he would bring his wife here and promise her that he would build her a Taj in 10 years time! I was amused coz my dad used the same line with my mom when he built our home.
The Agra Fort was equally grand, and obviously more subjected to the ravages of consequent invaders like the Afghans, Marathas and the British. Agra was my opportunity to download all my history knowledge on poor Shan, and the good sport he is, was all ears to my chance to show-off! I was dejected to hear that Fatehpur-Sikri the ill-fated capital of Akbar was 80kms away...another place i will have to put off to visit for some other day.
At the end of the trip, the poor guy had lost several kilos, missed his mummy and her food, had got severely tanned, was so sick of roti, sabji and daal and kept muttering he wanted chicken and was crying at the kolam he had become...i was really amused with his woes because i never felt any of it...wandering through so many places and situations, the last many years, had hardened me. I dont know when i'll venture out like this again...so many places still out there that entice me, so many years of life left, yet so little time for things like these. Pops calls me up a few weeks back and jokes..."i tell folks who inquire about you...avan civil service paditham onnumalla, Discovery of India ilaanu"!!!
Through Haridwar we reached Rishikesh and the faint beginnings of the Himalayas showed, besides for the first time in my life I set eyes on the Ganga. So majestic from afar, enjoying a position of superiority amongst all the rivers of India, but cursed with a people intent on destroying its aura. The sight of human refuse at the Triveni Ghat which looked so clean in the movies was jarring, the brown colour of the water was disconcerting...just for the sake of it we dipped our hands and feet...will that suffice for my sins to be forgiven?
From Rishikesh, we took a jeep to Dharasu, 100 kms away. The road here diverges into two...one to Uttarkashi, Gangotri and the other to Yamunotri. From Dharasu we get a mini-bus which dropped us at Barkot, the last village/town where civilization as you and i know it sort of ends. From there another mini-bus took us to Hanumanchatti, 80kms away where we decided to cool our heels for the night at a GMVN inn.The snap is from there.
We begin our trek from Hanumanchatti to Janakichatti, 9 kms away hoping a jeep wud pass-by. The scenery from here-on is absolutely breath-taking...the snap here shows Shan all-edgy, next to a cliff, with the Yamuna beneath in all raging fury, with me fumbling with the camera as always. We pass by several locals...all very people, infact we noticed all through uttaranchal the women were hard at work while men mostly hang around tea stalls.
We had walked 2kms and not a single vehicle was stopping for us. The place where we took this snap looked eerily similar to the ones in Yodha. We threw our bags to the floor here and decided to wait for a lift. I saw some kids hard at work here...we had not seen a single school for about 75 kms. Would people in Kerala be able to associate with something like that!
And Behold!...along comes a tractor and the good man in the pic takes us along. It must have been the bumpiest ride of our lives...but we enjoyed it immensely. After all, how many people get to travel on tractors when they are on vacation! The man wouldnt take any money from us...in contrast the rich jeepvalas where charging Rs.15 per head for traversing just 3-4 kms. He lets us off with a warning to watch out for stray rocks falling from above.
Shan mournfully mulls wetting his brand new sneakers...what the hell did he expect...a tarred road!!! The whole place was littered with marble rocks that came down in previous landslides. In that part of the Garhwal, the pavements and milestones are in marble...i sincerely hope quarrying is banned there knowing how expensive marble is elsewhere.
We reach Janakichatti where the road ends, and began a 5km grinding trek to Yamunotri. We huffed and puffed our way up in 3 1/2 hours upto what was a height of 5000mts. Yamunotri is for all purposes a pilgrimage, we had to keep greeting pilgrims with Jai Mata Di, Jai Yamuna Mata, and i forget the other slogans. Young men were taking pilgrims up on their shoulders, on palanquins and ponies which made us trekkers real miserable. The air was thin, we struggled to breathe, the temp must have been 2-5degs, the rain continued to irritate us and foiled our plans to trek further to SaptarishiKund 14 kms away where the actual glacier that feeds the Yamuna and overlooking a beautiful valley of flowers where a mysterious BrahmaKamal flower which has an intoxicating smell and in which Saraswati Devi supposedly resides. We stayed that night at the Kalindi Ashram hotel at Yamunotri and started our return journey the next morning.
If Yamunotri symbolized what must be the most beautiful creation of Nature we set our eyes on, we headed out next to Agra and the Taj where Shah Jahan gave expression to human creativity at its zenith, the sight of which totally blew us away. We were speechless, just gaping at the magnificence in front of our eyes, amazed at the power and the riches the Great Mughals commanded over India...Shan vowed that when he would marry, he would bring his wife here and promise her that he would build her a Taj in 10 years time! I was amused coz my dad used the same line with my mom when he built our home.
The Agra Fort was equally grand, and obviously more subjected to the ravages of consequent invaders like the Afghans, Marathas and the British. Agra was my opportunity to download all my history knowledge on poor Shan, and the good sport he is, was all ears to my chance to show-off! I was dejected to hear that Fatehpur-Sikri the ill-fated capital of Akbar was 80kms away...another place i will have to put off to visit for some other day.
At the end of the trip, the poor guy had lost several kilos, missed his mummy and her food, had got severely tanned, was so sick of roti, sabji and daal and kept muttering he wanted chicken and was crying at the kolam he had become...i was really amused with his woes because i never felt any of it...wandering through so many places and situations, the last many years, had hardened me. I dont know when i'll venture out like this again...so many places still out there that entice me, so many years of life left, yet so little time for things like these. Pops calls me up a few weeks back and jokes..."i tell folks who inquire about you...avan civil service paditham onnumalla, Discovery of India ilaanu"!!!
