Miles to go before I sleep - Part 9 - Back to Kasol

Disclaimer: This is not an instruction on how to do a Sar Pass trek. This is more about the experience of doing it. Each group and each member of each group has their own memories. These are mine :)


The preceding parts:
Part 1:

Miles to go before I sleep - Part 1
Part 2:
Miles to go before I sleep - Part 2
Part 3:
Miles to go before I sleep - Part 3

Part 4:

Miles to go before I sleep - Part 4
Part 5:
Miles to go before I sleep - Part 5
Part 6:
Miles to go before I sleep - Part 6
Part 7:

Miles to go before I sleep - Part 7
Part 8:
Miles to go before I sleep - Part 8

Return to Base Camp:

Day 10:

Woke up that day thinking we are returning to base camp today. It was mixed emotions. You don’t want to leave the mountains but you want to return back to civilization too and have a bath(It had been 6-7 days since last bath 

:( ). I remember having noodles for breakfast that day. We formed our lines, took the counts(Our number significantly reduced since many people had left the previous day) and we set off again, chatting, laughing, joking, the usual. We met some locals on the way, there was a man who had his baby tied to his back, saw some animals. One moment Naveen would be behind us and next, he would have reached ahead of us due to his superb trekking skills :). And walking along, we finally reached some civilization.

Back to civilization

We had to stop to let them pass

We had to walk through it to reach the Barshani Road head. I found walking on the roads irritating, I preferred the uneven earth. We were too tired by the time we reached the road. The plan was to travel via bus to Manikaren(17km) and then trek to Kasol Base Camp(5km). We decided not to wait for bus and booked a vehicle to take us directly to Kasol(We were too tired!). After we sat in the vehicle, about a 100 meter away was the parked bus and near it we saw the people who had reached earlier, amoung them Shyam, Yugi and Kalpit. I remember Shyam saying to us, “Saalo main tum logon ke liye bus chod ke yahan khada hu aur tum log mujhe chod ke jarahe ho” :D. We waved to him and left. Riding along we finally reached Kasol. Needless to say the accompanying scenery was good, but now that we had seen the higher Himalayas, this beauty looked quite ordinary :O. Its all about perspective after all.

Base camp again

When I saw the base camp, I felt like I had come back home :), even though we had stayed there for only 3 days before we lelft, and this was my 1^st visit to the place. Maybe it was the return to civilization and the crowd :S. Reached base camp all sweaty and dirty, after some time we were joined by the people who came in the bus. After doing the formalities, we chatted with the Field Director, our batch mates and now we were the ones giving advice and tips and tricks to the batches going next day :D :D :D. It feels great to do that. We are after all experienced now :P.

Lunch point in base camp

We soon had lunch and now the temperature of Kasol felt quite hot contrary to the cold we had felt when we had come here. But then again, that journey had been from Delhi up to Kasol, and this journey was from Sar Pass to Kasol(13800Ft to 6500ft). The water now was no more chilling, it appeared normal, it didn’t leave me numb now :D :D :D. Due to some reasons, we decided to check into a hotel that night instead of staying in the tent, and the others decided to do that too. We went out and met the rest of the gang in a café where the food was quite okay. We found a nice hotel and Nikhi and I checked into a room while the guys checked into the others in pairs. Amar decided to leave that day itself to Delhi after collecting her certificate. We went back to base camp for the valedictory function(Fire fire camp fire) and had fun shouting the nicknames as each of us were called. Only our group(nicknamed the tent 14 gang) was left for the function. Culprit gave some thank you speech and my name was spelled wrong in the certificate :(. Mithun Sir corrected it and gave me a new certificate and told us to add him to the Sarpass group that we would create for our batch :). 

10 days back we had come here with with expectations and hopes and of not knowing what exactly we would find. Now we had returned back, triumphed, having SarPass-ed successfully (Well that’s not the right word but I like to use it :P). The trek met my expectations more than ever, except for a snow fall :(. But probably, next time I would experience it. Oh yeah I want to return back again to do it  again and again and again:). I have fallen in love with the mighty Himalayas, its pure and unadulterated beauty, the delicious water (though the water taste of Belgaum comes 2^nd, which I always loved is now replaced with the taste of the roaring Parvati river), the joy of walking through the mountains and the snow, not a care in the world, the awesome friends I made there in such a short span of time whom I will cherish forever :), and as Calvin says, having made my knees green daily so that I need not re-examine my life :) :) :).

That ends my tale of Sar Pass trek but the journey doesn’t end here, I have an epilogue left (in which I am going to bore you with my love for Kasol) :P, so bear with me a little longer :P.

Thats all folks ;)

Miles to go before I sleep - Part 2 - Kasol

Disclaimer: This is not an instruction on how to do a Sar Pass trek. This is more about the experience of doing it. Each group and each member of each group has their own memories. These are mine :)


Part 1 preceeding this:
Miles to go before I sleep - Part 1

Kasol(Contd…)

At the entrance of YHAI hase camp

All the girls were assigned to tent 11 but we were the 1^st to arrive. We were soon joined by next character in this trekking tale: Amardeep. Nikhi and I had planned to go river rafting or para-gliding that day as we had the day off. But since river rafting involved dipping in water and as we were prohibited from doing that that day, it had to be cancelled. Since we had crossed breakfast time, we had some weird parathas in a small inn next door and Amardeep set off to Manikaren. Nikhi and I were still deciding what to do and finally set off to Manikaren too. We went in a govt tourist bus and the conductor didn’t take any money from us. One thing I regret is missing out sitting on the roof of the buses :(. Hopefully will do that on the future. The roads of Kasol are very narrow as it is at a height of 6500feet in Himalayas. Most of the times only one HTV can pass through it. The people driving through there do a superb job with a untold mutual understanding of stopping and letting others pass :). Only once did I see a traffic blockage there but more on that later. Anyways, we reached Manikaren and saw the Gurudwara. It was pretty crowded. We clicked some pictures of the surroundings, of each other and a dog :D.

Kasol

As we waited to board a bus it started raining. I don’t remember how heavy it was but as we saw on reaching the base camp that the snow on the Pin Parvati mountain peak had considerably increased in the evening (I forgot to mention we could see a snow capped mountain from our Base camp :) whose name we learnt the next day). In the bus we met Amardeep and we got down at Kasol market where we went to a bookstall ‘coz the shop name was in Hebrew. Kasol has a lot of Hebrew written all over for the loads of Isrealis who come there. I think after we reached base camp it rained heavily and in the evening, we saw the increased snow on the Pin Parvati mountain top. The temperature dropped and  I wore a sweater after years( I hate sweaters). That evening we participated in the electronic camp fire of the SP 21 batch by chanting “Fire fire camp fire”. This was the only thing that was a bit lame. After having hot cups of bournvita, we went to bed. Oh I forgot we had earlier collected rugs,inner sheet and a rucksack.Tried to sleep on the bumpy ground covered in socks and gloves(I don’t remember :S) and we were joined at night by some more tent mates from Mumbai. BTW they follow army like timing and the bulb in the tent goes off at 10.  So you can imagine what  a mess it was for everyone to settle sown in torch lights. The other members of the girls’ tent was a [Bengali] aunty (I still don’t know her name ) who always occupied the corner and 3 [Gujrati] Bhabhis who were cute to talk to.

At base camp with Pin Parvati mountain in the back ground

Day 2:

Woke up early, maybe 5.30 with sounds of a trumpet probably(I really don’t remember those details now :(). We ran (mostly walked) maybe half a kilometer to the exercise ground. Here we did some exercises with the SP 21 group. Among the guys who taught exercises was Laxman Sir whom we saw directing the blocked traffic once. We learnt that he was in the traffic police there :) . I don’t remember the other Sir’s name :(. After that we had breakfast and we bid farewell to the SP 20 batch. I took the video of the group leaving for a uncle who had asked me to do so. He had spoken to me at the mobile charging point. The charging point was where people told stories and rumours they had heard about the trek :D. I heard of a story where 1 guy  of SP14 batch fell in Nagaru after reaching the top due to his stupidity and they wasted 6 hours searching him in the snow. The returning batches gave tips too :D. So back to what we did. We went for the acclimatization walk in a single file with the girls leading the way. Two dogs accompanied us of which 1(whom we later named Pintya- charater 4) was to accompany us throughout the trek. The dogs knew the way and guided the ones at a loss for direction.

The acclimatization walk

Enter two more characters who introduced themselves as Sandeep and Sumit.(I had a hard time recalling these names :D as they later became Pradeep and Chatur). :D :D :D Don’t ask me why. In the end all had nicknames! After we reached the resting point, Amardeep took a nice nap on a stone while Nikhi and I went to the river. Now when I remember it, it makes me laugh. En route we got confused with the way as we saw some mules grazing. So we turned back then were joined by some other people from our batch and taking a long route reached the river. While coming back took the shorter route where the mules were and by then one of the sirs came to see where we were lost. Hehehe.

Reaching back to base camp we had lunch (The food there was so much more delicious than what we get in our cafeteria in office). The water there was ice cold and taking a shower felt like the water was taken out of the freezer. It leaves you numb! Later that day, we had the orientation where the Field director told us all we needed to know. He said we would not be taking a bath now from the time we went to higher camp to the time we came back to Kasol i.e., 6 days :O :O :O :O :O. Our jaws dropped too to the ground and due to the non-concrete ground went an inch or so deep in the earth! He also told some interesting tales of Malana and the history of Manikaren and about Pin Parvati mountain, its 2 peaks being Paap and Punya. We all introduced ourselves and I remembered very few names in the end. But atleast now the faces of our batchmates were known. We had a Keerthi and Kirti in our batch. Funny thing I remember about that was at the end Nikhi said to me “Both Keerthi’s look so similar” and I said “Which 2 Keerthis? There is only 1 Keerthi”.  This was the 1st time I met a guy named Keerthi(I knew many girls of that name before), and on 1 single day I met not just 1 but 2 :D. Neither did we know then what a superb photographer he is nor did I have any idea how difficult it would be to get photos from him later :S

(Note: Keerthi finally mentioned you :P)

At tea time, Kalpit(who was obviously gonna become Culprit) the cultural leader along with Ashwyn came along asking if we knew to sing. I told Nikhi was a good singer and these guys asked me to sing as well. I told them if I sing people are gonna jump in the Parvati river next to the base camp, I after all have such superb singing talents :D.

Evening we went out to Kasol village to buy some stuff. I had no idea then how much I was gonna love that place. It’s a beautiful village :). We met some more batch mates then and after dinner it was our turn to perform the cultural event(fire fire camp fire). Along with Nikhi’s solo we sang a group song in which I did lip sync. Keerthi began the event with a nice classical song (will check with him regarding the song and update it) and Chatur told some PJs one of which was on the field director(Hau) :D :D :D.

Menu outside a restaurant on the way to the rock climbing venue

Day 3:

After the exercise with SP23 batch, we had rock climbing at which I was terrible but it gave us time to know our batch mates better who were now our friends. By now we knew Shyam(another awesome photographer) who would later become Sherpa :D, Naveen who we later saw was as good as a mountain goat while climbing :), Nirav who became Ghajini :D , Jai Kanth,  Rajnikanth uncle, Pranav, Manju, Sudhakar, Yugi, the Mumbai gang, the group from Gujrat etc. Now we had lunch in groups with the new friends we made and one of us kept watch whenever we got hold of a charging point. In the afternoon we had Rapelling which I loved. Evening again was spent in Kasol buying poncho and stuff after we handed extra luggage. I struggled to reduce my rucksack weight (I had taken too much stuff :().

After dinner was camp fire organized by SP 23 batch.

We went to bed that night thinking that tomorrow we are leaving for higher camp :).

Thats all folks ;)