Photo Link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/hhV6QToV2X8R6c46A
So after the Spiti trip, I flew back from Chandigarh to Chennai with my dad and aunt. My dad had another week just hanging out and seeing friends and relatives before going back to NY, so I spent time with him before going back to my grandma’s for a little before heading up north again to Uttarakhand. Always nice to catch up with relatives and family friends…one particularly noteworthy one was with one of my dad’s childhood friends, who is the grandson of the founder of a huge Tamil movie studio (the Tamil movie industry is the 3rd biggest Indian film industry after Hindi and Telegu). Legitimately by far the nicest residence I have ever visited (massive outdoor terraces, elevators inside, etc. etc.), but it was done in a very tasteful way that wasn’t gaudy and in-your-face. But yea, I had never really truly experienced wealth on this scale before. Of course, had some great food this whole week, including dosas at one of my favorite restaurants ever, Woodlands. And what is probably my favorite home cooked food, which is my grandma’s adai – sort of like a dosa but thicker, and smothered in ghee so it tastes delicious. Also some delicious, delicious Indian sweets. I’m a sucker for anything dairy-based, ghee-based, and almond-based, so just everything here is wonderful, especially the paisam (which is sort of a sweetened milk drink) and palgoa (sort of a thickened milk that is flavored with jaggery (unrefined brown sugar) and ghee).
One interesting conversation that I got into with a few relatives here had to do with Indian-Americans. There is this super unique phenomenon where certain Indian-Americans (like me, so parents are immigrants, but born in the US) only have brown friends, are super into Bollywood/Bhangra music/brown culture in general, have crazy traditional weddings, but also have literally zero interest in visiting India and really never visited India much growing up. I even would go as far as to say that the Indian-Americans who are less “openly brown” (myself, my sister, a few of my friends growing up) were the ones who visited India far more frequently growing up and still visit more frequently now, and have a stronger literal connection to India, as opposed to exported Indian culture (For example, there’s this whole thing of certain Bollywood movies being targeted at the NRI (non resident indian) population as opposed to the domestic Indian population). Just sort of interesting how from a sociological standpoint, this whole Indian-American culture has become its’ own thing that is quite distinct from Indian culture. I’m genuinely curious if this is also the case with other large minority groups in the US, like Chinese Americans, etc.
Anyways, my dad headed back to New York, and then soon after I flew over to the Uttarakhand capital of Dehradun. I spent a day in Rishikesh to see the ashram where the Beatles spent some time in, before going back to Dehradun to catch my trek company’s transport to the town of Gangotri where my 6 day Himalayan trek would begin. The Beatles ashram was actually a very interesting place in its’ own right, independent of the history. It is in a maintained, dilapidated state, and the graffiti there is honestly quite top notch. I would say it is probably the best modern ruin site I have visited so far (outside of Chernobyl, obviously), with much cooler art than in places like Bosnia. Was definitely cool to see the jungle take over all of these former concrete structures, and some of the Beatles themed art was legitimately excellent. The highlight for me was seeing the building that was the residence of the Beatles and other famous guests like the Farrow sisters – Dear Prudence is probably a top 3 Beatles song for me, with Magical Mystery Tour and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. Somewhat unfortunately, the actual room/building where Prudence Farrow locked herself in while trying to find God was not labelled, but it let me use my imagination when wandering around the random abandoned meditation centers. In terms of Beatles tourism, I definitely think this was cooler than the Liverpool sights.
Rishikesh itself was a surprisingly decent city. I thought I would hate it as I tend to dislike overtly holy Hindu sites in India, but it is quite atmospheric with its’ narrow alleys alongside the Ganga river. There’s this culture of overpriced/(in my opinion) overrated cafes that exist in tourist towns in India, and these were prevalent in Rishikesh. A lot of local Indian tourists actually find these cafes very charming – in places like here, Darjeeling, Shimla, etc. Personally I would much rather have some grimy and delicious street food at a stall for 20% the price, but if you like that sort of western/Indian fusion then Rishikesh is great for that.
After Rishikesh, I went to the nearby city (and capital of Uttarakhand) Dehradun for a night, before getting picked up the following morning for my trek. The first day was a nice and fun 10 hour drive from Dehradun to the holy town of Gangotri. Gangotri is the closest town to the source of the Ganga river, so there is this very holy temple to the goddess Ganga here that I visited…unlike other pilgrimage temples I have been to, like in Varanasi and Rameswaram and Puri, the crowds here were very manageable, so I didn’t totally despise the experience.
Anyways, 23 of us trekkers got dropped off at a lodge in Gangotri before beginning the 5 day trek the next day. The trek was a total of 42km, with a total elevation gain of ~1300 meters to a max of ~4400 meters. And I was lugging a 10kg backpack the entire trek. I guess it’s a good sign for me, but I found this trek to be absurdly easy – literally barely even broke a sweat. I’m actually shocked at my level of trekking competence – the trek leader even mentioned to me that I could pursue a career in trek leading in India if I learned some Hindi, especially given that I was consistently helping others on the steep uphill and downhill bouldering portions. I don’t know though…I found that the lack of challenge made me enjoy this trek less than I otherwise would have. Kind of a timing thing though…had I done this trek a year earlier I would have loved it way more as I wasn’t quite as good back then (for example, the Kyrgyzstan trek I did was objectively much easier than this but I struggled a lot more on that). I really think that my South America adventures significantly boosted my skill level…particularly the 6088 meter ice trek up Huayna Potosi in Bolivia, and my numerous hikes above 4000 meters in Ecuador while dealing with crippling hangovers (I am convinced that these handicapped hikes really helped my skill level overall). Learning to enjoy things when I find it easy (whether that is travel in Europe, or an easy trek like this) is something I am actively trying to improve on, but I suppose that it is a natural result of too much travel. That said, this was still a good experience, and had some genuine jaw-dropping views of big mountains. Probably the best trip I have ever done for big-mountain views, actually. And in terms of a challenge, this was the coldest trek I have ever done, so at least that was
In general, I think that I got along a good bit more on this trek than my previous Kashmir trek – I was once again the only non Indian citizen in the group. Was actually cool to see that a majority of this group was female – 13 girls and 10 guys, including a mom who took her 12th grade daughter out of school for a week for this trek. Honestly, that is the type of parent that I would LOVE to be like in the future, just such a cool thing to see. One thing that was interesting/weird to see, was this almost natural split of the overall group into two smaller groups, one north Indian and the other south Indian (south Indian being Tamil/Telegu/Kannada/Malyalam speakers), with small exceptions of one south Indian girl in the north Indian group and one north Indian girl in the south Indian group. We all still obviously got along, but I just thought that it was interesting to see.
When I say that this trek was, physically, a walk in the park, I mean it. The first day was a 10km hike that gained 500 meters in elevation, but it was quite literally the shallowest 500m I have ever gained in my life. The entire day felt like flat walking, it was just the most gradual ascent I have ever taken in my life. The second day was a 200m gain over 5km, and again, just as shallow as the first day. That night of the 2nd day was by far the best night sky of the entire trip – almost on par with what I saw in Spiti Valley, and probably equal to the best skies on the Kashmir trek. I have honestly been beyond blessed with just phenomenal night skies recently, from Bolivia, to Kashmir, to Spiti, to this. My sister told my dad after Spiti that “everyone should see a clear night sky at least once in their life”, and here I am, having seen clear night skies like literally 20+ times since I quit my job in August 2019. And I swear it never gets old, just such a wonderous sight.
The third and fourth days were when things at least got mildly interesting. Each day was a 6km hike, with an ascent/descent of 600 meters. However, it was really a 500 meter ascent/descent over a 2km stretch to reach the Tapovan campsite that was the trekking highlight for me. The easy part of the 3rd day was the first 4km where we slowly walked up this dry valley, being treated to grand vistas of hulking, snowy mountains all around us. The first couple of days were typical mountain greenery, which I of course found just “eh”. But this day we went well above the treeline and things finally got stark and rocky, so I immediately fell in love with the landscapes. The very start of this day was fun – we had to cross the Bhagarati River (the main tributary of the Ganga, hence the holiness of Gangotri) on this janky trolley system that only supported up to 4 people at once…the entire crossing took almost two hours. The final 2km was basically a 500m ascent up to 4400m and the Tapovan campsite. This was a lot of bouldering and using hands to go up. Honestly it would have been tough, but the trek company had a policy of everyone going up and sticking together because of potential rockfall issues (we had to wear helmets). Because of this, the pace was faaar slower than I normally would have gone, so I found the whole thing quite easy. Since I was not really challenged here due to the pace, I was volunteering to help out a bunch of the other trekkers on the trickier portions of the climb – from removing loose rocks on the path, to pointing out where to place hands and feet when going up, to generally (literally) providing a hand to lift people up harder sections. Selfishly, this was a good way to keep occupied on what was otherwise something that was too slow for me. I usually like to get lost in my thoughts and in solitude when hiking, but that was tough to do when in a big group – for the easier parts of the trek, I could easily be on my own (as we were more spread out) and experience this. Anyways, after a couple of hours we made it to the top of this “peak” or hill, called Tapovan. Even though it was “only” at 4400 meters of elevation, it was by far the coldest campsite I have ever stayed at. It was also quite easily the most scenic campsite I have ever stayed at, with a towering view of the star of the show, Mount Shivling. It is at roughly 6500 meters, and we were also greeted with glorious views of the Bhagarati Sisters and Mount Meru. Apparently, all of those mountains are amongst the *most* technical climbs in the entire Himalayan region, which I thought was cool to see.
I have obviously seen a ton of massive mountains, but this was the closest I have ever gotten to them. Like in Shivling’s case, we literally walked up to the base of the mountain, where you could see the remaining 2000 meters of ice climbing that was required if you craned your head up. Just such a surreal, surreal view. And even the Bhagarati Sisters…this is a group of three peaks where you could literally see exactly where the mountain starts, and the fact that it was all directly in front of you was such a cool feeling. It’s not like seeing Kilimanjaro or Huayna Potosi in the distance, and you need to drive up and then start a trek. Here, you see these near vertical mountains DIRECTLY up front, and you can literally walk to the point where the crazy-technical climb starts.
After a brutally cold night (minus 15 celsius before windchill, fun stuff), we went back down to the campsite of day 2, so a reverse of the 6km up. Like the previous day, I was lending a hand to people on the way down and helped point out paths, remove loose rocks, etc. However, we took a slight detour on the way down to the Gaumukh glacier, which is the literal source of the Bhagarati river, which is the primary tributary of the holy Ganga river. Since my grandma is very religious, I collected some water from the source here in a little container to give to her (they were selling these containers in Gangotri for 10 rupees a pop, so roughly 12.5 US cents). And the final day was just 15km back, combining what we did in days 1 and 2.
Overall, it was a great trek strictly for the big mountain views. I wish it was more challenging, but now I know that I can definitely push myself for much more difficult treks – I shouldn’t be surprised, since Kashmir Great Lakes is considered one of the tougher Indian treks and I found that to be barely challenging enough to give me a push. Anyways, after spending one last night in Gangotri we had one last 10 hour drive back to Dehradun. I then spent a day in Dehradun just sort of relaxing, eating good street food, and hanging out with the other trekkers, before flying back to Chennai for Diwali. Will spend a couple of days there with family (and my mom, who just flew out), before heading to Dubai for two days to get my Afghan visa. Then 12 days in Afghanistan, then back to Chennai, and I’ll probably travel a bit around India with my mom and solo before leaving India for a bit to see some other places. Thinking of New Zealand for now but need to check on flight prices and timings and all of that jazz, so we’ll see.