The Journey Begins

We started our journey on August 24^th from Mumbai by flight to Chandigarh. We were received by cars to take us to Manali. 1-2 days prior the rains have subsided in Manali. And that was one of the first of the good news in weeks. But our bad luck was far from over, as Chandan Sharma alarmed us of situation in Srinagar and urged us to cancel the Kashmir part of our journey and fly directly from Leh to Mumbai via Delhi. So almost the whole of 25^th August in Manali, was utilsed to reorganise the tour plan and preparing for trecarious journey from Manali to Leh. We were all tense as we did not know what we were getting into. Chandan also loaded few oxygen cylinders for and ration in case we get stuck on our way.

We left Manali in the wee hours (5am) of August 26^th and crossed Rohatang pass very easily as there were hardly any tourist in Manali going to Ladakh. We started early, considering the possible delay due to landslides etc.

Our first stop was at Sarchu about 300kms from Manali. Here a self content tent accommodation is available. To reach Sarchu, we passed Keylong, which is 150kms from Manali. The road from Manali to Leh is quite picturesque. We reached Sarchu by evening. This place is at 15000ft, double the height of Manali. I was warned of this place and tried not to include it in my itinerary. But the regular road from Sarchu to Leh was washed out due to floods, there was an addition of 100kms. to our route. And so we had to stay at Sarchu. Suddenly gaining this much height in a day had its implications and most of my group members suffered minor high altitude sickness. But nothing was unmanageable. The service was excellent. We went to bed by 8pm after an early dinner, as the next day was supposed to be more hectic. The temp that night dropped below zero in Sarchu, and we all were merely surviving the cold and high altitude sickness. Everyone was counting hours and minutes at night. All of us were eager to leave this height and come down to relatively low altitude but not before we promised to return next year to spend 2 full moon nights at Sarchu. Whoever could brave the cold and could came out of their tents that night, were awarded by a beautiful moon lit, clear sky laced with numerous stars. A sight I will never forget in my life.

We started from Sarchu by 4.30am on August 27^th, and from here on our way we came across such beautiful landscape, that slowly we forgot the pains of previous night.

The roads all along from Manali were bad and sitting in a car for more than 12 hours was not very easy. The blessing in disguise was that the roads were open for us to move ahead. By God’s grace and blessings of all our friends and family, we did not encounter rains, landslides, roadblocks or traffic jams anywhere from Manali.

Some breathtaking images from Ladakh

The Calamity and the Response

Though every journey that takes you away from your routine is a unique experience, some travel destinations stand apart. They offer different experience each time you visit them. There are lot of these on offer in India. One of them is Ladakh.

It’s at the North-West end of India, placed amongst Shivalik, Pir Panjaal, Karakoram and other Mid and Great Himalayan ranges. Ladakh is one of the three regions of State of Jammu and Kashmir, the other two obviously being Jammu and Kashmir Valley. These three regions are apart from each other as much as day and night. People, religion, language, flora, fauna, weather, landscape, in each respect they are miles apart from each other. Rest of India knows much more about Jammu and Kashmir as these two regions have much more political influence on Indian psyche and the media.

But Ladakh has its own beauty. A barren landscape at great hight about 12000ft above sea leval. I have been a great admirer of hills and thick lush greenery the mountains offer. So visiting Ladakh was never on my wish list until few of friends insisted on organizing a tour in Ladakh.

As usual I started gathering information about Ladakh and its tourist attractions from the start of New Year itself that 2010. By the end of May my travel plan was in place to coincide with Ladakh festival on 1^st September. We were in all 16 travel enthusiast. I started making everyone aware about the difficult terrain and weather conditions one might encounter in Ladakh.

Come August and all the group members started counting down the days to 24^th August, the date of our departure from Mumbai. And a tragedy struck in Leh in the form of Cloud burst and flash floods on 4,5 August. The airwaves became full of tragic footage of broken houses, roads, dead bodies, stranded tourists and all that a flash flood of this magnitude can bring. We were all stunned and I almost felt that whatever efforts I have taken to meticulously plan for this tour are Kaput. But few of my group members and also my tour operator Chandan Sharma told me to hold my guns as there are still 20 days from our journey. In coming week more and more bad news kept coming. The whole of north India was experiencing heavy rain fall and even China and Pakistan had flood situation.

As per our scheduled plan we were supposed to go to Manali from Chandigarh and start our journey to Leh on 26^th August. As a result of heavy rains this year Rohtang Pass, 51kms away from Manali was getting closed due to landslides and bad roads.

In short, no good news was coming from North. Situation in Leh itself was shown on TV was of total devastation, collapse, epidemic and death, injured locals. I was slowly making myself ready for calling it quits and canceling the tour. But one of my friend send me a email asking me not to be stopped by the situation, and in fact should grab the opportunity to help the poor and needy and victims of the tragedy. This hit me and I thought that canceling the tour was the easiest of options available to me. I said to myself that I should be brave and analyse other options as well.

So, in trying to build consensus in my group, I wrote an email to the members and urged them not cancel the tour and in fact include a different motive of social work in our otherwise Fun and Leisure trip. To this most of my group members agreed but few thought that they would become a liability on the group, and dropped out.

Now we remained a group of 11 members. The average age of my group was 49 and the group was incapable of doing any physical activity in Leh. So I decided that we should carry supplies and distribute them to the victims. I declared 1000 blankets be pledged for the cause. Obviously, our own contribution would not have been sufficient. So I started collecting funds from friends, relatives, and colleagues. All the other group members also geared up their efforts for the same in their respective circles.

The initial response we got was adverse. Friends and relatives tried to stop us from going to Ladakh and putting our lives in danger. Some called us mad, irresponsible. Some were certain that we will have to return back from Manali. But we all showed our resolve to go ahead with the tour and slowly people around us started getting connected with the Operation Leh and we could raise a decent fund of about Rs.1.4 lacs in a short span of 15 days.

Funds collection was a relatively easy task as many came forward with donations, as we promised it wouldn’t be handed over to any middleman. My main concern was to carry 1000 blankets from Mumbai. Meanwhile, I establish contact with Brigadier Satyesh Bhaduri and a social worker Mr. Sanjay, working with ‘Ladakh Apada Sahayatta Kosh’ in Leh. I heard from Brigadier that Army office in Navy Nagar might be of some help in airlifting the supplies from Mumbai till at least Chandigarh. But I was unsuccessful in generating a positive reply from Mumbai office of Army. Mr. Sanjay categorically told us to avoid carrying anything before we review the ground realities in Leh. As per his advise we dropped the idea of carrying any supplies with us and save almost 15-20 thousand on transportation.

Blast from the Past

I would be sharing my Ladakh experience of last year in series of posts. I hope you will enjoy the journey.

The Legend of the Chandratal and Surajtal

There is a charming legend about the famous, beautiful lakes known as Chandratal and Surajtal in the folklore of Himachal Pradesh.

The story goes that the daughter of the moon and the son of the Sun were in love. They wanted to meet, but this was very difficult as the son and moon come into the sky at different times. So, they decided to meet o­n Earth. They chose to meet near the Baralacha Pass.

Unfortunately, when they came down o­n earth, they landed o­n different sides of the pass and were still unable to meet. Their resultant great sorrow turned them into lakes of great purity. As their water swelled, they gave birth to two mighty rivers – the Chandra and the Bhaga, which flowed around the mountain range and were finally able to confluence at Tandi.

And the two lovers? They are said to be the two lakes we know as Chandratal and Surajtal, o­n the two sides of the fearsome Baralacha Pass, in the district of Lahaul and Spiti, in Himachal Pradesh in India.

It is said that the mesmerizing, haunting beauty of the Chandratal is a result of the beauty of the daughter of the moon – who knows? The whole ambience of the lake does seem to be out of this world.

The beauty and taste of crystal clear water, the crown of mountain peaks towering protectively, and yet keeping their distance, the soft, abundant grass, the serenity in the atmosphere, even the air seem to speak of magic.

This is o­ne place you visit o­nce, and just hearing the name takes you there in your mind for the rest of your life.

Experience of a Blogger

Chandrataal

The Chandratal trek is rated moderate by most people. It truly is. Along with it when you can feast your eyes with the unparalleled beauty of this landscape, unique in many respect compared to the other Himalayan treks, the walk becomes a pleasure. The clear blue sky and the rugged brown rolling mountains, almost treeless, form a picture perfect image. This landscape goes on for miles interspersed with lush green meadows, and the sparkling Chandra river down below. Along the trail there are several tiny streams, mostly from the melting snow. Some of them are little bigger than the others, and we had to sometimes wade through the ankle deep icy cold water. There were two such little crossings, and it somewhat added to the adventure quotient. Otherwise there was not much in terms of the trek. On the way there is one stretch called the Samudra Tapu, which is a expansive stretch of dry grassland. After crossing this, Chandratal is not far. But we did not know how far it was, and our guide kept the suspense alive. Finally, we reached a little summit-like point; as we reached it the gorgeous emerald colored lake emerged nestled between the hills. All of us were first speechless in wonder at the sight of this beautiful lake, which we had seen so many times in picture before. I would never have believed that it could really be as beautiful and out-of-the-world.

Premlal as always was hundred steps ahead of us. Pitching tent, putting the cooking arrangements in place happened without us even noticing; we were too engrossed in soaking in the beauty of the place. Not all of us. Some of us had started getting a bad headache. First we feared that it could be AMS, although later it turned out to be a result of bad parathas we had for lunch. One lesson gathered from this was try avoiding stale parathas for meals. Dinner was much better with gupta-ji showing us his culinary skills, and making warm dal-chawal for us.

The lake is about 2-3 km in circumference. In the evening light it had caught on beautiful shades of blue and green. I went alone on a walk around the lake. Halfway down the track, the snow-capped peaks at a distance start to show up. In the fading lights it sparkles like crowns. The Prussian blue shade of the lake with a backdrop of these peaks is a photograher’s delight. Do not miss the walk around the lake. A fellow camper told me that if there is snow on the hills adjacent to the lake, then it adds another dimension to this scenery. I have to come back later to enjoy that. As you reach the other side of the lake (from where people pitch their tents), there is a marshy stretch. Here number of small streams flow into the Chandratal Lake. Take caution while you cross this stretch. I was stuck at one point while crossing one of the streams, and had to take look for a suitable crossing. But nothing should prevail on you from enjoying this lake from all around. The only regret I have is I did not get the typical picture of the lake with the reflections on its crystal clear water, since next morning turned out cloudy.

The camping by the lake was yet another lifetime experience. It was a full-moon night and the reflections on the ripples is beyond words to describe. In the entire valley there were only the 10 of us - 7 from our group and 3 from another group. It was quite chilly, specially because of an icy wind that had started blowing since sundown. We sat huddled for quite a while inside the kitchen tent follow the same route, but it is too scary listening to stories from Gupta-ji - his adventures of Pin-Parvati, and other treks.

Next day began with all sorts of change in our plan. We had heard from a local who came from the Kunzum-La route that there is ice on the track, and we will have to brave some ice crossing. Gupta-ji was upbeat that no ice crossing is tough enough. Well, for a person who had done the Pin-parvati trek Kunzum-La is a walk in the neighborhood park, but we failed to muster the courage to brave it. So back we went towards Batal. But Gupta-ji is a person as he confessed is a person who hate to take the same route back. So we were on a different trail, less comfortable than the one we had taken earlier, but equally beautiful. The trail was strewn with pebbles and rocks. Nilanjan twisted his ankle badly on this stretch, but he managed to hobble back to Batal after some first-aid.

More surprises were waiting for us. Our car, if you remember was waiting for us at Kunzum-La. Our good Samaritan Premlal had started ahead of us, and went up to Kunzum-la to get the car back. But it was really long and there was no sign of car or Premlal. Anxiety levels were at the brim when finally the car came. It had fallen into a ditch along the roadside, and without Premlal the driver would not have rescued the situation.

Little adventures were over. Although late, we headed straight for Manali. Late in the night, around 10 pm we came back to Manali and settled into a hotel. The usual ritual after any trek followed -- reminiscing the moments, taking care of the sore legs, gorging on food, and finally losing oneself into a satisfied slumber. I wish Manali was a bit closer to Delhi. We would be coming down every weekend for a trek into this magnificient wilderness.

First water crossing on the trail

Landscape

Chandratal
This is a typical shot of Chandratal. The first view one gets after the trek.

Ready to pitch tent by the lake

Emerald green

magical blue

pristine beauty

Nearing sunset

Distant Peaks and the Lake

Reflections on the Lake
Unfortunately the day was cloudy preventing me from getting the famed reflection picture

The team
On our way back

A little snow crossing
Although we avoided Kunzam route, we still could not avoid this snow crossing. It was not that difficult to cross though.

Samudra Tapu

Waiting for our car
We reached Batal and waited for our car which had gone to Kunzum pass to pick us up.

Early Bird Discounts

Update on Chandrataal Trek : All Registrations before March 1, 2011 will attract a discount of Rs.500/-. On registration you need to pay Rs.10,000/- and balance before June 1st, 2011.