Reach for the Sky - Part II

Day - 2, Monday, 27th Feb, 2006
Manebhanjang -> Gairibaas

New bed does not allow you to sleep late. Yes, by 6 o'clock in the morning we were all up n well not running but peacefully sitting. As discussed in the night before, we were supposed to leave by 7. The cold was not very killing except the tap water. Since it was going to be a lot of work we did not put on much clothes. We started off on GD's call. GD, our trekking guide, was a fairly young and handsome guy, equipped with well, not much, but a radio for directions and entertainment. We were on our track by 7:30.
It was a bright sunny day. The beauty in the mountains is the clarity of vision. The air is co clean that you can see miles with out a blur. We didn't get a feel of where we were staying the day before. It was too foggy to look around. It was really a beautiful site. We started off with a slow pace. The route was not very steep, about 20 deg or so. The track went through forests of huge pine trees. I noticed for the first time the sources of the water supply in the habitats down the slope. What these people do is to make some kind of reservoir up in the mountains to hold the ground water and then carry them to their houses using pipes. We could hear the hissing of tiny leaks in many of such pipes laid around us. The road was suitable for a Jeep. GD told that its possible to reach Sandakphu also by Jeep, but the experience we are going to have is only possible by walking.


About half an hour had passed. We started to feel the hardwork we had to do in our limbs and bones. We had a small water break and started again. But there was a potential problem peeking on us. As I stepped up, I could not see Sinha and Sjit as well. I called out for them, and the answer was not promising. Sinha shouted that sjit is down and is taking rest. "You move on, we are coming.". Well, I started again, but with a hint of worry about Sjit. I know he had been to rough places, but was not quite sure about his ability to undergo this coming stress. And even if a single person in the group collapses, I dont know what to do next. At that point of time it was only hope. Got the sight of Sjit taking small and slowsteps, no word no lookback. All he knew then was that he needs to keep moving.


In about an hour we reached Chitrey, our first tea spot. We have almost reached the top of the hill that we were climbing so far. It was a moderate flta hiltop, with a little vegetation above grass level. We were having a cup of tea there. The tea, if call it like that was aweful, it merely tasted like one. Though I am not a reguller sipper, I can sense this much. Anyway, the good part was, it had water. We also filled our bottles. There were some big Chicks over there. Arka was terrified about birdflu :-). And It seemed that thay knew about our fears. Never bothered about our irritations and kept on looking for biscuit fragments. We took rest for about 10-15 mins there and moved on.

After walking a while suddenly we noticed something bright shining above the horizon. My God! that was the Kanchendzonga, possibly the most beautiful mountain range int the world. This was my first sight of the same, and it was amazing. I started feeling the thrill in my heart. All of a suddent our tempo rose up and up. It was so exciting to see the peak from that distance, I could not imagine how it is going to be when I shall look at it from Sandakphu. Everyone got energized once more. We had reached the top of the current mountain. Now there was a decent descent ahead before we climb again. Still 27 kms to go before we slip.

Troubles never stops chasing anybody. Whatever you do, whereever you go, sometime or other... bang!! gotcha. This time it was Sinha for whom our last minute purchase of a handy rope came really handy. His rooksack was undergoing heavy stress and could not bear it. So we had to tie the lower portion up to make sure it doesn't fall apart. We did this while Bomba, Sjit had energy drinks at a tea stall at Lamayedhura. I was telling arka about how he can make use of this trip to impress his dream girl. He did not seem to be very excited and was evident from his favourite remark *** ****.(Censored for sanity). Prasoon always poses as a habildar, I dont know why, look at him! Arka was looking around to find out how powerful my new binocular is. Until GD shouted "Hoy... Hoy...", meaning "What? Move on...".

For a while we got plain land on the mountain top. There wasnt much rise, more or less peaceful walk we were having. We reached Meghma. Meghma had a border checkpost of India. There was also a buddhist Gumpha, we waited a while there. I was taking snapshots infront of the Gumpha. As I mentioned earlier, Sjit was moving slow, and hence we asked him to move ahead of us so that he doesnt get left behind. From meghma there are two routes. One on the right goes to Tonglu, and the other one is header towards Gairibas, via Tumling. We were supposed to take the second one. As instructed by GD, we, I mean me, Bomba, Sinha, Arka & Prasoon moved on. After a while, suddenly thought of sjit came along. We could not see him neither ahead of us nor behind us. We started to worry, he might have taken the Tonglu route. We had to stop for a while for GD to come and tell us that Sjit had moved far ahead of us in the correct route. So it was walk once again. The air was getting colder, we had reached about 2900 meters. There we met two local guys. They said, it snows often at this height. But we were lucky that there was no snow at that time. In fact, they told that there was no snowfall throughout the winter this year. We came accross a few smal streams. At about 12:30 we reached Tumling. Sjit wat waiting for us.

The air was getting colder as clouds started covering the mountains. We were almost inside the clouds. The wet sensation was reminding us about the cold all the time. I could not help taking a sprinkle to wash my hair n head. It was pretty cool in both the senses. We had quite a marvellous lunch there. We had Rice, Dal, Couliflower, Tamarind pickle Ghee etc etc. And to the tired and hungry fellows it was like 'Amrit'. We had enough. After about an hour or so, it was time to start again. We had still about 9 kms left to go. We started from Tumling after resting for one hour. As we moved on the fog started to become denser. After sometime, it was hardly possible to look down at the valley. Bomba was complaining about the clouds getting into his head :-) We were in good mood again. I was singing along and walking crisply. We found a sideway at one place leading to a hanging cliff. Me and Sinha decided to look down from there. It was amazing, looking straight down to may be a km. One fall from there and you will be at your destiny without a pinch. Some of us had a cup of tea at Jaubari, a small halt on the route. The next day was the Tibetan new year called 'Loshar'. The signs of celebration were visible everywhere. The route ahead was totally descent. We already started to feel that descending is really tougher and more pinful than climbing up. Sjit was far away... he started early as before. We were amazed by this kid my then. Nobody thought that he will be the first person to reach our Day 1 destination. As it is said, 'Slow but steady wins the race', is exctly what we could see there. He never talked or looked back. Me, Sinha, Arka Prasoon all of us are in search of opportunity to have little chit chat and all in between. It slowed down us a lot. Anyway, we were having fun ! :-) As the fog got denser we started to feel eerie about the hill track. Who knows if we are lost or not. There is no sign of GD or Sjit in front of us. May be we are in some wrong route. There is nothing that could help us here. No cell network nothing. We did not know about the frequency of wild animal there, but it was not absolutely impossible too. Good news is nothing happened. About after 3 hrs or so, we were near some habitats. After a little enquiry we found out that it was indeed our destination for the day, Gairibas. We walked a few yards more and could see the Rooksacks of our companions, Sjit n GD. Yoo Sjit, he made it first. There was nothing to fear anymore, at least for the time being. It was about 4:30 pm in the afternoon. Still we had sunlight, strong enough to prevent us from lying in our hut beds. Bomba was determined to enjoy the warmth of rag and did so. Rest of us were just having a walk around. This was a nice place. There was no civilian houses or enything. Gairibas is about army posts, forest inspection bunglow and our hut only. It was still misty weather. Sight of cloudes passing by the Magnolia was simply heavenly. We just sat in the terrace of our hut and kept looking at the misty nature for a while. It was awesome. I never felt so much happy ever before. All the pain of waking the day long seemed nothing. I just wanted to forget everything else in the world.

Reach for the Sky - Part I

Almost a whole year has passed since we started planning a trip somewhere that can enrich our memories forever, that can be relished for a lifetime. Such tours are only possible with the closest set of friends you have or a set of completely unknown people to a completely unknown place. The second was not an option for us. But, it turned out to be like even the first one was also seemed impossible. The way one after another thing showed up was really frustrating and disappointing. Once I thought it to be impossible in all grounds. But Anyway, luck has shown some favour. It Seems like we are almost ready to rock this time. Its just six of us from the same block. We were going on a trekking trip to Sandak-phu, the highest peak in West Bengal. The exams are over, everybody is happy, we are all prepared to launch our journey.

Day - 0, Saturday, 25th Feb, 2006
Destination New Jalpaiguri

I am at Sinhas place along with Sjit. Prasoon is with Bomba and Arka is coming from Jam with brothers DigiCam. We came all together at Durgapur Rly Station around 6 o'clock in the evening. Our reservation was from Bardhaman to New JalpaiGuri [NJP] at 9:40 pm. We took an express train from DGP and reached Bardhaman at 7:30 pm. Since all of the voyagers are terribly organized personalities, we found a whole list of missing necessities before we board the train destined to reach NJP. So, three of us went out looking for a market nearby, and also looking for the goodies in there. We walked around for about one hour until we finished collecting everything we could think of at that moment. I felt like this was a reharsal for our final journey over there. :-)
We had our last homemade dinner for the trip. The train was about 20 mins late. At 10 we were settled in our berths. Two of us were unfortunate (really?) to get the berths away from other four. There were tow (supposedly hot) chicks back there near the duo :-), but anyway, all were tired enough not to bother about anything but a place to sleep. We probably had different dreams about what coming next, but dont remember now. Nice sleep...

Day - 1, Sunday, 26th Feb, 2006
New Jalpaiguri -> Manebhanjang

One of the most common things to me about overnight journey in the train is, I always wake up earlier than I ever think of. No exception here... most of the fellow passengers were sleeping. Sjit was with me, oh I forgot to mention, we were the chosen two to sleep aside. He was still asleep and seemed to be feeling cold. I came down from the upper berth to look at the outside. I had never been to north before and the landscape was completely unknown to me. When I looked out through the open door, gosh I could not see anything beyond the rail tracks!!! The fog was so dense, I had hardly seen such a dense fog back there in my place. And it was cold. I was a little disappointed cause I could not see the landscape, also I was excited about the unexpected weather over there. For once, I thaught, the raincoat seems to come handy soon :-)
The train was almost on time. We were there at the NJP station early in the morning. The weather was cloudy, a bit wet but not as cold as I thought it to be. I called home and told the two worried souls that I am fine and moving. We came down to the Taxi Stand and were looking for the conveyance to Manebhanjang, our immediate destination, when we had our first shock in the trip. "A strike is going on in Darjeeling, so nobody shall take you to Manebhanjang putting their lives in risk. Alternatively you can make plans for Gangtok or something"... this was the response from the local driver we spoke to. I was worried, and tensed a bit. Firstly, I read about the chaos that was going on regarding some tea estate issue back there, and also I heard about the recent murder etc. But we were left with no good choice. Our booking was done from before. And everything follows, If we move late all of them are going to be a waste, which we could not have afforded. So, having no option, we started looking for the desparado who can take us. And it seemed we got one, Arjun Chhetry. Young nepali guy, seemed to be cool, offered us a double deal of taking us to Maneybhanjang through a roundabout way in exchange of 2000 bucks. We had the idea of 1200 as nominal fare, but the situation stopped us from getting into much arguments. Prasoon expecially had a good faith in ArjunDa from the very beginningm so we started. About the mountaing cab, a simple TATA Spacio, spacious enought to house us along with our bundles.
This is how our journey began. Pretty soon, we were cruising along spiral mountain roads. As the car was ascending and the sight of hills was getting clearer, it filled my mind with an absolute blissful pleasure. The tea gardens on the slope of the hills, the wooly clouds floating around, the dark pine forest everything was so incredibly beautiful. I had never been to mountains before. So I was almost immersed in the beauty most of the time. We were having little chit chats in side the car. We stopped at a roadside Dhaba owned by some relative of ArjunDa. Arka was on the move. He brought out the new digicam he took from his brother. And started shooting at everything madly. He was just jumping from onw side to another every time a valley passes by. And needless to say, missed most of the clean ones :-)
We reached Mirik around 10 am. Mirik is a small place in darjeeling, fairly high in terms of altitude. The main attration of the place is a beautiful small lake surrounded by vast pine forestry. ArjunDa had some problems with on of the rear tyres. So, he told us to hang around for a little while he gets that worked upon. We walked around the lake, there were a number of other visitors as well. Some with hotties in the group as well ;-) Now as we approached the place where we were supposed to get back in the car notihng was there. Me and Sinha were walking a little ahead of others and thought lets go a bit further where we may find the garage. As we walked up, an erie thought crossed our minds. We didn't have the Car number, any info about Arjun, nothing. If he wishes can easily leave us here, and we will be left with nothing to do. We were walking and walking and there was no sign of any garage not even a locality ahead. The feeling was becoming worse when a shrill of horn drew our attention to ArjunDa in it. We had our breath back. Whoo!!! I was skeptic enough to note the car number immediately :-D
Our next point of visit was the Pashupati market. Though I heard about it for the first time, I realized that it is a very famous market for cheap foreign goodies. Ooh forgot to mention, this visit also let us a chance to get into Nepal. A foreign visit, though small ;-). ArjunDa gave us one hour to surf the market and whatever. We took another car to take us from the check post to the market place. A small place, with may be 50s of shops all filled with different sellables. I was not looking for anything in particular. But could not resist to get a Bilocular. After visiting a number of shops, I finally managed to grab one for 400 bucks. I believed the gadget should cos a thousand or so in open market, so I was happy. Arka, Sinha, Sjit and Prasoon all o them got themselves a pair of shoe each. And if they are original products they got a very alluring deal. I neither had money nor space to carry anything more :-D
We started again, till now the weather was easy but now it started feeling colder as we climbed up. Nothing much during this, after a while we were in Manebhanjang. A similar small town/village whatever you say. We thanked ArjunDa for the nice trip.

Maneybhanjang is a nice place. When we reached there it was about 2 o clock in the afternoon, and it was already foggy over there. The temperature should be around 5 - 6 deg cels. Masterjee, kind of our trek director was waiting for us up there. He told us that he is going to arrange for the lunch while we get fresh in the hut. The rooms were unexcpectedly cozy. Small rooms all wood furnish and there was more, we had electricity as well as water supply lines. Pretty much for a location like this. We had our luggages in the rooms and went for lunch downstairs. Menu was the most simple one, rice dal and cauliflower, But tasted like anything. We were busy eating while Prasoon was checking out the girl in the adjacent shop ;-) Well the gain is the name only. Bomba had decided to take a quick nap and diminished soon. Rest of us went outside to take a look around. We had heard that Nepal is very close to the place and can be reached easily by climbing a little. Lets have a look, and after a bit questioning we were near the border. It was almost dark, they first day, so we were feeling a little eerie about the place. As it didn't seem to be okay staying there for long so we decided to take a few snaps and come back.
In the evening we sat for planning our trek and there was the second shock waiting for us. Masterjee stood surprised when he looked at our trek plan. Here we had someting that is necessary; we had skipped a few destination in hte route to cut the days. So naturally we had two days walk covered in a single day in every section. But according to masterjee, the last one was incredibly difficult!!! Even the guide was not ready to take the route. It was all descent and we thought wrongly that it is going to be easier. Whereas experience says its a lot more difficult to climb down the mountain. So what next? We were left with no other option but to cutPhalut from our route and come back from Sandakphu through Gurdum. This change incurred us almost a thousand extra for the Phalut booking and the extra stay at Gurdum. Anyway, its better to take a route which is not that deadly in the first trek. We were done for the day, its time to sleep :-)