Dheet Trekkers in Lahaul and Spiti

Route taken: Delhi-Chandigarh-Shimla-Spiti-Lahaul-Manali-Chandigarh-Delhi
Date: 18th June – 25th June, 2011


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When under-preparation meets over-excitement, you’re usually headed for disaster. But not when luck is on your side, and when the risk takers are professional bunglers par excellence. For even had we prepared ourselves for the trip we were about to undertake, the outcome would not have been much different. With caution thrown to the wind and our heads deprived of oxygen and our blood streams full of toxic carcinogens, we would have still done the same things that went wrong. And we would still have had the same great time that we had fighting the odds and the gambling with what was to come.

It takes one brave mind to think up an audacious plan, and a thousand fools would follow. When Araib Hassan, our captain and land navigator announced a round trip to Lahaul and Spiti valley in Himanchal Pradesh, we just knew we had to go. Ever since we have left college and joined the corporate world, our lungs need to feel the fresh and open air that the toxic concrete wasteland of officedom deprives us of. We need to take ourselves to places where God’s glory is still visible in the nature that He created, and has not been deprived of its peace and beauty by man-made hoardings and sky-scrapers that challenge the very greatness of the God who created the creators.

The plan was to have a bike trip starting from Delhi, heading out to Shimla, then via Kinnaur distt. in Himachal to Spiti and Lahaul valley, reaching the highest altitude at Kunzum Pass, then onwards to Rohtang Pass and returning back to Delhi via Manali. It would be a total of approx. 1800 KMs in 8 days. Ofcourse, all this was known only to our navigator, Araib Hassan, for we were just hitchhikers of fate. And his plan.

The initial problem was getting leave from office, and till the very end, many of us were unsure if we would be able to join the trip. This was also perhaps one of the reasons why we were so unprepared. Someone had mentioned buying a foot-pump, puncture repair kits and spare tubes for the bikes, but it was not until we had encountered our first puncture that I think we remembered those golden words…

I was finally able to convince my boss for the week long vacation, after having travelled 2300 KMs in 2 weeks to complete all that he could ask me to do in that time. That was 2 days before take-off. The rest of the crew, Mohammad Danish, Araib Hassan, Hemant Choudhary, Rahul Tiwari, Vinod Upreti and Manish Kutaula were more or less decided by that time. Vinod was taking his bike, Pulsar 180 DTSi, 2010 model. Danish was supposed to take my bike, 2004 Honda Unicorn, already done 40000 KMs on its original engine. The bikers were supposed to go solo, and the rest of us would follow in Danish’s 4x4 Maruti Gypsy, especially brought from the Corbett Park where it operates, and which was closed for the rains now. This way, the bikers could go light and scout ahead, with their luggage in the jeep, and the jeep would also be a back-up, if god-forbid something untoward happened.

My 2004 Honda Unicorn

Upreti's Pulsar 180 DTSi

Danish's 4x4 Gypsy

The Gang!

Day 1: We started out on Saturday, the 18th of June, 2011. Our common meeting point was Moorthal, where we had lunch and the parathas with the desi butter that they serve there. Although originally our first destination was anywhere ahead of Shimla for the first night, we could only make it to Solan on the first day, having started out from Moorthal late and the traffic jams near Panchkula delaying us. It was around 11.30 that we reached Solan city after dinner. There we found out that all the hotels were booked as there was some Solan devi festival going on! We searched a lot of places but found no place where 7 guys could put up. One hotel even had the sign that read, “Do not disturb. Hotel full”!

Danish bhai’s ingenuity was what found us our shelter for the night at Solan. Danish had seen some guys from a car go into the same hotel where we had enquired, and those guys were talking to the guard when our guys were returning. Scouting ahead on the bike, Danish searched all of Solan for any place that was open. At one place, he saw the same car and guessed that the guard at the hotel earlier would have guided these guys to this place. He tried his luck and Wallah! We got 2 rooms for Rs.420/- each.

Day 2 (19th June, 2011): Next day we started from Solan and passed Shimla, the destination of innumerous tourists, like it was just a village on the highway. We crossed Narkanda, Rampur and to make up for the lost KMs on the first day, headed out for Kalpa to stay for the night. We travelled almost 300 KMs on that day, on hills and roads that barely had a trace of being metalled at one time, or perhaps never were. Hats off to our driver for that day, Araib, who made that possible. On that 2nd day, we saw glimpses of what was to come. Icy cold causeways, narrow roads made from blasted rocks with steep cliffs, with no parapets and overlooking the Sutlej river below.

On the route we met bikers in Enfields and Pulsars, all prepared for the journey wearing biker jackets, helmets, hydration bags, knee pads, ankle pads, shin pads, leather boots, carrying extra petrol in cans, blah blah. Our two bikers, in Hawaii chappals, wearing knee length shorts and t-shirts were such a stark contradiction to them that from that point onwards we were officially the ‘Dheet trekkers’ and all others ‘Decent Trekkers’. Perhaps it was also a reflection of our temperament, our confidence in ourselves and our come-what-may attitude. Maybe our upbringing in the hills and nearby also had a part to play for this attitude.

First mishap: Our bikers took a wrong detour to Sarhan and had to cover 32 KMs extra. We crossed Wangtoo to wait for them and when they caught up we found out that the shocks from the non-existent roads had broken the Unicorn’s headlight bracket. It was hanging on by the speedo cable and the headlight wiring, but as were travelling at night, it was difficult to focus on the road ahead. Upreti remembers being surprised when the Unicorn’s headlight would be on his head at one moment and on his toes the next, wondering whether they were really going through such tough decline or if he was hallucinating! We tied the headlamp with some rope to keep the headlamp focused and started out for Kalpa. It was the second night that we travelled at night and would be our last in the hills. Well, almost….

It was also on this night that we encountered our first causeway. Well, two actually. I was the first to take my bike across. What then, the rest followed and crossing causeways became a casual exercise as we headed out in the days ahead.

We reached Kalpa at around 10.30 p.m. and took up two rooms for Rs.400/- per room. Surprisingly, these rooms were much better than those at Solan.

Unicorn, bandaged...

The crazy roads...a sample

Another crazy road

Crossing our first causeway

Day 3 (20th June, 2011): It was only in the morning at Kalpa that we discovered the beauty that we had been unable to see at night. Just across the valley were beautiful snow clad mountains and the mountain peak, the Kinner Kailash. There was also a monastery that my friends went to see, but I being a late sleeper could not. We had our breakfast at Rekong Peo and set out for Dhankar that day. We left a petrol pump behind us which our bikers saw but we in the jeep could not. Unknown to us, the next petrol pump was at Kaza, 200 KMs away. During the afternoon we realized that the gypsy was running on its last quarter of the tank. There was no point in going ahead without fuel. So we enquired and found that in the villages we could get petrol in black.

The general store was Pooh was closed when we reached there. Misguided by the locals, for whom every next village was just a few KMs away and every place was just nearby, we moved on but could not find petrol even at the next village. That was when it was decided that Upreti and I go back to Pooh and try our luck at the village. It would mean that we would be set back by atleast 2 hours, but there was no point going ahead without fuel.

I still remember the somber mood we were in when we were headed for Pooh. Luck was on our side and we found a store that would sell us petrol for Rs.75/- a litre. We bought 46 Lts of petrol from that place! Actually it was 44 lts that we bought, and 46 lts that we paid for, and about 2 lts that we stole. But that’s a long sad story. What song we were in on our way back! As if we had just won a war…

That day, our navigator told us that the Tibet border was a 7 KM detour on the Eicher map he was carrying. We took the route and within a span of 13 KMs we must have ascened by 500m. The route was such a high incline that the jeep was going on 1st gear for most of those 13 KMs. The view below was scary to say the least, and awesome at its best. It was the toughest climb that our jeep did during the whole trip. We met no other tourists or bikers, but only army Stallions and water-bowsers.

Again, as we were accustomed to by now, we found that the Tibet border at Shipki La was not 7 but 28 KMs from the point of detour. And that civilians would not be allowed there. With much cursing of the map, we decide to go back after 13 KMs. Later, on opening our map, we would find that it had no mention of the KMs, and that the figure of 7 was a figment of our navigator’s imagination.

Nevertheless, it was the most awesome drive of my life, and although we don’t have photographs of the cliffs that we were overlooking upon, it was one of the craziest (and scariest) places that we visited. So thankful that we actually went that far for the experience.

Due to the set back because of the petrol episode, we were only able to get till Nako that evening, but before that, we took a wrong turn that ended in a dead end at a village called Leoh. Had to go back around 30 KMs to get to the road to Nako. This time, the Eicher map was really to be blamed. Another car, following us, also took the same wrong route! Inside was an uncle with his wife and kid! A true dheet family indeed.

We stayed the night at Nako. There were a lot of traffic and visitors at Nako, but we found 2 rooms at a place just next to the lake. At a slightly higher price of Rs.600/- per room.

Kinner Kailash, as seen from Kalpa

 

Day 4 (21st June, 2011): I fell in love with a baby cow at Nako. She had the prettiest eyes! And when I massaged her neck, she moved it around so I could massage where she wanted me to. She also wanted to lick me, but her tongue had something on it that was the same colour as her dung, so I left it at that. I circumambulated (hehe, Word Power made easy!) the lake at Nako in the morning, which was as small as perhaps a big pond, and then we set off for Dhankar. We would now be a full day behind our schedule.

Today we would cross over to Spiti valley. We crossed a police check-post where they took down all details of the vehicles and the drivers, and threatened Danish with a challan and told Upeti that he knew by his look that his bike had a third party insurance. There was also a puncture repair shop here.

Onwards, they stopped us at a place where there was some road construction going on. It was only when stones started raining down infront of us that we realized there were men on the hill cutting the stones away. A few KMs away they stopped us again. But then the dude had a rethink and he decided to let us pass. Half a KM more and a loud boom reverberated across the valley. We turned back to see the road shrouded in a smoke of dust. They had planted dynamite in the hills at the point they were stopping us!

2nd mishap: 8 KMs from the check-post, we found our bikers dancing on the road singing Delhi Belly’s song, teri tirchi nazar ne dil ko kar diya pencharr. As expected, the Unicorn had a puncture. We found an inch long nail in the tyre…! As we were taking out the tyre to go back and get the puncture repaired, our man Upreti whose Pulsar had tubeless tyres also spotted a nail in his tyre! Being tubeless, the tyre had not deflated (Thank God!).

Now sometimes being too vigilant can be disastrous. Upreti saw the nail and took it out. It was a good 2” nail with a thick head. And no sooner had he done that than the tyre started deflating! Without any further thought, he took a stone and hammered back the nail into the tyre where it had come from. And amazingly, the air leak stopped.

The last point where we had crossed a puncture repair shop was now 8 KMs behind us. Our enthusiasts, loath to go back, enquired and found out that there was another repair shop a few KMs ahead of us. And leaving me and Hemant behind, the others set out for that village.

Now 8 KMs in the hills would have taken 15 minutes. 30 minutes for the repair and another 15 minutes back. That would have been one hour. But when our crew did not return for 2.5 hours did we realize that we were screwed for the day. They had some good experiences too in the way. With Araib driving the Spiti Rally to catch the guys on the bike whose average speed was around 60 in the hills. I, in the meantime, climbed up the hill and read e-books on my mobile. And Hemant sat under the shade of a road memorial and had a good deep sleep beside the road. Anyways, I learnt that it’s better to go back a few steps to where you have been, than to go by hearsay and go ahead to a place you have no idea about.

Anyways, we were off and running after refitting the tyre on the Unicorn. Went to Tabo monastery there, and passed a very beautiful valley at Lari. Then we went to Dhankar to lodge for the night. At Tabo I checked the dip-stick for the engine oil condition and level. While the gypsy had an oil level slightly less than the min mark, the level in the Unicorn could not be found. It had burned away all the oil! We had some oil for the car in a one litre can, so I poured some into the Gypsy, and the remaining, about 200 ml, into the Unicorn. I know, bike and car oils are not the same, but I thought bad lubrication would somehow be better than no lubrication. Even after the 200 ml, the bike’s min dipstick level could not be reached.

Dhankar has a 1000 year old monastery situated on a very high cliff. The view from the monastery window was a sheer drop to who knows what distance, and the river below and the hills all around. It was awesome, perhaps the perfect place for meditation and to contemplate upon the greatness of the universe and the soul, and the smallness of the body.

At Dhankar, we saw our first Yak, which from a distance was looking like two cows side by side. There were a few herd of cattle there, with every herd having one yak. The reason why they kept the yak was for mating with the cows. Cows and buffaloes, we were told, are dirty and smear their place with dung. Yaks, on the other hand, are quite clean. So they had mated all the cows with yaks, and what we saw was a new kind of animal that looked like a cow but had thick fur on its legs but without the size of the yak. I had wanted to hug the yak, so pleased was I to see one, but the dude was bad-ass and would not come head on the road when he saw us in his way. Instead, he stood back and snorted and yelled in protest. As long as we were standing on the way where the rest of the herd had gone, he just stood there in protest yelling, and it was only after we moved to the side that he crossed the road. Them introverts!

At 7 o’clock in the evening, just as the sun was setting, 5 among us started off on foot for Dhankar Lake. The locals pointed to us the way and informed us that we would take about half an hour to reach there. The path was a long winding route to reach a place just at a point above us, through a track that although long, had a low-incline. Somewhere along the way, Rahul Tiwari had a chat with a local and decided we could climb straight up along a nallah than go the long winding route. What a great move that turned out to be! What could be attributed to maybe the lack of Oxygen at high altitudes or just plain old age dawning on young men, we found ourselves out of breath and heads spinning when we had gone less than quarter of the way. While Danish, Upreti and I somehow managed to reach the top propelled by the desire to outdo each other for supposed manliness, Kutaula and Tiwari struggled on behind us at a snail’s pace. We had at one point decided they weren’t gonna make it, but then they surprised us by not only reaching the top, but also when Tiwari had a shit on the hills at the highest altitude so far!

By the time we reached the top of the hill, the twilight had vanished, and we were left under the starry, moonless sky, looking down on a plain piece of land some 100m below us. There was dark portion at the place the lake was supposed be, and there was a brighter portion beside it. And I swear we tried out our hardest under our flashlight beam to make out which part of the two was the lake and which the land. And because we knew that if we went down to decipher, we would not make it back again, we did not go down and clarify the deal, and hence would never know unless we go there again someday.

At the hotel, in a book about Buddhist philosophy, I read a quote that meant something like the fear of death is because we love our bodies too much. Couldn’t help but agree.

Spiti Valley

My darling cow

Our night trek to Lake Dhankar

There's dynamite on the roads ahead...:P

View from Dhankar Monastry

Choudhary taking a nap, waiting for the pencharr repair

Day 5 (22nd June, 2011): In the morning we set out after our ritual sunscreen lotion bath. The Unicorn gave a heavy cloud of white smoke as it started, which slowly went away as the engine warmed up. I told myself that if not the naturally asphyxiated engine puffing under the pressure of the reduced oxygen in the air, it must be the mixing of the car engine oil that I had put in it at Tabo.

Some KMs down, we again saw Danish bhai on the side of the road. Pencharrr! Haha, what great news for the start of another day! But bless our luck, a truck came up just behind us and stopped when we waived. We loaded the bike and Danish-Araib combo into the truck for Kaza 24 KMs away and set off ahead of them. The good truck driver dropped the bike right at the tyre repair shop even when it was out of his way, and didn’t charge a cent for the help too! Courtesy is not dead. It was there at Kaza.

While the others got busy with a second breakfast, i changed the engine oil of the bike. We drained about half a liter of oil from the sump, even after the top-up at Tabo. Whew, we were saved! For the tyre puncture, we thought it would be better to change the tube, and put the punctured tube on the inside of the tyre to offer some cushion for the new tube. Thankfully after that day, we didn’t encounter another pencharr.

That day we went to Kee Monastry and Kibber village. At Kee, as I had seen at Tabo, around the doors of the prayer hall, there would be paintings of hellish creatures, whereas on all the walls everywhere else, would be the Buddha in different forms, usually in the crossed legged aasan. I asked around, and nobody seemed to know who those hellish beings were!

Then I met a Lama who had some clue. He said they were the four defenders of the faith, guarding the doors against evil. Then he showed us around the monastry, and offered us a great herbal tea. When I asked him whether the Buddhists bury their dead or if they cremate them, he got so fascinated with the word cremate that he started memorizing it right there! Even asked me the spelling a couple of times, and made sure he got the spelling right by drawing it out on his hand by his finger. Then I had to clarify the exact usage, because he asked if we could cremate a matchstick. Whew, some academic session it became there. The others must have laughed at my back on it for sure. But hey, couldn’t help it! You had his tea too!

Kibber is supposed to be the highest motorable village in the world, but we have no citation to this except the word of Mr.Araib Hassan. Got a great shot of our jeep there, and we came back and headed for Lossar. The drive to Lossar was one of the best along the way. Suddenly you would be driving along blasted rocks and steep cliffs, and then you would be transported into a valley where goats, donkeys and Yak ran free, and greenery, much deficient so far, would abound. It was like treachery and ecstasy had hand in hand created the place.

At Lossar we were told by the hotel owner that we could have a huge room with 4 double beds in it, for 400 bucks, and only because we were Indian. From foreigners, he would charge more, like 600. We could not believe our ears! 4 double beds at 400 bucks when there were people outside still looking for a place to stay was beyond our metro-accustomed minds. We thought he was an angel come from heaven. Araib thought his daughter was heavenly too, but pardon me for digressing.

Photography in the temple was not allowed. Seen here, a caricatuer outside the temple, with the Four Defenders of the faith on the sides

A cup of tea with the lama

Pencharr!

Day 6 (23rd June, 2011): Next day, after registering our cars and bikes, we started off for Kumzum Pass, the highest point of our journey at 4700m ASL. That day, we had on plans a trek to Chandratal. From Kunzum Pass, or Kumzum La, it was an 8 KM downhill trek, which meant we would have to climb up on the way back. Alternately, we could go to Battal, from where it was a 13KM trek, with a motorable road till 12 KMs, as we were told. With Choudhary getting sick with supposed AMS (Acute Mountain Sickness) and something that he suspected to be gout pain, we chose the latter. We indeed crossed a sign board that said “Chadratal 13KMs, Jeep worthy road 12 KMs”.

Take a look at the pic below and you’ll understand why you should never rely on road signs alone. The road was actually a no road, with just some rubble pushed aside to make way for one vehicle. Half a KM into the path, we found that the road had collapsed from halfway across the supposed road. Upreti and Danish, ever the fiercest of fighters, made a road for the jeep by cleaning off the rubble from the mountain and cleaning off even more rubble as more fell from above. When Araib tried to get the jeep across, it started sliding sideways towards the valley below! Upreti and Danish were of the opinion to work for a while more and make the road a foot wider, but Araib had given up, and I chose to go with the safety of having our jeep than risking it falling off the hill. In reality, I too wanted to make the road wider and go for it, but I decided to go with the majority then.

The trek to Chandratal was easy to walk but very hard on our nerves. While the others started off at 12.30 for Chandratal, Upreti and I went to Battal to park our vehicle and keep our stuff. There’s a shelter at Battal where an old man and his wife run a restaurant. They must be the most helpful people on earth really. They kept our luggage in their go-down and assured us that our stuff would be safe. But the heights of their generosity we would only find out later. We asked if we could go to Chandertal and return by night. A ‘decent trekker’, who had come a 1000 KMs into the hills but had not even bothered to take off the Kingfisher tags from his luggage bags told us it was ‘impossible’. The old man, who from nowonwards I’ll call Chacha and his wife Chachi, told us there are camps at Chandertal. Chacha then added in Hindi, “Paisa phek, tamasha dekh” (English version here), something which we could not understand at the time.

So he headed off to Chandertal for a 12 KM trek with the intention of staying the night in the tents there. We covered around 8 of those 12 KMs in 2 hours when we reached the camp site. There, we were told that it would be 1000 bucks per person for the night. We were stumped! This would be the greatest expense of our tour. Now I understood what Chacha had meant when he had said “paisa phek, tamasha dekh”. It was about 3 o’clock then. With mutual consensus (I think!), we decided we would go to Chandertal, 4 KMs away, and return to Battal for the night. As Choudhary was feeling unwell, he and Tiwari would stay at the camps and join us the next morning.

The trek route to Chandertal goes through beautiful valleys with grasslands and a view of snow-clad mountains beyond. The valley had yellow flowers and small ponds as if straight out of some Enid Blyton book. Twice on the way we had to cross causeways of ice cold water. By ice cold, I mean literally ice cold, as we could see the ice on the hill top whence this water was coming. Halfway through the stream, your legs would freeze and your head would feel needles being pierced through it. Beating Tiwari’s previous record, Manish Kutaula had a shit at the highest point ever by shitting at Chadertal at 4270 m above sea level. And he was so proud to tell us all of the feat….:P

At Chandertal, Danish, Kutaula and I took a dip in the lake. When we came out our bones we so chilled you could have cracked them with a teaspoon!

In science books in school we had read that water was a tasteless, odourless liquid. Here water really tasted nothing like water, so pure was it. We had drank straight from the streams and the water had no taste and no minerals in it.

It was 8.30 by the time we reached back at Battal, after our almost 20 KM trek. The guys at Chacha-Chachi’s place were so awestruck that they wouldn’t believe we had been to Chandertal and back on foot! Anyways, in spite of being late and coming without notice, the old lady there served us rice and dal with such motherly affection that I swear we felt for a moment we were at home. Upreti shared his rum with Chacha there, on which Chachi joked that they only drank straight from the bottle! For the night, 2 of us slept in the restaurant itself, along with the owners and a few Israeli tourists, and 3 were given a tent. Considering our walking feat of the day, Chacha told Danish that the tents were 1.5 KMs away, just to test his mettle, when they were just across the road! You seldom meet such jovial people in your life…

I had the worst night ever there. In spite of 3 blankets I was cold. All through the night I tossed and turned and, as I was told in the morning, was also talking in my sleep. For all their hospitality and the stay for 5 people and the dinner and morning breakfast, we were charged 940 rupees. Out in the mountain deserts at one of the most deserted places on earth! I guess that explains even more why we loath the metro life now. Hell, there’s more to life than money!

The so-called road to Chandertal. The point where we dug up the road is on the right lower half  

Beautiful meadows on trek to Chandertal

Chandertal

10 more KMs to the base...

Day 6 (24th June, 2011): Today we would cross the Rohtang pass. And drive through the last phase of our journey. For the first time, we would encounter shall I say much the acclaimed roads with walls of ice on both sides. Also, today would be our last day in the hills.

Do I need to mention that we crossed a causeway that was so strong that an Alto got stuck in it, an SX4 decided to wait for others to pass before taking it on, our biker Upreti fell midway through, and which we passed nonchalantly in our jeep with AC-DC playing on the stereo. Our crew, much unlike the others who were watching anxiously as their vehicles were passing the causeway, were as unbothered as ever and we throwing ice balls at each other in play!

Anyways, just as we crossed the Rohtang Pass, the world just changed. For the worst thing imaginable. First we ascended into mist and ice, and then suddenly, there was a traffic jam! Immovable for 2 long hours. And there were tourists. Thousands of them. Posing with black blocks of dirty ice. Posing in costumes-for-hire. Tourists in hired rubber shoes and pink body-suits. Vendors selling bad coffee for 20 bucks that even in deserted places we got cheaper. Coming from a place where often we would be the only people on the road in sight, we were disgusted. So we decided to give Manali a pass and come back straight home. We just didn’t want so many people around us.

Our Unicorn had a problem again when it refused to start a few KMs downhill. I took the bike from Danish to check it, and found that the bike started to skid if I tried to put it in gear on the slope. My heart shrank. For if the bike skid when I put it in gear, it only meant that the engine had seized. Maybe the oil had run low again as I had not checked it after Kaza. Thankfully, after a few more unsuccessful tries, the engine did start to rotate. However, the bike would only cough and would not start. That, and the white smoke we had seen earlier, meant that the spark plug was gone. Now I had an extra spark plug in the bike, but had foolishly forgotten to keep it back in the tool-kit after the first tyre puncture. So we got bike downhill in neutral until we found a mechanic who replaced the plug. And the bike started with a roar!

The Pulsar was also puffing by this time and even though we had tensioned the chain at Battal in the morning, its was running slack again. We got that fixed too and set off beaming again. On the way, I tried to explain to Kutaula why we could not start a bike without a spark plug….

So we drove all evening and we drove all night and then we drove all morning to reach Delhi in a single stretch of 723 Kms. It was madness to say the least, but that was how we ended our trip. Running late by a day, we ended up at Delhi one day before our scheduled arrival.

I almost got killed near Chandigarh when I mistook a Safari with its headlights turned off and coming towards me from the wrong side of the road to be a bullock cart going away from me. It was raining heavily and we were speeding so that when I braked, the rear tyre started skidding. Thankfully, the driver of the Safari was able to steer the vehicle away and we passed each other by just about a few inches.

We reached Delhi on the 25th of June at about 2 p.m. What we experienced after coming back was a weird emptiness that I can’t explain. Maybe we were tired and exhausted, but it was as if we were between the transition phase in a time machine, where there is nothing but emptiness and numbness and no reality. Yes, we were loath to think of going back to our offices coming Monday, and Danish even said that he would not go on any tour again, as the feeling that came upon us once we came back was the deepest kind of low.

Some people have seen our pics and said that they miss having a group like ours. To them we say that we really were not a group. We were different individuals who were brought together by a common purpose. And that is really what the best of groups are.

Anyway, the show was over. It was time to bite the dust of reality.

Lastly, the gang, once again

P.S. for a trek report on how to get there, and for some awesome (incl. HDR) pics of the trip, visit Araib Hassan's website, www.orangerucksack.com

For still more pics, check out the facebook albums of our guys...:D