Gaurikund to Kedarnath--May 2008 :-)

[This post is continued from my earlier post Gangotri to Gaurikund ]

We got down from our bus and bid bye to others in the bus. We would anyways meet them again as we all would trek up to the temple. I thanked god that we all reached safely and were ALIVE!! Also I hoped we don't have to travel with the same driver again in my life!!!

I was taken aback by the crowd I saw outside, because it was much more than that of Gangotri. We walked in search of a room to stay. It was getting tough to even walk with our bags, as there was lots of hassle-bassle with people walking in all directions in search of room. Due to the traffic jam, everyone like us, who were destined to reach on Sunday, happened to reach on Monday. Not to forget, people who were destined to reach on Monday anyways reached with us. So it was an over-crowded Monday- an ideal day for the room owners to mint money!!

We walked through the narrow streets , through the crowd, searching for rooms. As expected, wherever we asked, it seemed to be full. When we were hunting around, a person called us from his balcony telling there are rooms. We walked up to see the rooms. The rooms were actually not rooms, but "hard cardboard sheets, arranged to form a room" !!! And there only one common toilet for all the neighboring rooms. And he was charging 650 Rs for this. We walked off and then were called back again to show another small room, which had a small, low, attach bath. The roof was so low that we could not stand straight in it !!! We had a look at it, and it looked much better than previous one because at least it had strong looking walls!! We bargained and got it for Rs 600. We hired it for 2 days paying 1200 Rs.

Thank god , the beds were very dirty, else I would feel like resting a little bit in peace!! ;-) We got fresh and immediately bifurcated our luggage. We carried things required for our 14 kms trek to Kedarnath and our stay there for the night. After this, we went out to have lunch.

Gaurikund has its name because there is a Gauri temple near which there is a hot water "kund". The Kund gets its hot water from natural geo-thermal energy of the sulphur springs. Before lunch, Gautham was very keen about having his bath in the Kund. I was not very keen about it, as I was already feeling energy drained due to not having breakfast, and travel, and moreover, the crowd and hassle bassle, was making me feel my fatigue more. But still, I thought of giving it a try.

I went to ladies side of the kund which is covered with walls. I walked in through the crowd of ladies to have a look at the kund. The sight of kund gave me a shock and I thought taking bath here would be the last thing I would wish to do. Kund was full of ladies, fighting to have bath and some were just walking in it carelessly dashing and pushing everyone. Need not say lots of noise generated due to scolding each other. There were chappals floating in the small kund and also some pieces of cloth and plastic. I could not observe more , because I already started feeling that I will literally faint. The place was stinking, and mainly I was finding it tough to breathe due to the scarce oxygen in a small over-crowded covered room. I tried hard to get through the crowd and came out and started breathing. I told Gautham about my experience and that its impossible to take bath here.

Then I saw the men's side of the Kund. It was very clean and open and sun rays were hitting the water beautifully. There were many men (but less than half of number of women in ladies side), but all were systematically having bath one after another. I wondered why the ladies side of kund was so bad !!!

After he had his bath there, we had lunch at a dhaba nearby. Gaurikund is very commercial. Its not a big place, but no space is wasted. Any any any space, that is available is converted to a room or a dhaba. So wherever you walk, you see narrow 'gallis' with weirdly shaped structures on both sides.

We went to room, collected our lightened bags, left un-necessary stuff in the room and started off with our walk up to Kedarnath at 1.45 pm. I hated the first 1 km of our trek, because it was overcrowded- this time not only with people, but also with the mules (Its the cross between horse and a donkey).

I must mention here that during the yaatra season from May to November, thousands of Nepalis come here for occupation. They are mainly porters carrying people and luggage from Gaurikund to the top at Kedarnath. Most of them have mules, then some carry "Palanki"--a group of four porters carry individuals on a chair like thing on their shoulders...and then there are these "Pitthu" --its an individual, who carries another individual on a basket on his back. One can hardly find any non-Nepali porter. Need not say, the mules are mercilessly treated.

It was unpleasant in the first 1 km , with a porter coming to us at every step and and asking to choose any means of transport. And then there were these mules, just about anywhere. I had a major mule phobia that was making things worst. (Thats because back in Gangotri, when we were walking through the hills, 2 mules came running very fast, madly, out of no-where, towards me and had luckily suddenly stopped at only arms distance from me, when I screamed at top of my voice!!). And not to forget the odor of the excreta of thousands of mules, which seemed stronger than any of the anesthesia in the world.

We did not choose any of the means of transportation, because we had decided to walk up-"no matter what". Shiva is Gautham's "IshtaDev"-meaning most dear form of god. So we had made a self commitment of reaching the temple on foot.

Very soon the first 1 km was over and we were very happy, because, the porter and mule crowd was depleting and yeah, we were now breathing fresh clean air amidst beautiful mountain ranges. The next 2 km also went fine, we did not walk very fast, we just walked comfortably, but we were sweating badly due to the bright sun. Hence was covered the first three kms.

By this time, I got immune to the sight of the mule and hence lost my mule phobia. Mules were going up and down all the time carrying travelers. At some places on our walkway, there were no railings. Only at such points, we made sure we walked towards the side of the mountain and away from the open side. Because, the mules and porters always tend to dash you if you are on their way, specially those who are coming down, as they will be in good speed.

Since I was sweating , I took off my jacket and had hardly walked few steps after this , when suddenly the sun was gone behind the clouds. And in few more steps, we were shocked to feel rain drops falling on us. We entered a tea shop immediately and put on our rain-coats and started walking (We had carried rain-coats from Bangalore. We get thin,plastic, use and throw raincoats in GauriKund for a small amount, but I wonder it does any help) We also ate our first dosage of Glucon-D instant glucose, as we were feeling little tired with 3 km uphill walk.

Not caring for the light rain, we started walking with our raincoats on. But we had to get into a shelter soon, as it started pouring way too heavily. In no time, the shelter was over-crowded with people like us , seeking refuge from rain. Next to us was a porter and we told him , we are shocked by the sudden change, because less than 10 minutes back, we were sweating. He told that "Yeh toh pahaadi mausum hai...aage aage aur bigdega" -meaning this is the mountain weather, and it only gets worst as you climb high. We waited for 10 minutes for the rain to stop, but it showed no signs of slowing down. Instead we heard more thunderstorms and it poured even more heavily. And we could feel the sudden fall in temperature. Then came a Pitthu with a small 5 year old kid in his basket. The boy was crying loudly at the top of his voice, as he was totally drenched and obviously feeling cold.

We waited for 10 more minutes, but rains were just getting heavier and temperature was getting lower. We both had worn sports shoe, so we wondered, if it would be better to change to rainy chappals. We asked the porter next to us about it, and he told its better to retain our shoes. Even if it gets wet, it will be much warmer than the open chappals. We took his advice. We had already spent half an hour at the shelther, and the rain only seemed to be slightly lowered. Porter told us to continue walking, as one never knows when the rain stops. We thought he was right, and we got into the rain and started walking.

There were many like us, who were walking in rain. The mules and Palanki anyway don't stop in any condition....they just have to keep moving. We kept walking slowly in the rains. We could easily feel the temperature falling rapidly. In no time, our shoes were totally drenched and we could feel water rushing in it. Even though our raincoats were good ones, water just finds its way from anywhere. We could feel water trickling through different places and that it was slowly making us wet. Luckily , after walking for about 2 kms the rains reduced considerably.

Hence we completed 5 kms of our trek and we had 9 more kms to go. By this time, we were totally drenched. Specially our jean pants were dripping. We took another break and had another dosage of glucose. After relaxing for 5 minutes, we started walking again. By this time, it was just drizzling. Shortly, the drizzle was also gone. But the higher we reached, it was getting tougher to walk. Because it was more steep, more cold and mainly, the oxygen was depleting in higher altitudes. I was specially feeling it very tough to breathe and hence was feeling tired in just few steps. I kept walking slowly, and would rest for few seconds after few steps just to take a deep breath. So at snails pace, we finally reached Ramabada- a very small city like place exactly at halfway ie 7 kms after starting point.

We decided to take a break here and entered a tea shop. I was shivering. For a break, I took off my raincoat and wet jacket. I was shocked at the sight of seeing heat leaving my body. It was as if I was fuming all over!! I started shivering very badly. The tea boy gave very hot glass of tea in my hand, but my hand had gone so numb that, I could hardly feel the glass or the heat of it. I tried to hold the glass as tightly as possible, and after 2 minutes, finally I could feel a bit of heat. Just when I was feeling better, I saw a person come carrying his 5 year old son. I just could not see the way the boy was crying bitterly. He had totally gone numb...what they call 'he was totally bitten by cold'. The father took his son directly to the fireplace where they were making tea. The boy seemed to take long time to recover. Seeing the sight, I got very scared about hypo-thermia.


So I put on my woolen gloves. I had not put it on so far fearing , they will get wet and will be of little use. But now since it was only drizzling, I thought of putting them on. Gautham gave me his jacket, as he has huge capacity of bearing cold, unlike me. I put on that too and we started back with our walk. I was feeling much warm now, but I felt something really wrong with my legs. They had gone stiff in the nearly 20 minute break that we took !! I had to try really hard to force my legs to walk. I started chanting "om namah shivaya" with every step to give me the boost to carry on. I have bloated with 2 jackets and one raincoat!! Observe the snow capped peaks too.

We walked the next three kms slowly, putting all our energy and by highly depending on Glucon-D and reached the 10 km milestone!! We started observing many aged folks walking slowly but steadily with no signs of pain or tiredness. They reminded me of our farmer friends in the bus. I was worrying how they would walk up 14 kms. But here there were people like them, old and yet managing to walk much better than me. That too they were not having any winter gears or shoes like we had. I was ashamed seeing that 60 year old had way too much stamina than I had. They had a strong body which had toiled enough to withstand any kind of steep climb or any cold weather.

Happy that we had only 4 kms left to cover, we continued walking. The higher we went, the sights that we got to see, were just mind-blowing. But I could not enjoy them fully , because I was feeling it very difficult to climb. Time was nearing 6 in the evening and it was slowly getting dark and the major problem was , ice-cold winds started blowing as we got higher and it made it very tough for me to breathe. And my legs had gone totally numb by this time. It was as if, I had no legs at all below my hips. The only thing I could feel was bitter pain, each time I forced my legs to move ahead for every single step.

When situation was so bad, the only thing that was motivating me was chanting His name all the time. Gautham was also pretty tired and having the same problem with legs. Also the cold winds were beating him. He did not have a jacket too. But luckily, in spite of all this, he was able to breathe normally unlike me.

It was 7.00 and we had reached 12 km milestone. It had got dark by this time and winds were getting strong and bitterly cold. I asked Gautham to take his jacket, but he declined and told I need it more than him and he is fine. I had no energy left for any discussion too. I was way too tired. The only things I could feel was pain and cold. The thought of walking last two kms scared me, because I was feeling it really tough to walk even 2 steps. But we had no time to rest, as, the more slowly we walk, the more cold it gets. Also the more slowly we walk, the later we will reach Kedarnath, and it means more difficulty in finding rooms. And finding a room in Kedarnath was more important than finding a room anywhere else, as we cant spend the night on streets in sub-zero temperatures.

I have no words to describe the feeling I went through in the last 2 kms of our climb. The fear, the desperation, the helplessness, the pain !!! I was feeling like crying out loud, but crying would be the last thing my body would do, because, my body had no energy left for that too. !! Finally I GAVE UP and told Gautham "lets take a mule or palanki and reach Kedarnath soon, because at this pace, we wont reach there even till 10 o clock, and I cant imagine what we will do if there are no rooms there". Gautham kept motivating me to keep walking, but I kept telling him I can keep walking with all the pain, but I can't walk any faster.

We were walking in dark and there were few like us, having a tough time walking the last 2 kms which was steeper than earlier (or atleast I felt so). There were hardly any mules on the way, as they all had reached by dark. We met hardly two empty mules going down, but they refused to take us up, as they were themselves in a hurry to reach down. They told "zyada door nahin....aage samthal hai". Meaning its not too far, and there is no steep ahead.

So we had no other choice, but to walk. I thought its His wish, and accepted it and just asked His blesssing and strength in every step. Finally finally finally, we completed the last 2 kms in 2 hours (7 to 9) . I still remember each painful step of this last 2 km, and how much I had struggled to lift my feet in each of the steps. We finished our steep walk of 14 kms and next it was level ways. But it was pitch dark everywhere as there was no power there due to the rains. Our torch came to our rescue. We kept walking, in bitter cold and pain. We did not know how far we had to walk, as everything ahead was dark, and we could not see even a single source of light to indicate we had reached Kedarnath city.

I told Gautham that, no matter how un-reasonable or expensive, we are taking the first room available. Because neither me nor he had the energy to go in search of rooms in this dark.

After slowly walking for about 20 minutes, we could finally see dim lights and hear little bit of hassle-bassle. It was such a relief to see that we had finally reached our destination!! But we had no reason to rejoice, as we knew finding room would be really tough. Gautham went to a hotel and before he could enter, he was told its full. Then we walked little ahead, to another hotel. Gautham could not raise his leg to climb the high steps of the hotel. The person standing there signaled that there are no rooms. We just kept on praying that we get a room as we walked through the dark street only slightly illuminated by candles in tea stalls. The entire place had no power.

Words can do no justice for my fear then, about not finding a room. I seriously thought, we both will risk our life due to hypo-thermia. I felt more fear than I had felt earlier ,when our careless driver was driving high on edge of hills. I was feeling I will faint any moment, and knew that he too had no energy left to take care of me or vice-versa. I just kept on praying for room(which was our lifeline now), when suddenly, out of the dark, came a man with a torch, walking directly towards us. He came to us and asked "Apko rooms chahiye kya?? Ek family room hai paanch so rupayon mein". It was a sheer shock for us. In this dark, at 9.30 pm, when rooms are highly in demand, a person comes to us telling "Do you need a room, I have a family room for Rs 500!! " We agreed and he asked us to walk with him to the room. He started walking with normal speed, but we were too tired for it. I told him to walk slowly as I am not able to breathe. He told I must have carried camphor with me, as it helps a lot to ease breathing in high altitudes. After asking him to stop thrice for leg pain and breathing breaks, finally we reached the room he was talking about. It was a huge family room for 5 and the best room we ever had in this entire journey!! And he had sincerely charged us just 500Rs in this dark cold night!!! Even if he had charged anything much higher than double this rate, I am sure we would have agreed for it.

He gave us a lamp, and left the room. We immediately changed to dry clothes, at the verge of collapsing. We had no jackets or sweaters as everything had got wet in rain. (We actually had left few extra jackets back in Gaurikund room, because, we saw scorching sun back there and had not even imagined about getting rains here, and thought it would create unnecessary weights in our bags.) We were so tired that, we forgot hunger totally. Only thing we wanted to do was, crash on bed and get rest and warmth.

Luckily, we were provided with really thick blankets on the bed.We immediately got into them only to discover that both our bed and blankets are ice-cold. We had no other option, but to bear the cold blankets till they got warm with our body heat. But it took quite a long time for it to get warm and before that, Gautham started shuddering very badly. I got very nervous seeing it, because Gautham was always known for his capacity to bear extreme cold. Seeing him shudder, out of no-where, I got the energy to pull myself out of bed and search some balm like Vicks from bag. I applied it to his palms and feet and started rubbing furiously to generate heat. Luckily this worked and his shuddering slowed down. Then I got into the cold blankets again and waited for it to get warm.

Ahh....what a feeling it was when our body was slowly resting!!! When the blankets were slowly getting warm, I started thinking about the miracle that had just happened and tears just rolled down continuously from my eyes!!(It was as if, my body finally let go, all the tears it was holding back during our trek.) It was truly a miracle that when we were not having the energy to even walk up to a hotel and ask about rooms in dark cold night, a person himself comes to us to offer us a very nice room!! I truly felt it as His way of blessing us after completing our painful journey to His destination on foot. I could not stop my tears, then, for a long time, and even now as I write this, because, once again in life, I had truly felt HIS BLESSING!!!

[To be continued in next post ....]

Gangotri to Gaurikund - May 2008 :-)

[ This post is a continued from my previuos post Bangalore to Gangotri ]

Day 3:: May 23rd-Friday :: Gangotri- New Tehri

We rise at 6.00 am. The first thing I do is , open the door and catch the early morning view of the beautiful mountains behind our room ...all covered with fog and mist. Perfect way to start the day!! After getting fresh, we went to the bus stop and collected our tickets to Gaurikund (Kedarnath base camp) .We had paid little advance money previous day and made the booking. (Since traffic jams are very common here, tickets are issued, only after the bus arrives at the bus stop.) The person who issued the ticket told that, it will take one and half days to reach Gaurikund. He told there is an alternate shorter route, which takes only a days journey. But the bus does not take that route, because, there are more chances of landslides there, hence more chances of delays. He told the bus will go to Sri-Nagar by evening and after spending the night there, will continue next morning and reach Gaurikund by 3 in the afternoon. Since we had no time deadlines, we did not mind the bus taking the long route.

Our bus was scheduled to depart at 8.00 am. It was just 7.00 am. So we had enough time to complete one task which we forgot previous day. Its a ritual to carry Ganga jal from Gangotri and pour it on shiva ling during the pooja in Kedarnath. So we went to Ganga ghats of temple again, and collected Ganga Jal in a Bisleri bottle. Then we had breakfast at a roadside dhaba. We both had just recovered from viral fever and throat infection. We were still on anti-biotics. But the wonderful sight of many hot samosas frying in a huuuge kadai, just made us forget about everything and we thought "Lets go for it"!! When eating it ,we realized, it was totally worth it !! And I was shocked with what I was seeing. The man who was frying the samosas, was also making some dough and once in every minute, he was directly immersing his hand in the hot oil, boiling with the samosas!! I thought of asking him how he manages to do that, but then, he seemed to be too busy for it, so just started walking towards our bus.

When we reached our bus, we were shocked to see the crowd. The people in the entire bus, seemed to be from one family !!! And in reality, it was almost true. They were all farmers from a small village in UP...so almost like one big family. We had got the 2 seats in first row, right next to the front steps of the bus. We were very happy with our seats, because, it gave lots of leg space for our long legs!! There was one bengali family, in the cabin of the bus, on the long side seat near the driver. So apart from we two and the bengalis, everyone else in the bus, belonged to the farmers community. :)

So our journey was never silent. It was full time noisy. They were talking in the typical village style hindi...loud and clear enough for everyone in bus to understand. Some ladies were singing bhajans all day......and some were all time pulling each others legs with weird slogans and comments.....it was full day entertainment. I was again happy with our decision of choosing to travel on our own on these buses....because how else would I have this rare chance of observing people from different communities??

But soon....I started re-thinking if it was the right thing we chose to do!! Because, driver of our bus was very careless with his driving and he seemed highly frustrated. The entire journey between all CharDham is highly risky. As its all on highly curved roads, with a blind spot at every second, on very narrow and fragile roads, high on Himalayan ranges. This being the case, its very important to drive with high caution, honking at every curve without fail, and most importantly, driver has to keep a cool head all time. And when two buses face each other on road, the situation gets highly delicate, as the road is barely enough for two buses to pass. So the bus towards the mountain, gets as close to the mountain as possible, so that bus on the risky , open side has enough space to pass safely. This is the most common thing during the journey. The conductor of the bus, has a big role to play in such situation , as he has to guide the driver with how much space is left on the left hand side. Obviously, the driver cannot determine this , as he sits on the right hand side of the bus.

This being the case, our bus had highly dangerous combination of "frustrated driver with lazy conductor who do not trust each other" !!! Our driver was honking only once in 10 blind spots, our conductor was observing the left side and warning the driver only once in 10 delicate situation and even when the driver is warned not to come to left, he would not care and take the bus more to the left side.....taking the wheel sometimes on the last stone of the cliff!!!

I wished I had got a different seat. Because my journey was getting highly stressful just within 2 hours !! Our seat was on left hand side of the bus , next to the steps. So I could see very clearly when the wheels of our bus was almost in air !!! Also I could see the road ahead and the blind curves very well....and to make things worst, I could also listen to the driver-conductor conversation of anger and mutual dis-trust. I remembered all the wonderful, caring drivers and conductors of my previous journey and sent them a thank you in air and also a sorry for not realizing their importance earlier !!

Others in the bus too started feeling the fear. We all joined and told the driver to relax and drive carefully and honk at every curve. We tried telling it humorously, seriously, pleadingly.......but none of it worked. Infact, we felt he got more frustrated, so we gave it up. Then I just thought "Let him do his job, and I will do mine. I cant get out of the bus as no other buses are available from half way. So when there is no other option, let me try to enjoy this, I am sure god will save us". With this self conversation, I felt a little de-stressed and tried to stop my 'virtual-driving'. I then diverted my attention to nature...observing the beauty of wonderful ranges outside, the valley, the sky , the trees. I also started talking to Gautham about various topics on earth and Yeah....not to forget, In my mind, I started saying all the prayers I know :) Need not say, this really cooled me down !!!

Finally we reached Bhatwadi and stopped for lunch. After having a delicious baingan bhartha and dal roti, we started back in bus. In no time we reached Uttarkashi, but it started raining very heavily there. This was the last thing required to make our already bad journey, worst !! It was pouring and caused big traffic jams in Uttarkashi city. After about an hour of moving at snails pace, we got out of city and back to the curved roads of hills which were more dangerous due to the rains. I could again see stress building at the back of my mind and I tried best to suppress it. Luckily, the rain reduced and gradually stopped after about another hour.

Ohh...how could I forget to mention this!! Whenever any delicate situation arises, like our bus facing another bus, the villagers in our bus had a wonderful way of cheering up or I better say wonderful way of de-stressing. All scream at the top of their voice " Bolo Ganga maayi ki....Jai!!" "Bolo Kedar Baba ki ....Jai" ....and they would start singing some bhajans like "Aate hai bhagawan bhakthon dheer dharo" They seemed to be the most relaxed folks on bus !!! Lots to learn from them!!!

Our journey continued the same way, till evening. At 6.30 it started getting dark. Night driving is prohibitted everywhere on hills, obviously for the greater risks it involves. So we asked the conductor to stop at Chamba. But driver told he will stop at Nayi Tehri. So in the dark, from 7.00 to 8.00 the scary journey continued further and we finally reached Nayi Tehri. It was greatest relief to get down from the bus!! The place where we were taken, was not over-crowded by tourists. So for Rs 200 , we got a decent room. First reasonable priced hotel in our journey so far!! We had a nice dinner in a small dhaba, and slept at 9.00. After a highly stressful journey, It was a bliss to hit the bed and sleep. :)


Day 4 :: May 24th-Saturday:: New Tehri-AgasthyaMuni

Bus was supposed to start at 6.00. We were on time, but no one else came on time. The villagers started coming one by one slowly and the Bengali family were the last one to come. Most of the villagers were aged, and had a tough time climbing the steps of the bus. Since we were sitting near the steps, we helped most of them with their luggage, when they were climbing. I wondered how these aged folks will walk up 14 kms later during the day to reach Kedarnath temple !!

Our bus finally started at 7.00 am. Our driver seemed to be a little relaxed today. We were happy seeing that. When our journey started, we had wonderful sights of Tehri dam and our conductor was giving us the details. The city of Tehri was immersed in the dam. The entire city was re-constructed high on the hill again, and hence the name New-Tehri or Nayi Tehri.

A view of the Tehri Dam ....Hydro-Electricity projects are going on in full swing here.

The roads near Nayi-Tehri are very well constructed, as they have been done recently. The journey is very scenic , but its awesome to see how technology has been used to control nature. At some places, you see that Ganga is vanished. Thats because Ganges has been diverted entirely through huge tunnels hidden within the mountains!! We were also told that, the hydro-electric plants are all inside the mountains. So beneath the green sheet of trees , there lies multi-storeyed maze like structures, all inside the mountains!!! Amazing right??

So with all this discussion, and some nice bit of photography, we reached Sri-Nagar at about 11.00 am. Sri-Nagar is quite a big city with lots of schools and colleges. Our bus had just crossed the city and reached 3 kms ahead, when there was a "SURPRIIISE!! " . Our bus stopped at the side of the road and we got to know that there is a land-slide ahead and hence all vehicles blocked. We were not sure if it was rumor or truth, so we just waited for some more time in bus. After about half an hour, when there was no signs of traffic easing, we got down from bus. I was very hungry due to not having breakfast, so we thought of using this time for lunch!! But since we had come 3 kms ahead of city, there were no hotels/dhabas here. Going back to Srinagar would be stupidity, as if traffic eases, bus will move ahead. So we both started walking ahead and told the bus folks to pick us up on the way, if traffic eases.

In scorching sun, we started walking looking for Dhabas. We walked for about 1 and half kms, not finding even a single dhaba, but only ready made snacks shop. At about 12.00 traffic seemed to ease little, and our bus picked us from where we were. But in less than half a km ahead, traffic was stagnant again. We both again started our dhaba hunt, and luckily we found a place where there were a few dhabas.

We went in and had a yummy lunch. Roti, dal, sabzi!! And we were indeed very lucky, because just when we were having our lunch, many hungry stomachs came in search of food, and all were disappointed, because the food was empty. So we realized what we had just now was the last bit of food.

When we curiously asked Dhaba wala as to why he did not cook more, he told the jam is there from previous night after the rains, and so he has ran out of groceries to cook further. We realized that the traffic jam is far ahead than we had thought. It was 12.30 in the afternoon, temperature very high, roads were very very dusty. So we thought of spending some time in dhaba and sat there looking at the people walking here and there on road in search of food and drinking water. We were truly lucky to have lunch at right time.

We were wondering at the irresponsibility of the traffic police. The landslide happened previous evening and yet, traffic was not diverted before Sri-Nagar (There was an alternate route just before Sri-Nagar) Atleast traffic could have been with-held at Sri-Nagar to help people find food and water comfortably. Then we started laughing at the irony that, our bus driver had avoided all possible earlier shorter routes to escape landslides....and here we are, on the longest and so called safest route stuck up due to landslides!! There is no escape from nature !!!!

After about an hour, we heard rumors about traffic being eased. Even though we did not believe this much, fearing that we will miss our bus, we walked back to our bus. I got into the bus. Most of the women were in the bus and men were loitering outside.

Traffic jam actually helped breaking the ice between all of us!!! The Bengali family, the farmers family and I started interacting for the very first time. We all mutually spoke about the where-abouts of our families. Got to know that our guess that they were farmers was true. They told potato is their main produce. When I asked them why none of them had lunch, they told they all had home made dal snacks and also that they have enough food to survive even 4 days of traffic jam!! I was amazed!!!. We leave home thinking we have enough money to buy anything anywhere. They leave home making sure they don't have to buy anything anywhere.

Then our driver the great joined our conversation. When Bengali ladies asked him about the jam, he told "Yeh toh kuch nahin, pichle season toh hum aise hi ek hafthe raasthe par phass gaye thein"!! Meaning...."This is no big deal, last season, I was stuck in a jam like this on road for one week" !!! We all laughed out loud and the ladies asked him to shut his mouth and told "shubh shubh boliye" !!

This is the group of farmers from same village in our bus!!

We were done with our chit-chat and after that, time seemed to freeze. It was 4.00 in the evening and no signs of any traffic ease. Then it so happened that any silly event too, started entertaining all of us. May it be a small puppy running around on road, or may it be a big digger at the edge of the mountain digging stones and throwing in valley below it. After some time the farmers opened their food bags and they shared home made snacks with us too. They offered it with so much warmth that it was tough to decline it !!
Can You spot a yellow road digger doing its job??

Finally at 6.30 in the evening, traffic started moving!!! After few subsequent small jams, finally we passed through the land slide spot. Actually there were two land slides not very far from each other. So with this our 11-6.30 traffic jam came to an end :)
Long chain of vehicles waiting to move.

We were no doubt happy that traffic eased, but our real concern was about the drive ahead as it was getting dark. We all told conductor to stop at RudraPrayag overnight, as its quite a big city and so we can manage to get rooms and dormitories. When we reached Rudra-Prayag at about 7.30, it was over-crowded with vehicles. This was quite obvious, because all vehicles preferred it just like us. Our driver told that he will find it very difficult to park the bus here, so he told lets go ahead and check out.

We soon understood, it was a mistake that we let driver cross RudryaPrayag. The roads ahead were very very bad. I better say non-existant!! It was pitch dark and we could not see how high on hill we had come. And in this situation, when extra caution is required to drive, our driver started his weird behavior again. Whenever conductor warns him not to come further to the side, he had to come to the side to prove him wrong. There were so many times my heart literally skipped the beats. We stopped in between at couple of small hotels asking for rooms, but all of them were full. Then came Rampur, where everyone hoped to get rooms. There were rooms here, obviously over-priced. We both and Bengali family agreed, but the others in the bus did not like this place as the dormitories were also way too expensive. Since they were in majority, we had to oblige.

They told there is a place called AgasthyaMuni next where we have chances of getting rooms. So we started again, roads getting worst and driver getting more careless. I must admit, this was the most frustrating and scariest time of my entire journey. There was nothing to divert my attention from his driving, because all I could see was darkness outside. Traveling after 7.30 is banned in the hills for the obvious high risk it involves. I was asking Gautham how cum no one stops our driver even if its 8.15 !! There were hardly any vehicles on road. I was reaching heights of my patience and told Gautham that "Never ever will we travel like this again, because our lives are too good to give it in hands of such idiot drivers". Finally at 8.45 pm my prayers were answered and we saw police stop our bus near AgasthyaMuni. Ahh!! The sight of police had never bought so much happiness with it, as it did that day !! I was the happiest when the fence stopped us from moving ahead!!


We went out and saw that there are very few hotels there and all were full. We anyway had no hopes of finding rooms. We were absolutely okay with spending the night in bus. The Bengali family was quite desperate about not getting a room. They spoke to some govt officer there and he offered to give his room in his guest-house. There were two rooms and the Bengalis asked us to share it. But the price the officer was charging, was way above Un-reasonable, so we declined it and got excited about the never-before experience of spending night in a stationary bus ;-) Later got to know that the Bengalis too declined it. A man in their group told us "Deluxe hotel rooms are waiting for us in Gaurikund and we are sleeping on streets". They had done all the bookings previously.

And about our farmer friends. The moment they got down from the bus, most of them, especially aged ones, went to few closed shop corridors, opened their hand-made thin bed-spreads, opened their blankets and went for a cozy sleep!!! Sometimes I envy their simplicity !! Their requirements are so minimal and very little things to worry about in life. Again...Lots to learn from them !!!

We had dinner in a dhaba. Due to the un-expected crowd, our roti and dal was much like roti and water !! But we were so hungry that, it totally tasted like heaven!!

Ladies with young girls and small babies slept in the bus just like us. We locked the bus door for everyones safety (we were the door keepers ;-) and spent the night sitting on/below our seat. This experience still brings a smile on my face :)

Day 5:: 25th-Sunday :: AgasthyaMuni-Gaurikund

After a half-wake, half-sleep night, we waited for time to be 4.30 am. At 4.30 we walked out and woke up everyone from our bus sleeping at different places. Some on bus roof top, some on corridors, some in a dhaba and ofcourse some in bus. All got in and luckily, the bus started at 5.00 am as desired.

Driver stopped for tea at 6.30 am. But luckily or un-luckily, there was a borewell there and seeing this, most of the farmer friends got down from the bus with their tumblers, and also they started having their bath then and there and more-over few started washing their clothes !! Our driver kept honking for them to come back, but they had absolutely no reason to hurry, because they have no deadline to do anything !!! They are the most relaxed travelers!!! (In a way its good!!) Then the Bengali ladies started making lots of noise about the un-necessary delays and after this, they started getting back to bus one by one. So a 5 minute tea break , turned to 45 minutes tea break. I was wondering how we people from city are always getting late for one thing or other( its become a habit) and I pondered hard to find things for which these folks hurry in a village.

There was lots of small traffic jams of about half an hour at GuptaKashi and SonPrayag. To fill in anything missing, our bus hit a car slightly when one of the jams eased. All the four in the car got down and created a huuuuuuuuge drama about it. This created further traffic jam and police had to come to ask the car driver to move ahead with his car. We in the bus, started making fun of the entire situation and started laughing!!

So after all this never-before experience, we finally finally finally reached Gaurikund at 12.00 PM !!

[To be continued in my next post ....]