Journey to my Lakshya begins... Day 1

Soon I heard an another annoucement `ISBT, ISBT..' and I woke up to my surprise to see that the bus had arrived Dehradun ISBT at 4.00am (next day arrived). The bus dropped us at the railway station at 4.30am and our tour co-ordinator was supposed to meet us at 6.30am. We were clueless about where to spend 2 hours in that 6 degree temp. We had our tea and then decided to go to the railway platform and check if they have a waiting room. To our good guess Dehradun had a waiting room where we rested for a while and also charged our mobiles and battery bank. I received an sms from the agency about the driver details and the bus no. I called up the driver and he replied `Sir I am outside the station in a Tempo Traveller no. 3219, you will find Himalayan Hikers written on it'.

Dehradun Station

Till then I was under the impression that our agency has a proper team who will be with us till we complete the trek. But its a myth. These agencies are mere agents who are tied up with the main local trekking company like Himalayan Hikkers. Our agency didnt had any presence neither in Dehradun nor in Sankri nor in Kedarkantha. Their presence was only in Delhi from where they just coordinated with me and patched me to this another agency. Like this, many small operators follow the same strategy and have connections with this main trekking company. Multiple agencies send their trekkers and this agency forms a group of 15 to 20 trekkers in one batch and this is how trekkers group is created. This was a new learning to me and good knowing as to how these small agencies earn big time by just coordinating.

Our driver Bhagat who was from Sankri village, must be in his early 20's and was having a fair complexion and seemed to be a calm driver. I noticed that our bus front tyre was almost flat and need to be replaced before we start our journey to Sankri. I informed Bhagat and he first gave me a funda about tubeless tyres and assured me that nothing was wrong with the tyre. We decided to keep our luggage in the bus and went for a cup of tea as other group members were yet to come. By the time we came back our driver was under the chasis to fit the spare tyre and remove the flat one. I decided to take this opportunity to interact with our fellow trekkers who were supposed to be with us in that bus. We met a group of 3 young guys Shubham, Rick and Dev who were from Kolkata who mentioned that they had booked their vacation in Kashmir earlier and because of Article 370 their trip got cancelled and they had to come to Kedarkantha. Shubham who was bit forward in that group was bit frustrated to hear that they paid 10k for this trip and we paid 7k for the same trip. Other two were silent about it and didnt wanted to open up quickly. On the other side there was a group of 5 youngsters (3 boys and 2 girls) who were busy chilling and were within themselves as they seemed to be very happy with their choice of trek and agency.

We all sat in the bus and finally started to head towards Sankri. I was sitting on the front seat and watching the nature trails. We stopped for our 1st break for breakfast at Kempty falls. It was around 10.30am and we were very hungry. We had good Aloo Parathas and Kaali Dal for our breakfast some had Pav bhaaji and Egg Omelets.  Soon as we started our journey which was in the dense mountains and narrow roads like Jalebi, all of us started feeling nauseatic and like throwing up.
To my surprise even I started getting the feeling of vomiting. Thankfully our driver stopped for getting his tyre repaired at a tyre shop and we all got out of the bus to breathe fresh air. I quickly checked within the team if they had any motion sickness medicines. Shubham gave me a Avomine tablet and that was a real savior. I decided to sit besides the driver seat which was reserved for a cleaner so that I dont throw up till we reach Sankri.

Cooling off at the Yamnotri banks

Holy Yamuna River

The road to Sankri is a route to the Paradise of Himalayas for every trekker. Its a beautiful scenic hamlet situated in lap of Uttarkashi district which is a traveler's delight. The holy river Yamuna gushes through the foot of the mountains and the entire Yamnotri belt is blessed with huge Pine trees on its way.

Pine Trees on the way to Sankri

The bus again halted in a small village for lunch and at this time no one wanted to take the risk of eating and throwing up later. I guess except our driver hardly anyone had their lunch. We visited a fruit shop who had some fresh fruits. Along with the common fruit was an amazing giant fruit in Yellow colour. It was of a bit bigger size than of a Dragon fruit. We checked with the lady who was in in that shop and she said it was a Lemon also called as Khattai in local language. We bought some fruits and checked the cost of that Lemon. She was quick enough to cut a lemon and give us for tasting as we all were feeling nauseatic and it really helped. She refused to take money for this Khattai (lemon fruit), she said it was complimentary. This is the uniqueness of these villagers who give importance to humanity more than money and that's why they are more happier than our urbanised people who always have expectations. Oh ! I forgot to mention about an amazing fellow trekker who was along with us from Ahmedabad in that bus, Twinkle Shah. To my surprise he had come solo for this trek and I was really wondering if I can do this someday. One needs real guts to come alone to an adventurous trek like this especially if you are a first time snow trekker. I started interacting with Twinkle and came to know that he had arranged this trek along with his friend but later he backed out, but Twinkle decided to do it solo.. really appreciated this spirit of a true trekker.

Finally we reached Sankri at around 5.30 pm. We checked into a very small  hotel / Motel which was also having an office of Himalayan Hikkers at the ground floor. We were allotted a room in which me, Pratik and Twinkle were asked to share it. We kept our luggage and came out on the terrace which was like a common floor where our guides gave their introduction. We were offered hot tea and some namkeen. Our trekking guides started to  brief us about the trek condition and duration. The first sentence our guides told us was "From today onwards till you complete this trek you all will be like a single family and each of you will ensure that they will help each other to ensure that this trek is completed smoothly". We were 16 in total and this sentence gave us a real boost to be together for next 4 days and complete the trek in whatever condition it may. Our guides Ramesh, Mahadev and Dev Sharma  all three were experienced guides and informed us about what to carry, when to wear thermals, how much kms we will cover in each day, how will be the summit conditions etc etc.We were instructed to carry only essential clothing and leave all extra luggage in the hotel luggage room. The next 4 days we were going to carry our luggage on our back and do the trekking hence the lighter the bag the better.

View from our hotel

We then completed our registration formalities and were asked to pack our bags for next day trek. There were lots of shops below in that small village where all trekking accessories were sold and also kept on rental basis. We quickly packed our bags and went downstairs to do shopping. I and Pratik had well planned everything and hence had nothing to shop for, except a poncho / rain coat which we decided to hire for 4 days. Soon we came back to our hotel and gathered on the common floor for Dinner. Here we met 3 trekkers who had completed their summit and had returned back to the hotel. I and Pratik went to them to hear their experience. It was quite disturbing to hear them and they didn't had a real good experience on this trek. Actually they had cut down on their trekking days from 4 days to 2 days and to add up on their Summit day it snowed on the top making the entire trek sluggish and wet. We got to know that out of the 3 only 1 could complete the summit and rest 2 gave up in between till base camp and returned back. I guess they were not properly geared with their trekking attire. One of them mentioned that they had limited leaves and hence wanted to complete the trek within 2 days instead of 4 days and hence all this mess. Sometimes I fail to understand that we itself make our life miserable trying to mix our official life and personal life together and end up doing no justice to both. During my corporate tenure I learnt a best thing from foreigners that whenever they go for a holiday or vacation, their out of office reply says `Hi I am on a vacation and will not be available on phone or emails till i come back on......'. Loud and clear. And we set our out of office as `Sir, I am on a vacation or holiday and if you cannot connect me on my cell, you can call on my alternate no...... or text me or send me a email etc etc....' With fear and confusion in our mind we went into our beds and dozed off...