Kumara Parvatha Trek - Day 02

I Continue From Here.....

Only thing best to falling asleep in a mountain is to wake up in one. The morning was very pleasant and the wind had subsided. We freshen up quickly, collected enough water that was required for the rest of the journey and wasting no more time, we started off to the peak (At 7:00AM). Our plan for the day was to climb the peak and then descend towards Coorg to a check post at Bidadhalli not later than 3:45PM, because that’s when the only bus leaves from the village to Somwarpet.

The hike up to the peak was fun with several false peaks becoming a point of confusion. First was Bathadarashi, next Kall Gudde, next Shesha parvatha and next Pushpagiri. Wait a minute…we were expecting Kumara Paravatha, right? So why does the peak have a board saying Pushpagiri peak – 0Kms. Anyways…after some exploration at the top, we noticed the Shiva Linga and other small shrines that confirmed that we were at KP. But anyway… the Pushpagiri – KP confusion still exist, well we are happy to convince ourselves that both are names for same peak from either districts.

The last stretch to the peak was a little dangerous with slippery rocks. We relaxed at the peak for a while; a guy from another group had lost his friends and also the way to return. With little food and water we showed him the way back to Bhatra house.

A little disappointment was the mist, due to which we did not get a clear view from the peak. At around 10:40 AM we headed back towards Bidadhalli which was 7Kms from the peak. Climbing down huge slippery rocks that separated the trail was a challenge. Getting down was very easy and fast. In between we met the lost friends of the guy we had met at the peak who by mistake had climbed down the wrong route and were lost too. We told them that they could find their friend in Bhatra house.

We reached Bidadhalli check post at around 2:00 PM. But the next walk of around 5kms to the main road on a paved route was boring and tiring as we had already convinced ourselves that the trek was over. We reached the bus stop at around 3:15 PM and had packed chapatis for lunch. The bus arrived on time and we drove to Somwarpet. A lady (villager) sitting next to me was very curious to know about our adventures and expressed her interest to do the same but she said she was scared.

From Somwarpet we boarded a bus to Kushalnagar where we had dinner at Shanti hotel run by Muslims. Delicious Biryani and special tea filled our stomachs. Next was another bus journey to Mysore and then another to Bangalore.

The trek was amazing and adventurous with many interesting incidents and events. Most of all the group was amazing with everyone in sync with one another. KP is one of the best treks I have been to so far.

Kumara Parvatha Trek - Day 01

For a traveler, the destination is never important, but what matters is the journey. What best than a trek could completely define this? So when Subbu and I discussed a plan, Kumara Parvatha was top on the list, it was one among the toughest trek in the state, it was interesting because we would take a different route to descend, into a different district. Within few days all was planned and 6 more joined our enthusiasm. We rented sleeping bags and 2 tents from Wildcraft, Marathhali. With our backpacks consisting of 80 chapati’s, 50 Mangalore buns, fruits, biscuits and other personal needs we assembled at Bangalore railway station at 8:30 PM on Nov 13th. The train to Mangalore arrived at 8:55PM, on time. After a few leisure talks we went to sleep, all excited about the day to come.

Early morning, at 5:45 AM, we reached Subramanya. A jeep drive to the temple (12kms for Rs250), hunt for a descent room, negotiating one for Rs225, a quick freshening up, amazingly quick visit to temple which was least crowded at the early hour of dawn and a good breakfast got us ready to start our trek. The distance to the peak is 13kms, Mantappa- 8kms, Bhatra house – 6Kms. I called Bhatru (9448647947) and placed a lunch order for 8.

At 9 AM we started our ascent. Within few minutes we got our first warning, a man running all the way back and all he had to say is – “Leeches, beware of leeches, they are plenty.” Well, all I could think of was this was the best trek to overcome my leech phobia. :-) Back in 8th standard, when I trekked mountain Valikunja near Karkala, I had brought back home swollen leeches and bleeding foot, which left a mental block in me, against the species. But now with few encounters, I am perfectly out of the mental block; my funda- keep walking, don’t stop near damp areas and wear shorts to spot them clearly , in spite of that if you have a bite, come-on it’s just a little blood. :-)

In few more minutes, another group was returning with same warning. But it did not bother us since we had expected leeches anyways and had some snuff along with us to sedate them – Blood or snuff? Who gets to win? :-) On the way, we met several groups. A group of men aged around early 50’s with their big tummies where (physically) spread all over the rocks, drinking alcohol and were fascinated by their recent discovery that without any luggage they could climb easily. Another group had a very jovial person who greeted everyone with a smile and invited us for a chat. We named him CM for his idea to improve the trail with better roads if he would become a chief minister.

Bhatra House

We reached Bhatra house at around 1:00 PM. We had a good refreshing meal. Narayan Bhat, his elder brother and an old lady stay in this house. They have a nice farm, several cows and many relatives in and around Mangalore. :-) They charge Rs50 for a lunch and also arrange breakfast for the next day, if needed. Bhat travels up and down the hill to trade milk in only two hours. They sure are the best example for oasis in dessert for all us trekkers.

After a short relax, we followed a forest guard through a short cut to the forest check post where we paid a trekking fee of Rs115 per head and left home address on several records. The next stretch till Mantapa was very refreshing. For some reason, I always find the below tree-line trek very tiring and suffocating. So once we had crossed the tree-line, for me it was a nice trek with light breeze and drizzle. We reached Mantapa at around 5:00 PM

View Of The Mantapa

Forest dept has done a neat job to maintain the trails, by creating campsites, arranging trash cans and also creating water storage from the streams. But when we reached the campsite, all of them were reserved by other trekkers. So all we were left with was the Mantapa, which is at a height and has room for only one tent. So we decided to pitch one tent and the rest of us decided to sleep in the mantapa. After a quick dinner at 6:00 PM, nothing else to do in the dark, we decided to call it a day. Along with three others, I decided to sleep at the Mantapa. We tied a big plastic sheet to one side of the Mantapa which was tied to a reasonable big piece of stone which held the plastic down to the ground; stored all the bags and covered it with the spare tent and slipped into our sleeping bags. At around 11, heavy wind and drizzle woke us up, bags dropped, tent collapsed, sleeping bags got wet, the stone tied to the plastic flew all the way near our head. The next few hours till dawn had several breaks to check if the heavy wind had blown away the waterproof cover of the tent. With all that excitement and still got some good sleep we woke up to a beautiful dawn.

To Be Continued…..

Sponge!

Virginia Woolf said - “The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.” So true this is. Few months back when I went through a similar experience, I had to break free from it through expressing it out as an article. Here is a short read –

Sponge

“A sponge, when squeezed, lets out a gush of water”, a busy person would say with the least possible time and thought involved; a tired employee would see it like sweat pouring out of a tortured body, where as a day dreaming poet might see a river or a natural spring erupt from an invisible source. For someone who may be colour blind (or someone willing to ignore the colour); a depressed perhaps, it may appear like blood from a traumatized soul or for an environmentalist who would love to relate everything to nature and man, even by ignoring the physical states, would call it a pathetic and disgusting act of man to shamelessly extract out natures every available resource from the very core. So, there can be as many different perspectives as the population of humans on this earth, of course considering no two people look , think and feel alike except when they are standing before a mirror (If that is not true and two exactly similar people exist, according to me they should never meet in a lifetime). Some of these are good, several bad, few funny, little ugly or from something very less in sense to some pathetically nonsense; but again either of these, on the basis of your own perspective. What perhaps should be more important is that at times when we are squeezed out like a sponge, all we need to remember is to get back in shape and begin absorbing things that our soul is touched by because at sunset when you are left alone without your gown, all that matters is what “you think” is right. So never allow some external force to make you feel that you are wrong. Even if you budge for few minutes, don’t forget to recollect your confidence because only you who can decide what is wanted and not some opinion formed by a perspective, alien to you and the emotions that the soul has absorbed.

Ajeya.
26-Aug-09

Eventful Weekends!

From Kinnaur we headed to Mumbai to my sister’s house. With enough of travels up north all I wanted to do was relax in the Navi Mumbai apartment for few days. Visited a few relatives and watched “Wake Up Sid”. The movie I thought was good but too many such movies are being made and stories and direction seem repetitive. Both Konkana and Ranbeer are my favorite actors and they were excellent onscreen.

From Mumbai, we headed south to Mangalore. Visited an aunt in Old age home, attended a friend’s wedding and took a bicycle ride to the beach. Back in Bangalore, it was a cleaning day continued with routine.

Mother In Between A Conversation.

"Our House Or His?" :-)

Weekends since return have been extraordinarily busy. Travels to Mangalore twice for weddings of friends; Deepavali celebrations etc. We celebrated Deepavali at home this year, though I am not a big fan of crackers I enjoyed the flat kids burst crackers and realized how outdated I was with respect to the fireworks and did not know the names like – Comet, Animal, Butterflies. :-) I do not encourage polluting the atmosphere with bursting crackers but the happiness on the faces of children is priceless.

On one of the days during Deepavali, My friend Subbu and I went to a function organized by an NGO run by his friend and family, which on this auspicious day donated musical instruments to a group of very talented blind musicians. Many from the group displayed their talents during the event.

Life is going to be more eventful with more travels lined up...

Kinnaur Trip -3

I Continue From Here.....

Day 04 & 05

As I got up the next morning, the site was amazing. The clouds were slowly uncovering the mountains and the view was splendid. After an early breakfast we started our journey back to Sangla.

Beautiful Nako!

Apples Have Arrived

On the way we stopped at Kalpa and Reckong Peo. At Kalpa we visited the temples and monastery and caught some excellent view of the Kinner Kaliash parvath. (Kinnaur’s version of Kailash Parvath) We visited a nice monastery in peo with a big idol of standing Buddha and walked on a narrow road to a temple where the daily procession was in progress.

Kinner Kailash View From Kalpa

Procession At Temple in Peo

We had a great lunch at Recong Peo in a very good restaurants. Finally some good pulkhas and paneer butter masala. After a good and satisfying lunch we drove back to Sangla.

The camp was getting crowded with so many new visitors, Dada’s. One of them from the old men group walked to me and began a conversation. He mentioned to me that the group of friends are classmates from 10th at a boarding school from Rajasthan. Some joined army, some became businessmen and so on but this alumni group meets every year to recollect the fun days. They also do lot of charity work and where the first to reach some remote villages during earthquake at Gujarat. They have a neat website where they publish their updates. It was a very interesting story.

Next morning, we packed our bags and were ready to leave. Few others from the group walked to us and wished us all the best. We thanked all for making our stay memorable and left the amazing valley not willingly.

The drive from Sangla to Chandigarh was long , almost 8 hours, it was boring too. Shimla was crowded and we did not wish to stop there. We reached Chandigarh at around 6:00 PM. Even though the road are wide (8 lanes) and complexes are neat, they all look so same and hence to me boring, may be I should explore other parts of the city to talk more. We had a walk to a nearby restaurant for dinner and I had some good food and excellent lassi.

We left to Mumbai next morning. The trip to mountains was over with some interesting story of nature and inspiring people. I wish to return back to Kinnaur for trekking. I was so tempted to take a detour and explore the mountains rather than driving on a car. So that’s the plan for next time.

Kinnaur Trip -2

I Continue From Here.....

Day 03 & 04
Next morning we got ready by 7:45 AM and we drove to Chitkul which is the last village on this side of India, past the mountains was Tibet. We took a small walk along a trail that leads to a small chekpost called nagasthi. We did a short walk till the Bassapa river and returned. On the way back Jagir took us to a new hotel at Ruksom. The owner of this hotel is a trekker and during one of his guided trek couple of the foreigner customers had a troubled stay in sangla, hence he leased out some land and built a hotel himself. He was eager to show us around and tell his story.

At Chitkul

Next stop was a fort in Sangla. We had to hike up a small hill which is densely populated. The watchman was out for lunch but returned on time and was extremely nice in his speech. He opened the temple, gave us caps and let us into the Kamakshi temple. A Buddha and Badri temple too is situated in this village.

At Sangla

Most or almost all the tourists were Bengali’s and our Jagir called them – Dada’s. A big group would be seen almost on every place. We returned back to the camp and took a walk to a small village near the camp. Bastri village is very neatly maintained with concrete roads and good drainage system and logos of cleanliness is seen almost everywhere in Kinnaur. Unfortunately a beautiful temple which is a major attraction for this village was closed while we went. But while we were waiting there a friendly lady came an spoke to us and offered some snacks called Muri. We took a walk along the village and a nice gentleman from neighboring village showed us the way back to our camp. We walked through the apple orchids and farmhouses to get back.

Walk Back To Camp

There were some new visitors at the camp, a group of 12 old men lighting up the atmosphere with their fun talks. They seemed like a group of friends from army or something. They read out poems written by one of them and kept playing old Hindi movie songs as they reminisced their past. Some inspiring truth about them I would only know after I return from Nako.

Next morning, we left early after having some excellent paratha’s and curds. Drive to Nako was brilliant; we were literally midst the mountains, at the center and in the middle. Most of the roads are being worked on to widen them so there were some delays. People get only 3 months a year to work after the rains and before the snow hence a lot of quick work of blasting was in process. Nako took us by surprise. It’s one of the most amazing places I have been to. Luckily we got some Maggie here.

Kinner camp at Nako again is situated at a beautiful place overlooking the mountains. After a small nap, we were ready to explore the small village of Nako which I don’t thing housed more than a hundred people. On this day was a major celebration at the village monastery. Their Lama was to arrive in few minutes, hence villagers were dressed traditionally ad stood on either side of the road holding bowls full of dry fruits. We were invited to have tea and busicuits there. After a short walk around the village and the lake we walked back to the camp. The village experience was very special and will be the best of the trip.

Beautiful Nako....Busy People at the Monastery

At camp the care taker is a Nepali boy Sonu who is always smiling and yes always listening to music and singing aloud. It was fun talking to him. He was nice enough to get us hot water jackets for the night which was extremely cold.

To Be Continued....

Kinnaur Trip -1

Day 01 &02

The trip to Himachal surfaced sometime in June or July and I wanted to visit some place which isn’t much traveled by tourists. Shimla and Manali were somewhere last in my list. :-) Kinnaur is the district I came across and soon I began making my plans. From July to almost October is a long time within which so many things happen so the excitement of travel was not as much as it was while planning. (This happens to me always!)

We boarded an early morning flight to Delhi then to Chandigarh on the 26th of September. Glanced through the beautiful streets, complex and houses of Chandigarh, neat but seemed very monotonous. We had a tough time at the bus stop catching a one to Shimla. People stood in queues but no one was at the counter for booking and other buses were unreserved types which kept filling as it arrived. Finally there was one bus and with very difficulty we dragged into it tackling the crowd. The bus journey was supposed to be for maximum of 4 hours but due to the traffic at Kalka (Major Dasara event in a temple) we reached Shimla at 10:00 PM with around 6 hours of tiring drive but Shimla seemed crowded and well lit even at that hour. We boarded an expensive taxi for 2km drive downhill to our hotel.

Shimla

Next morning at 7:30 AM our transportation for rest of the trip arrived, a Toyota innova. Our driver Jagir was a nice gentleman from a village between Shimla and Manali. He kept the drive to Sangla busy with his stories about the hills, apple orchids, landslides etc. We took a small deviation to Sarhan and visited the famous Bheema Kali temple. The temple has two towers, one of which is open for common people but the other is only open for the royal family. In every temple we visited here, we had to cover our head with a cap or some cloth as a mark of respect.

Bheema Kali Temple, Sarahan

The only issue we had during the trip was food. Everywhere the menu was common. Roti, sabji, rice and dal. There was nothing else available. The road to Sangla passes through a dam construction site and the hence are now in poor condition. It was a bumpy ride midst the mountains. Bu the valley where our camp was situated was amazing. When we drove in we had excellent reception from the proprietor himself- Mr humble Dileep. I had book Kinner Camps, a tent house for our stay in Sangla and Nako. The tents where pitched in the valley overlooking the mighty mountains. The music from the Bassapa River flowing very close kept singling all the while. We had a small camp fire along with another family who had driven a i10 from Delhi. Dinner was served with similar menu but a little better tasting food. Even in the dark, the snow capped mountain shined from the top.

Kinner Camps at Sangla Valley

To Be Continued....