All first times are special like a first love, first job,
first salary, and first bike and first whatever …
My first Himalayan experience has been extremely special as well. Himalayas have been a benevolent teacher to me forgiving my many numerous Himalayan blunders.
My first Himalayan experience has been extremely special as well. Himalayas have been a benevolent teacher to me forgiving my many numerous Himalayan blunders.
It was in Apr 2012 that I experienced Himalayas for the
first time in an Yhai’s cycling trip in Himachal Pradesh - from Aut to Jalori
Pass. But it wasn’t the first time I was in Himalayas. I’d been there twice
before on hop on and hop off family trips to Kashmir and Himachal, but being
there and experiencing it are two different things. At that time, I had been training hard for a
mountaineering course with one hour of aerobics and one hour of gym every day
for 6/7 days a week for months together. I had also trekked across the Western
and Eastern Ghats covering Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. I
was to go to Darjeeling for my mountaineering course then, but due to some
constraints at work I renegotiated a compensatory vacation to Himachal for
delaying my mountaineering training by a few batches. Due to my rigorous
training, I was super confident that cycling in the Ghat roads of Himalayas
would be a cinch. The only knots in my stomach were that I was travelling alone
up north to a place I didn’t know the place, the language, or a single soul
around. And it also turned out that I was the only girl in my batch. Life is weird. It turned out that all things
I was afraid of turned out to be great and all things I was super confident
about bombed.
I had just forgotten a few minor details like I hadn’t
cycled in ages, esp never in the mountains and that Himachal Pradesh happens to
be at a slightly higher altitude than Chennai at sea level where I had done all
my training and had spent most of my life.
I was clueless about the effects of high altitude on a
person. The Base camp was at 4000 ft in a small town called Aut. Even at that
altitude I had a slight head ache, first sign of altitude sickness. I dismissed
it as due to the incessant travelling in the 24 hrs + before I got there.
Around the campfire (which in YHAI has no fire, only a discussion in the tent
with a cup of hot drink) tales of mountain sickness including that of
hallucinations were shared. It never occurred to me even once any of that could
happen to me; I had the usual ‘those are for others to worry about’ attitude.
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| The Cycling Trail of Aut - Jalori Pass |
Our group had two Ex- IIT’ians – Rahul and Atul, three guys
who had just graduated from XLRI, Apoorv, his friends Mandarr and Manyank, and
Parth and his uncle Hitesh, and ofcourse the unmissable me J
Being the only girl in a small group has its own advantages.
You are the apple of everyone’s eye and most people never lose sight of you and
are always happy to help. To begin with
I borrowed a rain coat from the camp after hearing tales of torrent train from
participants who were back. My super
confidence of ‘It doesn’t rain when I trek, cos I don’t like it that way’ was
slightly shaken. My lack of preparation
had no end. On a late after thought together with sheer stupidity I had left my
shoes behind thinking I had always trekked with a floater; I’ll do the same
this time around too. I didn’t have a good warm sweater thinking my woolen
pullover could do the magic since I thought how cold can a place be in mid may…
the wind chill temperature of Shimla (cos that was the one city I happened to
remember in HP then) showed 24 degrees Celsius and that’s not much different
from the office AC where we often wear sleeveless.
 |
| The Cycling Team set to go... |
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| In the acclimatisation Trek |
The acclimatization involved climbing a nearby hill with two
blankets in the rucksack and a bottle filled with water. A guide was assigned
to us. The co-leader Apoorv was asked to stay in the lead with the guide while
Rahul the group lead was to be the last man and ensure no one gets left out.
Everyone sincerely attempted to talk in English, as they probably couldn’t bear
to hear me talk in Hindi. Parth and his uncle, Hitesh, still generously gave me
the opportunity to murder Hindi. Most times I was clueless as to whether they
were talking in Hindi or Guajarati.
Rahul, Hitesh bhai and I got lost and found ourselves in the
middle of a beautiful village where we got around talking to a woman who was
tilling her fields. I found the
conversation quite interesting and was taken back when the lady said she had
lived all her life in mountains and has never seen plains in her life. We thanked them for the conversation and
water and found our way inquiring the villagers since we knew the destination
point. I was furious to know that we
were to carry only one blanket while I was carrying two and that Hitesh bhai
wasn’t carrying any blanket at all in his ruck sack :(
 |
| With the cute local kids.. |
To be contd...
