Morning comes with more chilled fog, into which people disappear furtively with bottles of water. Taking a crap in the open on top of a mountain is something everyone has to try once; you won't believe me if I tell you. Just do it.
See another tunnel on the way down, and then it's a fairly peaceful climb down (at least for me; Apparently several people slipped and fell on the wet stones several times, including Unny who got a nasty bump on his head.)
See another tunnel on the way down, and then it's a fairly peaceful climb down (at least for me; Apparently several people slipped and fell on the wet stones several times, including Unny who got a nasty bump on his head.)
Reach the Qualis. Rest. No rain, starts getting hotter. Decide to cancel the Sarasgadh trek, it'll be too much in one day. Vipin decides to join us (he came for Sarasgadh, and found out it was cancelled only when he arrived.) Have vada pao and kokam under an impromptu canteen where Asif serves out food from the Qualis hatch under a tarp.
Find out there's a stream nearby, so we head down. Hardik suffered a trek tragedy at this point; He fell asleep in the Qualis, and nobody noticed he was missing till we reached. When we came back we found him wandering around on the road disconsolately, kicking pebbles.
The stream was fantastic. Fresh mountain stream, swollen with rain, roaring through mini-rapids into a largish pool. You don't know what water feels like until you wear trekking shoes for 36 hours, walk 2000+ feet up over several kilometers, swelter in the heat, and then take off most of your clothes and slide into an icy cold mountain stream and feel the clean sand between your toes. Mmmmm.
Navin made the afternoon memorable by heading a little further upstream, and reappearing in an extraordinarily skimpy number in which he happily splashed about while the female contingent in our group tried desperately not to look in that direction. We finally managed to tear ourselves away from the water and walk back along a path littered with bovine bones to the cars, packed up and headed back.
The stream was fantastic. Fresh mountain stream, swollen with rain, roaring through mini-rapids into a largish pool. You don't know what water feels like until you wear trekking shoes for 36 hours, walk 2000+ feet up over several kilometers, swelter in the heat, and then take off most of your clothes and slide into an icy cold mountain stream and feel the clean sand between your toes. Mmmmm.
Navin made the afternoon memorable by heading a little further upstream, and reappearing in an extraordinarily skimpy number in which he happily splashed about while the female contingent in our group tried desperately not to look in that direction. We finally managed to tear ourselves away from the water and walk back along a path littered with bovine bones to the cars, packed up and headed back.
Three motion sickness and one cigarette stop later, we hit the highway and literally hummed down at 90 kmph to a Kamat's on the highway where we pigged out on paneer, chhole and reshmi parathas. The Qualis rocks on highways, man.
This was also exactly the time when network connectivity returns... and with it, news of riots in Bombay where the Shiv Sainiks are apparently going berserk. Everyone's on low battery by now, so even greater panic; parents call, and get either 'not reachable' or one ring and cut off. So it's a slightly sombre ride back home, but everything looks pretty much normal.
Reach and crash.
I wish I knew why blogger's not letting me upload pictures... here's all the snaps again, and the slideshow.
I wish I knew why blogger's not letting me upload pictures... here's all the snaps again, and the slideshow.
1 comment:
I donno if im the only one, but I liked this way of presentin the snaps .. With the links that is :)
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