If I had done Har-Ki-Doon, today would have been the day that I would have descended from Sankri to Dehradun. The shorter Kedarkantha trek gave me a window to explore Yamunotri. The earliest bus to leave for Dehradun was scheduled at 7:00 AM. Shubhajit, Mahavir and me freshened up, packed our bags and woke Mohit … [Read more…]
During winters, the hotels do not have adequate staff to take care of the few rooms that are kept open. The room in which Mahavir and Gautam slept smelt a bit funny. Mahavir, who was in general a very well-dressed, cleanliness-seeking guy, complained about the smell. There wasn’t much that could have been done. We … [Read more…]
The sweet shop across the street was visible from our window. I saw them taking out a fresh batch of samosas and alerted Shubhajit. We had our breakfast—samosas and tea. It was in this shop that we met Prem Singh Rana—a frail looking man who smoked bidis with a shaky hand. He had been guiding, porting … [Read more…]
We packed all our stuff one last time, returned the micro-crampons and had some tea and pancakes for breakfast. It still amazes me how these guys were able to cook anything so tasty at that altitude, battling those dips in mercury. I would praise myself if I was able to cook anything at all. Once I … [Read more…]
I, along with the others in the group, had to wake up by 5:30 AM, freshen up, have breakfast and leave. I was not so confident about the state of my stomach but last evening’s dosage of Loperamide appeared to have done its job. I had no issues for the rest of the day. One of the trekkers was … [Read more…]
If waking up early in extreme cold was a problem, imagine the amount of pains I had to endure when I had to go for a pee at midnight! I was on a course Diamox. It was not necessary but it helped in acclimatisation. The compound, Acetazolamide, is a diuretic and caused me to rush to the toilet one … [Read more…]
Karthik came and woke us up at 7:00 AM. Today’s trek was supposed to be three-and-a-half kilometres only. We were served tea, followed by our breakfast. We were also given some roti and sabji which we had to pack in our tiffin boxes for lunch. Karthik called us all for briefing and slowly went through the … [Read more…]
Indiahike’s vehicles—a tempo traveller and two cabs—were waiting opposite to Dehradun Railway Station. I reached there by 6:30 AM. New Delhi to Dehradun – Nanda Devi Express, on which few trekkers would be arriving, was late by an hour. This delayed our start by another hour and half. The tempo traveller I was in had people from … [Read more…]
A visit to Tapkeshwar temple I had decided to take the day off from travelling in order to recuperate for the upcoming trek. Still, I couldn’t let myself from venturing out to Tapkeshwar temple—the other place mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide. One good thing about Dehradun was that most of the important places were … [Read more…]
It was still raining in Mussoorie, although the weather was not that bad as the last day. I packed all my stuff and left the Lonely Planet: India guide in the hotel room. I did not want to carry a bulky book now that I had two more interesting books with me. Prior to abandoning … [Read more…]
