Last Saturday (July 15, 2007), I was driving on NH24 as I had some work in Naukuchiatal and thought that I would write a quick Road Review since there are lots of folks who use this road for going almost anywhere in Kumaon. Though I didn’t go to Nainital, but probably going till Bhimtal is as good as going till Nainital from Road Review perspective ;)
Section 1 which starts from Nizamuddin Mode in Delhi has lots of small cities/villages en route. Expect a little jam at Ghazipur Crossing (almost all times of day), then one at Ghaziabad Trade Tax (just beyond Vijay Nagar) and usualy slowness as you cross numerous towns. Hapur bypass is lovely and amazingly smooth, you can go beyond 120 easily. I drove at 80-100 KPH (in my Mahindra Scorpio) as it was raining and road was wet, so less traction. Beyond Hapur, the road is mostly single and not too much of traffic till you get closer to Brij Ghat or Garh Mukteshwar where it can take from 15 minute to many hours depending upon whether there is anything big at Ganga. By the way, this is the closest point for Delhi-ites for a Ganga dip. Avoid mornings on major poornimas (full names) or big festivals.
Section 2 is after Garh. Again single road for some time and then you stat to see the NHAI work. There are stretches where the road work has been done and there are two roads, 3 lane each. On these stretches you can easily go beyond 120 and make merry but every 20-30 odd kilomters, you will enter a bottle neck, mostly at the places where they are trying to make a flyover, these bottle necks can actually kill your entire fun if its raining or if there is a break down. But all in all, this stretch is bettr then Section 1. Once NHAI is done, it would be cream. Moradabad bypass is already a marvel. I dont know why they stopped accpeting money at a single toll for the whole stretch, now you have to stop twice to pay toll. As you pass Moradabad bypass, Rampur City can get a littly stuffy but its just couple of kilometers so not too much of pain.
Section 3 is when you cross Rampur city and take a left turn to get on NH87. Now the ordeal begins, now you are not with NHAI but on a road maintained (or not maintained) by government of UP. I have been driving this stretch for at least last 8-9 years and I have never found this good. You have to handle this till Rudrapur.
From Rudrapur, you again take a left leaving the road which goes till Lucknow, and now you drive along side jungle. Infact both sides. Amazing drive. For 20 odd kilo meters you and this long serpenetine road amid Tanda (thats the name of Jungle Reserve), reach Rudrapur and then Haldwani. From there the road to Nainital is very good. For Bhimtal/Sattal/Naukuchia Tal or going to Almora/Bhavali/Binsar/Mukteshwar, you need to take a right exit at HMT factory, which is about 6 KM from Kathgodam station, if you dont take a right and keep going straight you reach Nainital.
Tip - Start early in the day (5 for Summers and 6 for Winters) to avoid traffic and it should not take you more then 7 hours to reach Nainital or other places.
After a lot of characteristic dilly-dallying, I told Anurag that we must head out to Rajasthan, and not go rafting again. Manish had already announced that he was coming along, irrespective of the destination. And on the last day, Anuj gave his confirmation as well. So it was to be the 4 of us heading for a 3-day culture-heritage desert trip. Destination choices were Jodhpur, Jaisalmer and Bikaner. Anurag had been to Bikaner before, and Jodhpur was not really “desert”, and so not the typical mental picture of Rajasthan, so Jaisalmer it was to be.
We started early as Delhi-Jaisalmer is a good 14 hours by road. We were driving Anurag’s Ford Fiesta, and I was really quite excited and looking forward to driving all the way.
The roads did not disappoint us at all. All national highways in Rajasthan offer an extremely smooth journey where you can clock real highway speeds. As Delhi gets left behind further and further, the landscape changes face as well. It becomes increasingly arid and the yellow of mud starts to stand out as the pre-dominant colour.
Stopping by near Bikaner for lunch, we reached Jaisalmer only by nightfall. The road between Bikaner and Jaisalmer deserves a special mention. It reminded me of the Hollywood thriller movies with a mid-western backdrop. A huge barren expanse, where the visibility on the road can extend to 25 km. No civilization next to the highway for miles and miles on end, and your are tempted to touch dangerous speeds. (more…)
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
and Eternity in an hour…” - William Blake
After a month of planning and constantly living in fear of my leave getting cancelled, the trip finally happened. A destination which I had already unsuccessfully planned twice was finally happening.
The Destination - Chhotta Chandratal
Chhotta Chandratal (the small Moon Lake) or Base of Deo Tibba peak is a high altitude lake (approx. 14500 ft) in Kullu-Manali region of Himachal Pradesh. It is usually confused with the much bigger Chandratal lake in the Lahaul-Spiti region which for most part now has a motorable road.
Trek plan
The best time to visit Chandratal is May till mid June. And the probability of whether you will be able to see the blue water lake depends on how severe the last winter was. Since this year the region received most of the snow during months of March-April, the lake was frozen when we visited it.
The trek for the most part was planned by a couple of Delhi based photographers. It was part of an on location Landscape/Macro Photography workshop. And the twelve of us – a few Fashion Designing students, three photo enthusiasts from Singapore, a friend pursuing his MBA, a couple of school kids and of course the two teachers – formed an interesting group to be with. A group though different in profession but united by interest in photography J
The logistics from Manali were taken care of by HimayalanCountry, a Manali based adventure tours agency run by Mr. Khem Raj Thakur. It was the third time that we were traveling with them and I must say they have never disappointed. The traveling arrangements which include the kitchen tent, dinner tent, sleeping tents, food for 7 days, mules for carrying the luggage, a cook, a helper and a guide were all meticulously handled for most part of the trip.
I have no idea specifically about how much the tour company charged for the trek because our package also included the fees for photo workshop. But I must put it down (though that may seem obvious) that the cost of the trek per individual goes down with more number of people.
The Journey
June 15th, Delhi – Manali.
Came 15th June and we boarded the much awaited bus to Manali at around 7 o’clock from Himachal Bhavan, Mandi House. The bus journey was fairly comfortable and unlike state roadways buses it doesn’t stop at many places.
Just for information, Himachal State tourism runs Volvo bus service to predefined tourist locations and the bookings can be made from Himachal Bhavan, Mandi House (91-011-23716124) or ISBT, Old Delhi (91-011-23868694). It’s always a good idea to get these bookings done well in advance.
June 16th, Manali.
We reached Manali at noon. Ludar, our contact at Manali and our guide on the last two treks picked us up from the bus stand. We straight away headed for our Hotel (Hotel Narayan). After a hot bath and sumptuous lunch we just walked through Manali. We had a brief photography presentation and rest of the day was spent acclimatizing.
June 17th, Manali – Khanol (7300ft) – Chhikka(10240ft)
The trek usually starts from Jagatsukh. But due to ongoing hydroelectric project work, there is now a road upto Khanol. We left Manali after breakfast in jeeps and were transported to Khanol in around an hour.
We started our trek from Khanol to Chhikka with our guide Pyarelal. Till midway there is noticeable human habitation especially in the form of temporary bastis of the labourers who are working for setting up the hydroelectric project stuff. Blasting work to extend the road further is being carried out which is sort of sad as it will further eat up the trek and increase human intervention in this part of the world.
We trekked along the Jagatsukh Nallah upwards through the green forest. A stretch of 3-4 kms is quite steep through the forest followed by a long & wide alpine plateau with wild flowers. We left all the civilization behind on this route.
Since ours was a photography group we used to stop at places and spend time shooting. Our camps were planned keeping this pace in mind. Having said that we still had overestimated our walking pace and it was five by the time we reached Chhikka. The first day’s lesson learnt: Carry packed lunch.
It was pretty cold in the evening with temperatures hovering around 4-5 degree Celsius which must have dropped down further during the night. It rained during the night. I was in four layers of clothes with my wollen cap and socks on and then into the sleeping bag and still feeling cold.
June 18th, Chhikka – Seri I(11640ft)
I got up at around six in the morning. It seemed that we had a nice clear day in store for us.
We started for the next camp (Seri) immediately after our breakfast. The trek to Seri was much more tiresome than the last day’s trek and hence we had frequent water breaks. Unlike day before we were carrying our lunch and had a lunch break midway.
What seemed like a nice weather in the morning didn’t remain so nice by 4 o’clock. It started raining and the temperature dropped suddenly. We decided to camp midway (and hence the name Seri I) because of the weather. I wasn’t carrying a pullover and the luggage on the mules hadn’t arrived yet. I squeezed myself into the dinner tent till the luggage arrived. Second day’s lesson learnt: Always carry atleast a pullover since the weather in the mountains changes quite rapidly.
June 19th, Seri I – Seri (12560 ft)
The original destination for the day was Tenta but once we reached Seri we were so overwhelmed with the beauty of the place that we decided to break for the day. Seri was once a glaciated lake surrounded by mountains on all sides, but is now a meadow carpeted with an astounding variety of herbs and alpine flowers. I could have never imagined such a vast ground equivalent to a few football fields up there on the mountains. The treeline had completely vanished by now and it was just rocks, snow, water and wild flowers all round.
Once again it started raining mid day and the temperature dropped suddenly. Our tents had still not reached Seri and we had to take shelter in a cave. We managed to find some wood and made fire, finishing up a roll of toilet paper in the process. Later on we came to know that a mule had slipped on the steep climb and had hurt its leg and hence delay in the luggage
The peaks surrounding Seri received fresh snow. Dropping temperature, low atmospheric pressure, less oxygen wasn’t helping us and some of us were down with altitude sickness. We were already lagging by a day so we decided to do away with the rest day and move on to Tenta next day. Only six of us decided to go further away. But that too also was fully dependent on how the weather behaves for the next two days.
June 20th, Seri – Tenta (13340 ft)
In the normal trek route people usually trek to Chandratal and come back to Seri in a day. It’s usually takes 9-10 hours. But we had decided to camp at Tenta and this created a problem of sorts. Mules cannot go further than Seri because the last two days is a pretty steep rocky climb. So we decided to pack our basic necessities and carry them ourselves.
The weather seemed to be on our side. It was nice sunny out there. Since we were breaking at Tenta, it was the shortest day as far as the trekking time was concerned. We were there in Tenta in around four hours. Yet another amazingly beautiful camping site.
It was the best day weather wise. Good light, lots of photography memories from the place. By six it again started getting cloudy and in fifteen minutes I was literally in the clouds, with visibility reduced to one to two meters. We had dinner by half past seven and by eight I was in my sleeping bag.
Chandratal was now in sight and we needed just one more nice sunny day to reach our destination.
June 21st, Tenta – Chandratal (14340 ft) – Seri
It kept raining the whole night and I kept wondering (and praying) if Chandratal was going to happen. Night Temperatures were sub-zero and it was really cold. But fortunately as was the case through out the trek sun came out in the morning. We had a really long day ahead and hence started our final climb at around 8.
As was expected it turned out to be the toughest day of the trek. For the first time I was feeling the lack of oxygen and the need to stop and take long breaths after few steps. But as our guide kept repeating the key was to walk at your own pace and not rush.
There was around three to four feet snow on the approach trail to lake and honestly speaking we were not equipped to handle that kind of snow. The shoes were all wet and the feet were frozen. All said and done we made it to the lake at around 1 o’clock and had our bout of madness. The lake was completely frozen and view all around was completely white with patches of rocky mountains. The lake is the camping base for the peak Deo Tibba (6000m).
After spending an hour or so we started our journey back to Seri. By this time (after noon) the water level in the JagatSukh stream had risen because of the melting of the snow, as a result we had to take a detour. I must say we had some heart stopping moments while walking on rocks just on the edge of the stream. We reached Seri at around 7 o’clock, had our dinner and went of to sleep – end to a very tiring but satisfying day.
June 22nd, Seri – Further Down Chhikka
Since we had our bus back to Delhi on June 23rd we needed to be as close to Manali as possible by day end. Climb down is much easy and faster than climb up but at the same time it is much more demanding on the knees.
We covered the required distance quite easily and were at our destination, the last camping site before Khanol, by 3 o’clock. Since the sun was still there we had a cold but refreshing bath in a stream running nearby - a bath after six days J.
June 23rd, To Manali - Delhi
Final day of trek. We trekked down to Jagatsukh from where the jeeps picked us up. We reached Manali by 2 and then took the bus to Delhi at 4 in the evening. I was really exhausted as I had slept late the night before looking for star trails (bad weather hadn’t permitted me to shoot star trails till now) and the next thing I know is that I was back in Delhi.
With no newspapers, no mobiles, no laptops, essentially no hooks to the so called “civilized” world, I had nearly lost sense of time. It would be a journey long remembered for people I met, for the madness we had besides the sheer pleasure of being in nature.
- Avoid street side meat or any uncooked stuff before the trek. A bad stomach is the worst thing that can happen to you before you start hiking.
- Avoid alcohol at altitudes, it dehydrates and can worsen your altitude sickness
- Booking of return tickets happens only from Manali and only before some fixed number of days. So the first thing you do when you land in Manali is book the return tickets in case you haven’t.
- Somebody gave a very nice advice “Weather is rather unpredictable up in the hills, so one has to be prepared for all eventualities…hard core campers tend to pack their clothes in polythene bags before stacking them in the backpack, in the order in which they are going to be unpacked, unless of course your bag is water proof.”
We have just bought our Mahindra Scorpio and that was more than enough reason to venture out. So we called up all the active ghumakkars at that point of our life and fixed a quick trip to Rajaji National Park.Rajaji is a big, very big, national park which starts from Haridwar and goes all the way till Doon and boasts of a large no of elephants.
So Jogi called up the booking office at Dehradoon and we found out that Chilla (best staying option inside the park) is not available so we booked ourselves at ‘Saung River Jungle Lodge’ which is on Haridwar-Doon road.
Day 1 - March 13, 2004
We started from Delhi early and were there by 10 AM. This river lodge is one of those very old, dilapidated building which is not well maintained by Forest Department. Its dark, the furniture is old and broken and the kitchen is not very clean. But then who cares of all these things when you are young and restless.
The gang was Nandan, Smita, Jogi, Mili, Rahul and Henry.
After checking in and settling down, we arranged for our lunch, which means getting the grocery from the market including salt/oil and everythig else. The kitchen had gas stove.
