Why did we zero in on this? Precisely, that was the question came to my mind when we had to climb about a kilometre — and that too amid incessant heavy downpour — to reach Didna, our first stop to have a cup of tea at a newly opened house. Only during summer months, owners of these houses come to stay at this Himalayan village at 9,000ft from Kulling and other hamlets in lower altitude. Fortunately, we found the house — the first and only one to have opened its door on the penultimate day of May — with its occupants busy cooking some stuff for themselves. The Garhwali lady was also quite eager to make tea for us even before we would order! For four of us — Manas da, Sushanta, Sabyasachi and me — the first three hours of the trek from Loharjung was exhausting and made us hungry like never before. And against the backdrop of the green Himalayan forests, we finished our last packet of gujiyas that we carried all the way from Felu Modak (www.felumodak.com)!
That was the fourth day of our trip, which we had been planning for the past couple of years. The question was a bit different in the beginning — should we do this? The altitude was not very conducive to any one of us, who have never gone beyond 12,000ft ever. But we were determined to do this trek — considered to be one of the tough ones in a difficult, but beautiful, terrain. For me, it was twice challenging, as I had typhoid barely six months before we took the arduous journey along the final path (mahaprasthan) taken by the Pandavas in the Mahabharat.
Once at Loharjung on a rain-soaked windy afternoon, I forgot whether I had typhoid or any other ailments. So was Manas da, who with motion sickness had a hard time on the eight-hour travail in a Bolero from Kathgodam railway station. Although Sanjay, the driver, was superb at the wheels, he could not stop Manas da from puking four-five times on the 250-odd-km hilly stretch. The moment an elderly man in the small village — of about 100 houses — came out of a tea shop that afternoon and showed us a peak with fresh snowfall, we hardly remembered that our summer special train from Sealdah to Delhi was late for over six hours! Soon we met Narendra, the most famous guide (thanks to the Net), in the market greeting us with his evergreen smile. Though Narendra could not accompany us, as he was "reserved" by another team for their trek a couple of days later, he made sure his brother Mahendra to show us the way after charting out the route easier to tread (unlike the numerous difficult ones suggested on the Net).
Didna was the first village on the route before we camped at Tolpani for the night. In the region, Tolpani is known for silk worm cultivation, as we found several white tents put up in the forest to breed the worms. Our experience at Tolpani was a bit odd, as we had to cook noodles and khichdi at a place we thought as a thatch-roofed hut, which turned out to be a stable for mules! Besides showing us the steep road ahead through the forest, Mahendra did a wonderful stuff that night with help from Dhan Singh, the owner of Guddu and Hira. In fact, the exercise of joint cooking would follow the next few days and nights, but in that conditions the simple khichdi seemed to be biryani!
(to be continued...)
©Supratim Pal
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