DAY THREE - A LONG CAR RIDE TO GANGOTRI
Irina and I had barely slept again the previous night, and probably weren't the nicest people to be around that morning. Personally, I struggle with sharing rooms with people I don't know too well, and had spent the past two nights lying awake in a strange bed waiting for sleep to come and claim me. I hoped that the Himalayan air we would breathe that night would help, as we were to get closer and closer to the mountains as the days went on.
We left at around 6 a.m as we had a pretty long drive ahead of us. From memory I think we drove / slept for the first couple of hours before finding a dhaba we deemed worthy of breakfast - limited up here to either aloo paratha or Maggi masala noodles. Luckily I grew to love paratha and curry on this trip, and we would seek out fruit stores to ply our diets with the fibre from mangoes and bananas, just for a bit of added variety...
After another few LONG hours of driving we came to Uttarkashi, home of a sacred Shiva temple marking the place where his trident fell to earth. A priest tried to explain to us how locals had tried to dig into the earth around it but were never able to get to the source of the trident - some say it goes kilometres deep into the earth. It was a beautiful temple, and although the concrete was baking hot I walked barefoot twice around the outskirts, getting my forehead plastered with sandalwood paste as I did so.
I was gradually realising that not knowing a language didn't really have to be a drawback and began to notice one of the young men in the group giving me a lot of attention and doing all he could to practise his English, in phrases such as ... "one kiss?" or "do you love me?". He was seriously funny, and for once I didn't mind the attention - I usually hate stuff like this because it feels so false, but one look at his earnest face just made me erupt into fits of laughter. Sergei, I won't forget you, and if I ever learn Ukranian, you'll be the first one I write to!
It was late in the evening before we reached our destination, winding slowly through beautiful valleys and craggy mountain-scaped roads as we did so. The scenery was stunning, and the sharp cut of the mountain air made me realise how ill-equipped I was for the next day's 14 km trek to Buveshwar. Luckily, the stores were prepared for those like me, and I bargained over a cheap fleece, a pair of woollen socks and borrowed a jacket and hat from our guide Chandan. I was sorted!
DAY FOUR - THE BEAUTIFUL 14 TREK UP THE MOUNTAIN
Not being much of a mountaineer, I woke earlier than necessary and mentally prepared myself for the day ahead. I ate delicious banana porridge accompanied by piping hot ginger tea, and joined the others at their hotel upstairs (being a late addition, I had to do all my own hotel bookings). I tell you what though, it must be bloody hard to organise a group of 16 people... although we planned to meet every morning at around 6 / 6.30, we always set off at least half an hour later.
Natalia and I led the pack up the hill, pacing it slowly and stopping every few minutes to try to capture the beautiful mountain scenery with our digital cameras. Impossible really, but it didn't stop us trying... The first few kilometres were cool and beautiful in the fresh early morning air and I was feeling pretty good after 5 kms. Once we stopped to cross a bridge (Gena and Vlad waiting there to help everyone over - Soviet men are such gentlemen) and eat some fruit and nuts, I was pretty positive really. The next 4 kms until our lunch stop though, were more challenging.
I walked alone mostly, although the road was safe and stable and other groups were in sight. As I got closer to a beautiful waterfall and saw men in various states of undress in the freezing cold water, I knew I'd arrived at our lunch spot... there was no mistaking our group! Apart from Sergei almost killing himself with a rock-balancing yoga pose gone wrong, we were all pretty good. Chandan pulled a leaking plastic bag of cold subji (vegetable curry) out of Vlad's pack and we found a suitable tree trunk to use as a table. Lunch consisted of subji and rice spooned onto these chapatis and rolled up and eaten burrito style. Delicious. But food always tastes better when you've earned it, right??
Then, the last 5 kms almost did me in... I didn't realise how much the altitude was affecting me ( I just checked online, and our destination for the night was 3792 metres above sea level)... in retrospect, I should have taken it much slower than I did but our group was full of yogis who were setting a pretty mean pace. There was a point when we came to a small foot bridge, easy at any other time of the day, but I just froze and could only get over it, embarrassingly, with Chandan and Gena on either side of me. It crossed my mind that perhaps I had drowned in a past life or something, as this irrational fear of bridges wasn't usually something that affected me, but then again the mighty Himalayas and being at such great heights bring things out of us. I was emotional by this point but didn't want to admit it to myself, instead struggling on, stopping when I absolutely needed to to try to steady my breathing which was becoming tight, and trying my asthma inhaler to no avail.
Until, when we were crossing one of the most dangerous parts of the pass, with rock slides liable to happen to any given moment, my system just decided to pack it in, and my semi-rational mind spied a rock to collapse on as the pressure in my chest and head manifested in great heaving sobs. I'm not sure that many of my crew knew quite what to do with me until Gena reached my spot. The leader and organiser of the tour from Kiev, I don't know what I would have done without him today as he used his limited English to tell me to "breath up.. down.. up.. down" and poured preciously cool water down my back and over my face. He made me sit with my head between my knees and checked the whites of my eyes, and while others were urging me to find a safer spot a few hundred metres down the track away from potential rockslides, he insisted I stay put and kept an eye on the mountain himself. I will try not to overdramatise this - I know many people have altitude attacks and he just did what any decent human being with a bit of knowledge of mountaineering would do - but it did mean a lot to me and still does, particularly because he kept checking on me at half hour intervals, even after we'd reached our destination (whoops of joy from all around at that point!). And as I sat on a plastic chair, trying to take in my white-grey surroundings of snow and sludge and nurse the pain in my head at the same time, he knelt again and asked me the same question again: "How are you?". This time, I wasn't going to pretend I was okay - I knew that all the emotions I had experienced over the day had now eventuated in sheer exhaustion and a kind of post-crying headache. I also knew it was time for a hot cup of masala chai, a blanket and some conversation with my wonderful Russian friends who I somehow felt much closer to atop of this mountain.
Ksenia got one of chefs to boil some potatoes for us in their skins, which we ate Russian style, peeling the skins off carefully and adding salt, pepper and paprika to taste. Someone - Kolya, I think - brought out a block of delicious Russian chocolate - mmmm - and we all tried his disgusting mouth curdling herbal tea. Vlad and Gena had their usual plastic bag full of mangoes to share and Kolya (again - a man who values his specialty food!) had some amazingly sweet honey comb from Russia. Everyone around me always made sure to offer their food to me first - a generosity that kept me warm in that freezing restaurant. My heart was expanding by the day, and surely filled with so much more oxygen than before! Today really marked a change for me on this trip - a reaching of something deeper... a connection of the hearts... but I had little time to ponder over this as my body desperately needed sleep, so I crawled into my bed in the makeshift dorm room of a tent, dubious about whether it would be warm enough. Sleeping in a hat and all my clothes though with two heavy blankets over me, I was amazed at how much warmth it would hold, and drifted off eventually to the even sound of Soviet breathing around me...
DAY FIVE - GOIN' DOWN...
Most of our group had awoken that morning at 6 to walk to Goumurk, which is a sacred sacred place - the source of Mother Ganga. I would have loved to have joined them to be honest, but thought better of it due to yesterday's performance, so slept in and cherished the extra hours in a now warm bed before waking to warm tomato soup and more potatoes (about all they had up at that makeshift Himalayan cafe...)
Everyone arrived back within a couple of hours and after eating we prepared for a leisurely walk down the mountain. I was feeling fresh and swear I bounded down that hill, no longer too exhausted to appreciate her beauty and even finding time to stop for a chat with John, an English guy we'd met with his feet in a bucket of hot water the previous night after he'd got back from the gruelling Tapovan trek. He was perched upon a rock above a waterfall finishing his copy of 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' and we chatted for about half an hour with the most beautiful soundtrack in the world in our ears. I ended up reaching Gangotri again at around 5 pm, glad to take my shoes off and let my blisters breathe and order Shahi paneer and what turned out to be the worst lassi in the world! Just yoghurt in a bit of water basically! Doh - never mind...
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