Bidding farewell to Yuksom and Gurung with a heavy heart, I got onto the front seat of the car, that would take us back to NJP (New Jalpaiguri) railway station. Slowly I drifted off to reminiscing the last 10 days I have spent with the gang for the Goecha La trek. The gang...Sunand, Vikas, Rajesh, myself and Balaji. Lets not forget and exclude our trekking support stuff from the gang. Gurung, the guide and our big brother for the entire trek, BB (Bir Bahadur) - the chef, Ashish, Dawa, Sonam and last but not the least our Mules and Yak manager Monikumar.
Well, bit of a background. My office has the policy on leaves as "take it or loose it". Since I didn't take many leaves throughout 2010, I was left with a month long vacation towards the end of the year. The whole month of November was mine. And for a change, my wife couldn't take leave from her office for us to go somewhere together. I was least interested to sit at home for the whole month and hence was looking for a trip to mountains. While searching through Google, I came across Sunand's website. Sunand used to work in corporate offices, but got frustrated and gave up his job to live through his passion...travel, trekking and adventure. I first met Sunand about 2 months back at a CCD to give him some booking money for my trek. I have to admit, Sunand's appearance impressed me the least. I was really nervous how capable he would be to be the leader of this trek. My wife Anindita was with me during my first meeting with Sunand. Although she didn't say anything, I could read her face and I knew she was thinking exactly the same as me. Sunand, no offense mate. I am being honest here. However, got to say, both me and my wife were impressed that Sunand could muster the courage to bid goodbye to the jazzy and shiny corporate world and choose something interesting as a career option. Later me, Vikas, Sunand, Balaji and Rajesh met once more at Java City in Bangalore when Sunand briefed us about the trek, the Do's and Don'ts. This is when I heard about the fingertip oxy-meter for the first time. It measures the level of oxygen in the blood through non intrusive method. You have to just put your index finger into it. We used it during our trek once for real measure and then again for some fun. I would mention those events during the course of my day-to-day description of the trek. Well, enough of background given. Lets get moving.
Day 1 - 6th November 2010
This was quite a long day for me. Previous day was Diwali and my friend Anirban came over to ours (in Bangalore) for burning crackers and eating together. We had some real good fun, but it meant I didn't sleep till 1am and I had to get up at 4am to catch my early morning flight to Kolkata. Reached home in Kolkata around 10:30am and then after some last minute shopping, I drifted off to sleep while my mom was nursing my right leg where I pulled a muscle somehow that morning. 8pm and I finished my early dinner and was ready to move.
I was really excited. My first ever Himalayan trek, that too 12 days long. I was a bit nervous as well. Shall I be able to do it? Also, first time ever since my marriage that I was going on a trip alone...not with my darling wife. Well, we both like to travel like freaks. However, I particularly chose this trek to console ourselves that even if she could take leaves, she would not be able to do this trek as its quite challenging physically. So, I am not going to a place that she could make it otherwise. Just a bit of consolation for us folks, don't mind.
Anyway...took a taxi and reached Sealdah station around 9:30pm. We were catching Darjeeling Mail to NJP, our gateway to Sikkim. I met the gang from Bangalore here again. We were scattered all over the train with our seats since our tickets were confirmed from waiting list. Nevertheless, we boarded the train and that was that for the first day. The train would reach NJP next morning around 8am. Tired head to toe, I submitted myself to sleep after a while. Well, we were traveling in sleeper class (non AC) and it was my travel in sleeper after a long long time. I was having a mixed reaction in my mind. I was really appreciating the open air passing through the compartment, but the noise level was pretty high and also the openness of the compartment was making me a bit scared of loosing my valuables while I slept. That resulted in torn sleep throughout the night. I remember I got up when the train reached Bardwan and I got off the train to have a cup of tea in earthen cups. When the train started, I drifted off to sleep this time not to wake up till next morning. End of day 1.
I was really excited. My first ever Himalayan trek, that too 12 days long. I was a bit nervous as well. Shall I be able to do it? Also, first time ever since my marriage that I was going on a trip alone...not with my darling wife. Well, we both like to travel like freaks. However, I particularly chose this trek to console ourselves that even if she could take leaves, she would not be able to do this trek as its quite challenging physically. So, I am not going to a place that she could make it otherwise. Just a bit of consolation for us folks, don't mind.
Anyway...took a taxi and reached Sealdah station around 9:30pm. We were catching Darjeeling Mail to NJP, our gateway to Sikkim. I met the gang from Bangalore here again. We were scattered all over the train with our seats since our tickets were confirmed from waiting list. Nevertheless, we boarded the train and that was that for the first day. The train would reach NJP next morning around 8am. Tired head to toe, I submitted myself to sleep after a while. Well, we were traveling in sleeper class (non AC) and it was my travel in sleeper after a long long time. I was having a mixed reaction in my mind. I was really appreciating the open air passing through the compartment, but the noise level was pretty high and also the openness of the compartment was making me a bit scared of loosing my valuables while I slept. That resulted in torn sleep throughout the night. I remember I got up when the train reached Bardwan and I got off the train to have a cup of tea in earthen cups. When the train started, I drifted off to sleep this time not to wake up till next morning. End of day 1.
Day 2 - 7th November 2010
The day started with us reaching NJP around 8am. The car was already there waiting outside the station to pick us up and take us to Yuksom, our base camp, which is 140 kilometers distant. However, we all wanted to get freshen up first before we started our journey. With our driver's suggestion, a room was taken in the Hotel Hillton nearby the station. Well, don't go by the name guys. It was one of We dumped most of our baggage in the car and took just the ruck sack with us to the hotel. After we were done with freshening up, we chose one of the many mini hotels opposite the station for our breakfast. We were quite hungry by now and treated ourselves with some tasty alu paratha etc.
Once done, about 11am, we started our journey towards Sikkim. Our car soon left the twin city of NJP and Siliguri and we were on the highway going through the Mahananda Reserve Forest. But hey, not too fast. Our journey came to a grinding halt sooner than we expected. Puncture!!! So, we had to halt twice. First, the driver and his assistant changed the tyre and then the driver stopped at a puncture repairing shop to get the punctured tyre repaired as we won't get many shops later on our way.
We lost about an hour and half before we started again towards Yuksom. It was about 1:30pm when we reached Jorthang, a beautiful quiet small buzzing city in the middle of hills. We stopped for lunch at Destiny, a small restaurant where we filled ourselves to be able to sustain till we reach Yuksom. This would be our last stop before Yuksom...well, theoretically. After leaving Jorthang around 3pm, we were asking the driver to stop at almost every turn of the road to capture the beautiful sceneries that were appearing one after another as we moved closer to Yuksom. I took the below shot during this ride.
It was about 7:30pm in the evening when we reached Yuksom via Nayabazar and Rangpo. It was already dark, but thankfully electricity was there and we stopped right in front of the hotel Sunand or rather Gurung booked for us. We were realizing that the weather was getting colder as our car kept climbing towards Yuksom. But we were inside the car and didn't realize exactly how cold it was getting. We realized it fully when we got off the car in front of the hotel. Well, we had just a T-shirt on each of us and we kind of hurried inside the hotel to fend off the cold. The hotel we stayed in is a family run hotel, small but very very tidy and clean. The rooms were at the basement. I got to share one room with Rajesh while Vikas was sharing with Sunand and Balaji got one room to his lone self. We were all happy with the room distribution.
Rajesh and I are photography enthusiasts. So, we changed into a bit of warm clothes and after a cup of hot steaming coffee, we were out to take snaps of the night. Let me explain the location of Yuksom a bit here...or rather explain the geography. All the big city/place names we have heard of in Sikkim are all placed on top or almost top of a hill each. These are smaller hills of course as compared to the ones that surrounds these places. So, like Yuksom is placed at an altitude of 1880 meters on top of a hill, we were able to see Pelling, a much brighter patch on the hill opposite Yuksom...or shall I say on the hill that was on South East corner as seen from Yuksom. Pelling being a much bigger and more commercialized town, the amount of light visible were quite bright. Anyway...me and Rajesh went out with our head lamps, SLRs and Tripods hoping to be able to click some good night shots. Vikas came along as well.
We walked down the road a bit and found a clearing where the vision was not interrupted by any bush. We arranged our cameras on the tripods and were trying our photography skills. Alas..we were caught in a very funny situation. A constable was returning from his duty (I don't remember his name although he announced his name quite a few times as he "caught" us) in the dark and saw us in the dark and immediately assumed that we were up to some unscrupulous activities. He never imagined that in such cold weather we could be there to take photos of lights visible on other hills around. Anyway, he thought he has struck gold by catching three terrorists all by himself. Next half an hour was real tough for us convincing him who we are and what we are up to. Anyway, after a lot of pumping his ego and a lot of lecture from him (on how this border area is full of terrorists and how people like him are fending off those terrorists), we were finally let go. But the mood of photography was lost by then as we spent all our patience for that constable. We soon headed back to the hotel.
The take away from this incident was, though, whole Sikkim being a border area of 3 countries (India, Nepal and China), you better keep your identity proofs always with you. It would be handy in such situations. That's how we could prove to that constable that we were good guys and were up to no bad. Well, as we reached hotel, sumptuous dinner was waiting for us. We ate to our satisfaction and retired for the day in our rooms. Next day would be an acclimatizing day and we shall spend the whole day in Yuksom itself. I and Rajesh decided to get up early next day to capture some sunrise snaps. Soon we all drifted off to sleep. End of day 2.
Day 3 - 8th November 2010
As decided last night, me and Rajesh woke up around 5 in the morning and were disappointed that the darkness of the night was already gone and the sky is already announcing the arrival of sunrise shortly. We hurried to get ready and scampered out of our room with the camera, running with the hope to be able to capture some really good sunrise shots. Vikas also joined us in the foray. Well, a really pleasant surprise was waiting for us. We didn't realize at night what a beautiful location our hotel was located at. Misty Mount Kabbur gives a fantastic view from the whole Yuksom and the view we saw from the roof of the hotel was best of the lot. Here are two pics of the mountain taken during different phases of sunrise.
While you cherish these snowy mountain pics, let me show two awesome sunrise pic that I managed as well.
Our eyes feasted on the beautiful scenery around until 7am when we felt the necessity of some steaming coffee. We headed back to hotel. Just then, I realized something that made my mood very very sour. Well, I borrowed my friend Sayantan(da)'s SLR and instead of giving me the 4GB memory card, he has mistakenly given me a 1GB card and until now I was using the RAW mode to take the photographs. As you might be aware, the size of raw photos are huge and it already filled 90% of the memory card. So, I had to take two very hard steps. First, switched the mode from raw to JPEG and also deleted some duplicate shots that I took so far. I had to be very very choosy while taking photos for rest of the trip. What a pity. I could have killed Sayantan(da). Yuksom is not a big enough place to find flash memory card at the corner shop. Anyway...will see how it goes....
Day 3 was an acclimatization day for us. We have already reached an altitude of 1850 meters or almost 6000 feet which is quite a high altitude. The plan was to explore Yuksom to get better acclimatized. Gurung told us about visiting the Dubdi Monastery which is an hour's walk from Yuksom. Dubdi monastery is one of the oldest monasteries in Sikkim, built in 1701, standing on a spur at an altitude of 7000 feet. Sunand and Vikas were going to the check-post office of Yuksom to get the permits for our trek. So, Rajesh, Balaji and myself started for Dubdi around 10am after a huge breakfast and hot water bath. After walking about 20 mins from the hotel on plain, we started our climb towards the monastery. Well, after climbing for a while, I started feeling the heat. The climb was pretty steep and I was not taking it easy. Soon I realized, unless I go slow and stop catching up Rajesh and Balaji, I am not gonna make it. But it was kind of embarrassing for me to fall behind although I knew Rajesh and Balaji are seasoned Himalaya trekkers. So to avoid the embarrassment, I started taking longer photography breaks. (Laugh)...The snap below would give you an idea about the steepness of the path.
Anyway, after a bit of huffing and puffing, I reached the top of the hill where stood the beautiful Dubdi Monastery. Inside was even more beautiful. It had excellent paintings on the wall inside and a huge collection of manuscripts. We were mesmerized. After staying there for about half an hour and taking pics to our hearts content and also feasting upon the beautiful panoramic view from the top, we started coming back. And only then I realized that I am a great descender. It could be a common (mis)perception that climbing is tough while descending is easy. Well, from this trek, I learned that descending could be equally or at times more challenging than climbing. Not only it is difficult to keep your balance while coming down along steep downhill, it is also quite a stress on your knees. I think I have a good pair of knees. I did very well while climbing down and was first to reach the spot where we started climbing from. My embarrassment reduced a bit. We met Sunand and Vikas here as well. They came back from the check-post and were on their way to Dubdi. We three started towards the hotel....Also, after this climbing experience, my mind was ready to accept if I had to turn back from the middle of the trek for my body or rather lung not permitting the steep climb. Mountain teaches you to be reasonable!!
Just when my mind and body were relaxing, and incident happened that shook me a bit. I almost got killed here!!! A bunch of Yaks were going towards the climbing path and I stood at the side of the path to give them the way. But one of them came towards me with the horn pointing to my kidney. I literally had to hold the horn and force it to other direction. The owner of the Yaks also came calling it. Phew...that was a close shave. Vikas pointed out my red T-shirt as the cause for the Yak coming towards me. Anyway...I was still alive and kicking...
Just before lunch, Vikas came back from the monastery with his shoe sole totally opened!!! Thank god it opened here and not after we started our real trek. So, after lunch, shoe hunting started in the little town of Yuksom. After harassing a lot of shop owners for a long time, Vikas finally decided to take one shoe on rent. It was old and worn, but still looked strong for the 9 days of trek. Gurung must have gone crazy by now for the number of options he shown to Vikas within that small town and his facial expression was clearly as begging Vikas to choose one at the earliest. (Laugh).....
We spent the evening packing for our trek. It was more of shifting our necessary stuff in the back-pack while other necessary stuff were packed in the big ruck-sack. This big ruck-sack would be borne by the Yaks or Mules. After dinner, Sunand and Gurung explained us the overall trek plan and also the in-detail plan for the first trekking day. Gurung did this for rest of the trek. Every night, after dinner, he would tell us about the terrain for the next day with estimated trek time and plan. It was decided that Gurung would be the trek leader and would be along with the faster guys while Sunand would be behind the slowest. This way the whole team would be safe. We all agreed to this plan. I personally liked the plan for it was broken into smaller treks every day and spread out over 5 days climb and 3 days descend. Satisfied with full stomach, we retired to sleep for the day. Next day, our great journey starts. Day 3 of our trip was over.
Day 4 - 9th November 2010
The big day of our trek. The start of a fabulous journey. We got up early and took bath for it would be sometime before we get the next bath...till we come back to Yuksom at least.
Once done, about 11am, we started our journey towards Sikkim. Our car soon left the twin city of NJP and Siliguri and we were on the highway going through the Mahananda Reserve Forest. But hey, not too fast. Our journey came to a grinding halt sooner than we expected. Puncture!!! So, we had to halt twice. First, the driver and his assistant changed the tyre and then the driver stopped at a puncture repairing shop to get the punctured tyre repaired as we won't get many shops later on our way.
We lost about an hour and half before we started again towards Yuksom. It was about 1:30pm when we reached Jorthang, a beautiful quiet small buzzing city in the middle of hills. We stopped for lunch at Destiny, a small restaurant where we filled ourselves to be able to sustain till we reach Yuksom. This would be our last stop before Yuksom...well, theoretically. After leaving Jorthang around 3pm, we were asking the driver to stop at almost every turn of the road to capture the beautiful sceneries that were appearing one after another as we moved closer to Yuksom. I took the below shot during this ride.
It was about 7:30pm in the evening when we reached Yuksom via Nayabazar and Rangpo. It was already dark, but thankfully electricity was there and we stopped right in front of the hotel Sunand or rather Gurung booked for us. We were realizing that the weather was getting colder as our car kept climbing towards Yuksom. But we were inside the car and didn't realize exactly how cold it was getting. We realized it fully when we got off the car in front of the hotel. Well, we had just a T-shirt on each of us and we kind of hurried inside the hotel to fend off the cold. The hotel we stayed in is a family run hotel, small but very very tidy and clean. The rooms were at the basement. I got to share one room with Rajesh while Vikas was sharing with Sunand and Balaji got one room to his lone self. We were all happy with the room distribution.
Rajesh and I are photography enthusiasts. So, we changed into a bit of warm clothes and after a cup of hot steaming coffee, we were out to take snaps of the night. Let me explain the location of Yuksom a bit here...or rather explain the geography. All the big city/place names we have heard of in Sikkim are all placed on top or almost top of a hill each. These are smaller hills of course as compared to the ones that surrounds these places. So, like Yuksom is placed at an altitude of 1880 meters on top of a hill, we were able to see Pelling, a much brighter patch on the hill opposite Yuksom...or shall I say on the hill that was on South East corner as seen from Yuksom. Pelling being a much bigger and more commercialized town, the amount of light visible were quite bright. Anyway...me and Rajesh went out with our head lamps, SLRs and Tripods hoping to be able to click some good night shots. Vikas came along as well.
We walked down the road a bit and found a clearing where the vision was not interrupted by any bush. We arranged our cameras on the tripods and were trying our photography skills. Alas..we were caught in a very funny situation. A constable was returning from his duty (I don't remember his name although he announced his name quite a few times as he "caught" us) in the dark and saw us in the dark and immediately assumed that we were up to some unscrupulous activities. He never imagined that in such cold weather we could be there to take photos of lights visible on other hills around. Anyway, he thought he has struck gold by catching three terrorists all by himself. Next half an hour was real tough for us convincing him who we are and what we are up to. Anyway, after a lot of pumping his ego and a lot of lecture from him (on how this border area is full of terrorists and how people like him are fending off those terrorists), we were finally let go. But the mood of photography was lost by then as we spent all our patience for that constable. We soon headed back to the hotel.
The take away from this incident was, though, whole Sikkim being a border area of 3 countries (India, Nepal and China), you better keep your identity proofs always with you. It would be handy in such situations. That's how we could prove to that constable that we were good guys and were up to no bad. Well, as we reached hotel, sumptuous dinner was waiting for us. We ate to our satisfaction and retired for the day in our rooms. Next day would be an acclimatizing day and we shall spend the whole day in Yuksom itself. I and Rajesh decided to get up early next day to capture some sunrise snaps. Soon we all drifted off to sleep. End of day 2.
Day 3 - 8th November 2010
As decided last night, me and Rajesh woke up around 5 in the morning and were disappointed that the darkness of the night was already gone and the sky is already announcing the arrival of sunrise shortly. We hurried to get ready and scampered out of our room with the camera, running with the hope to be able to capture some really good sunrise shots. Vikas also joined us in the foray. Well, a really pleasant surprise was waiting for us. We didn't realize at night what a beautiful location our hotel was located at. Misty Mount Kabbur gives a fantastic view from the whole Yuksom and the view we saw from the roof of the hotel was best of the lot. Here are two pics of the mountain taken during different phases of sunrise.
While you cherish these snowy mountain pics, let me show two awesome sunrise pic that I managed as well.
Our eyes feasted on the beautiful scenery around until 7am when we felt the necessity of some steaming coffee. We headed back to hotel. Just then, I realized something that made my mood very very sour. Well, I borrowed my friend Sayantan(da)'s SLR and instead of giving me the 4GB memory card, he has mistakenly given me a 1GB card and until now I was using the RAW mode to take the photographs. As you might be aware, the size of raw photos are huge and it already filled 90% of the memory card. So, I had to take two very hard steps. First, switched the mode from raw to JPEG and also deleted some duplicate shots that I took so far. I had to be very very choosy while taking photos for rest of the trip. What a pity. I could have killed Sayantan(da). Yuksom is not a big enough place to find flash memory card at the corner shop. Anyway...will see how it goes....
Day 3 was an acclimatization day for us. We have already reached an altitude of 1850 meters or almost 6000 feet which is quite a high altitude. The plan was to explore Yuksom to get better acclimatized. Gurung told us about visiting the Dubdi Monastery which is an hour's walk from Yuksom. Dubdi monastery is one of the oldest monasteries in Sikkim, built in 1701, standing on a spur at an altitude of 7000 feet. Sunand and Vikas were going to the check-post office of Yuksom to get the permits for our trek. So, Rajesh, Balaji and myself started for Dubdi around 10am after a huge breakfast and hot water bath. After walking about 20 mins from the hotel on plain, we started our climb towards the monastery. Well, after climbing for a while, I started feeling the heat. The climb was pretty steep and I was not taking it easy. Soon I realized, unless I go slow and stop catching up Rajesh and Balaji, I am not gonna make it. But it was kind of embarrassing for me to fall behind although I knew Rajesh and Balaji are seasoned Himalaya trekkers. So to avoid the embarrassment, I started taking longer photography breaks. (Laugh)...The snap below would give you an idea about the steepness of the path.
Anyway, after a bit of huffing and puffing, I reached the top of the hill where stood the beautiful Dubdi Monastery. Inside was even more beautiful. It had excellent paintings on the wall inside and a huge collection of manuscripts. We were mesmerized. After staying there for about half an hour and taking pics to our hearts content and also feasting upon the beautiful panoramic view from the top, we started coming back. And only then I realized that I am a great descender. It could be a common (mis)perception that climbing is tough while descending is easy. Well, from this trek, I learned that descending could be equally or at times more challenging than climbing. Not only it is difficult to keep your balance while coming down along steep downhill, it is also quite a stress on your knees. I think I have a good pair of knees. I did very well while climbing down and was first to reach the spot where we started climbing from. My embarrassment reduced a bit. We met Sunand and Vikas here as well. They came back from the check-post and were on their way to Dubdi. We three started towards the hotel....Also, after this climbing experience, my mind was ready to accept if I had to turn back from the middle of the trek for my body or rather lung not permitting the steep climb. Mountain teaches you to be reasonable!!
Just when my mind and body were relaxing, and incident happened that shook me a bit. I almost got killed here!!! A bunch of Yaks were going towards the climbing path and I stood at the side of the path to give them the way. But one of them came towards me with the horn pointing to my kidney. I literally had to hold the horn and force it to other direction. The owner of the Yaks also came calling it. Phew...that was a close shave. Vikas pointed out my red T-shirt as the cause for the Yak coming towards me. Anyway...I was still alive and kicking...
Just before lunch, Vikas came back from the monastery with his shoe sole totally opened!!! Thank god it opened here and not after we started our real trek. So, after lunch, shoe hunting started in the little town of Yuksom. After harassing a lot of shop owners for a long time, Vikas finally decided to take one shoe on rent. It was old and worn, but still looked strong for the 9 days of trek. Gurung must have gone crazy by now for the number of options he shown to Vikas within that small town and his facial expression was clearly as begging Vikas to choose one at the earliest. (Laugh).....
We spent the evening packing for our trek. It was more of shifting our necessary stuff in the back-pack while other necessary stuff were packed in the big ruck-sack. This big ruck-sack would be borne by the Yaks or Mules. After dinner, Sunand and Gurung explained us the overall trek plan and also the in-detail plan for the first trekking day. Gurung did this for rest of the trek. Every night, after dinner, he would tell us about the terrain for the next day with estimated trek time and plan. It was decided that Gurung would be the trek leader and would be along with the faster guys while Sunand would be behind the slowest. This way the whole team would be safe. We all agreed to this plan. I personally liked the plan for it was broken into smaller treks every day and spread out over 5 days climb and 3 days descend. Satisfied with full stomach, we retired to sleep for the day. Next day, our great journey starts. Day 3 of our trip was over.
Day 4 - 9th November 2010
The big day of our trek. The start of a fabulous journey. We got up early and took bath for it would be sometime before we get the next bath...till we come back to Yuksom at least.
