Trip to Ladakh :Part 1(Journey to Leh)

Photo Credits: Yashank,me,Rajesh,Sha

After months of planning and 2-3 months of hard work in the GYM the day had come to embark up on what turned out to be a trip of a life time for me and my friends.I was very excited since this  trip had many firsts for me. First trip to North India,first visit to an airport,first Flight, first trek in the Himalayas.

Even though i was not very happy about getting up at 4 AM and leaving to the airport the excitement for the trip kept my grumpiness at bay. I was very amazed to see how big the Bangalore International Airport was.

I had always imagined what it would be like to travel in a plane and here i was in front of the spice jet flight.

The flight turned out be rather ordinary except during the times of take off and landing. But the view from the window was nothing short of spectacular.

On seeing Delhi from the aeroplane window, JN in excited state gave the following Quote:

"Dude Look at the land Below!! It looks like a Analog circuit Layout"

People with kindles ,Nooks and books had found a way to pass time, but for others like me the only way to pass time was to sleep or read the Spice route magazine over and over again.I was so excited about the flight that i had not thought about what i would do during the flight.

Lesson Learnt:

"While on a domestic flight, food does not come for free, but boredom does"

The always excited yashank on seeing a kashmiri passenger: 

"Dude he looks like Ross from Friends, I desperately want to take his pic." 

The Srinagar airport was nothing like the Bangalore airport and understandably had a lot security personnel.We took a bus from the airport to the tourist reception center.The moment we stepped down at the TRC we were engulfed with hawkers who were ready to do anything from guiding us to a restaurant or booking a  hotel  or arranging a vehicle. One such guy made us walk about a km saying that the vegetarian restaurant was just around the corner.After many offers,counter-offers and negotiations, we managed to hire a budget  Tempo Traveler from Srinagar which would take us to Leh overnight. We had our lunch in a little known Vaishnodevi Dhaba and hit the road in noon.

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The TT driver Imtiaz was a very enthusiastic local Kashmiri. We quizzed him on a lot of things from local culture, cuisine, family , the secret behind the very fair complexion of Kashmiri girls etc etc  and he was very excited to chit chat with us.

The greenery on the highway was nothing like i had seen down south. The view which mainly consisted of beautiful  houses in between the lush green fields with green mountains in the background and an occasional river on the side made me think that i was in some sort of paradise.

We had actually planned to have an overnight journey to leh, But we had to halt at Sonmarg since the landslide that had occurred on the previous day was still being cleared and the route was still being cleared.We checked in to a normal hotel and  had a sumptuous dinner.

J N tried his hands at purchasing apples in a local shop and we were quite surprised that it cost only 40 bucks for a kg of apples. Later we were also suprised by the fact that the apple was bitter sweet and not the usual sweet apple we get in bangalore. Suru tried be over-smart and fed the bitter apples to a grazing horse nearby and had a showdown with the horse as a result.

The Bath room of the hotel was little weird as the Mirror inside doubled up as a see- through glass from outside the bathroom.This along with the decoration and ambiance of the room made us suspect that the room might be used for some other “special” purposes.   

Next Morning we woke up to the radiant sun rising in between the mountains and a nice cold wind blowing in the midst. we also spotted a couple of Shepards driving their herds along the valley.

Yep apples can be bitter Too……..

We started off towards Drass early in the morning with aim of having our breakfast there. The view on either side of the road was amazing with beautiful valleys having rivers flowing through them.

On reaching Drass we learned that it was the worlds second coldest inhabited place and as expected there were many profile pic requests with the board shown below.

We had a hearty breakfast at the Ali Dhaba.

Pav with butter and  local version of Mc Egg topped the charts.

   

We had to halt in between for about an hour as the landslide that occurred on the previous day was still being cleared

Later we stopped at a petrol bunk and boys found some innovative ways to pass time. The best one was where we would throw stones on the two poles at the other end of the road in order to see whose aim was best.

The Target

JN and BK seem to taking the contest very seriously. You can see the sparks flying.

The landscape started turning from green  to brown and rocky indicating that we were leaving Kashmir behind and entering Ladakh.

The view on the road was simply awe inspiring.There is not a single moment where you will get bored. One really needs to salute BRO(Border Roads Organisation) for building these smooth and beautiful roads in this mountainous terrain.

There was this interesting place called the Magnetic hill a few Km before Leh arrived. The legend here is that if you get your vehicle to the designated spot and switch of the engines , the car will be automatically pulled up the hill. We got to experience this feat first hand.

Finally we reached the city of Leh in the evening.As usual the boys played the “We are students.We don’t have much money” card and enlisted the services of our driver to find cheap accommodation at Firdos Guesthouse.

We spent the evening roaming around the bazaar and looking for a trekking company. After asking around we were directed to the iconic Changspa street.It is probably the most important place in leh. The number of trekking companies lined up next to each other is simply mind boggling.  

We finally decided to enlist the services of Himalayan voyages trekking agency run by Tenzin. Before embarking on the trip, our group was clearly divided in four.

1)The Supremely fit Royalty who would scale the Majestic Stok Kangri in the harshest conditions possible.(JN,Suhas,Sha,Yashank and Niel).

2) The Not so fit Commoners who would do an easy trek elsewhere.(me,suru,BK, Rajesh). 

3) Pandey the Joker who was slightly conflicted on which option to take.

4) The cool trio from sandisk who had come to tour ladakh.

But an impassioned speech by Tenzin Sama changed everything. The gist of the speech was something like Stok Kangri is a very easy trek, people aged around 50 and even kids aged around 15 have easily completed it before. The effect of the speech was so profound that everyone decided to do the Stok Kangri trek. The U-turn by the not so fit people was surprising considering that they had rejected the idea of trekking stok for months prior to the trip and even made fun of the supremely fit people for thinking about attempting it.

JN applying the final touches to the brainwashing session we had inside.

Now that the Decision was made, Boys played the “I am a student” card again to extract some discount.The not so fit commoners and the cool trio would realize the full implications  of their decision only during the trek which would unfold a lot adventures for the entire group.

LocoLeaks: cable1 -->trip to the jamlabaad fort(NOT SECRET)

Parties concerned:-
group of 17 people:me,pd,teja,kk,ds,aks,SHRI SHRI Sohan Suvarna'ji ,nandgiri,wc,shik,varun,sovi,c/shods,jogi,gubaal,boomer,ct

4th December 2010,it was a dull cold morning. We were supposed to depart from the hostel at 7.00,But finally we got out at 8.15 thanks to certain people who were busy doing their make up!
On reaching mangalore 4d returned back to hostel telling he was sick(but god knows what the actual reason was!).any way kk arrived at mangalore to maintain our strength. we had our breakfast in naivaidya and later took a bus to belthangdy from the ksrtc bus stand. Highlight of the bus trip was that the people were discussing about their possible gpa's and there was a showdown between SHRI SHRI Sohan Suvarna'ji and 'teja without a sound bheja'(due to the torture Mr Shri Shri was giving him).

we got down in ujjre,packed food from a small restaurant. Boomer develops a good rapport with the konkani speaking owners.
The owner suggested that we take the rickshaws from there all the way to the fort as we would not get rickshaws in near vicinity of  the fort. When we questioned about the honesty of the rickshaw drivers,he tells us about a  rickshaw driver  who stands up for justice,the one who can even beat up a fellow rickshaw driver for dishonesty. Well After half an hour we got a glimpse of this great man(mr sattu). He definitely looked like a roudy out on probation driving rickshaw as a part of the community service. Plus the no.of cigarettes he was smoking improved his don image.

we hired two autos.9 people sat in one 8 in the other,must say was an unique experience .Sandesh  was worried wether his ass would be scalped by lorry/bus from other side. He felt as if he was shooting for saw 8.Finally we  reached  the trek route entrance. .we had to pay a trekking fee of about 40 bucks.

After a brief photo session we started of the ascent very enthusiastically Initially we felt  climbing up the hill was easy .Then size of steps started increasing ,steepness increased, The afternoon sun started blazing above our heads.we split into three groups.The initial group having athletic people,the second group having people high on enthu,third group had nerds like me who were trying their best to reach the top. my group included teja,aks,ds and kk.
Teja's battery was down even this time.Last time the reason was lime juice,this time??i don't know he is still finding something to blame upon.Me and kk led the pack followed by ds and aks .teja was the one man army coming last but was carrying something extremly important.Intrestingly only airtel network had signal in the trek route.I learnt a lesson from my two treks---->BSNL network sucks where it matters the most("I cant believe it took me so long to accept this fact").

Periodically when we would meet the other groups in the pit stops they would enquire about teja, not that they were worried about him,they were more concerned wether he would make it to the the top with our lunch which he was carrying. As the leader teja had taken the responsibility to carry it(might have regretted this decision later!!).He was an exceptional leader, it was just that he was leading from behind.

The first batch had the likes of boomer to do the "I will talk you to death work",the second batch was having the likes of SHRI SHRI  Sohan Suvarna'ji to do the "i will bore you to death with my PJ's" work,The third batch which included me had a person who could do "i will S*D*CE you do death" work. Just kidding,nothing much happened between the jummbooo boy and the insectophilic boy.

After a lot of struggle we managed to reach the top of the hill and what we found out was a damaged watch tower. come on i don't understand why it is called the jamalabaad fort while it has no actual fort up there.One thing i observed particularly was that almost everyone abused tipu sultan using every possible slang in kannada.--->his fault:"who told him to build such a cruel and steep trek route up to the top of the hill?". Atleast we understood what the prisoners had to go through before before being executed on top.
After a brief session of photography everyone settled down to have the lunch. Then we played Mafia(LOCO wing's National game--->most important thing after the LOCO anthem).

At about four we started the descent. If i thought the  ascent was difficult,the descent was even more uncomfortable. The muscles in my legs were behaving involuntarily and were trembling as i would step down each time.It was pretty hard to stop myself once i got started--->i mean the decsent. Also strange things could be seen.What appeared to be a giant shiv linga from the top of the route ,turned out to be the dome of a mosque. we would never realize that if the evening prayers were not relayed through loud speakers.

Mr sattu(the rowdy type rickshaw driver) was waiting at the trek entry point to drop us to belthangdy.After having ice cream and musumbi juice,we left to mangalore.

There was an intense debate on where to eat???non-vegetarians routing for newly built kfc,some refuse for the reason-->how will girls respond if they see us in this condition. The veggies  were routing for pabbas.
Sovi proposed we would go to the Hao Ming restaurant.

In the restaurant complex there was an institute called  "Institute for studies on women"--->wonder what that meant!!
we had separate veg-non veg table. Boomer was taking the help of the turtles in the pond to hit at a beautiful nitk girl.we saw many high profile
nitk people like the chem CR,prabhu ke darshan and some couples.
The EC CR started his sixth sem duty there by ringing up the profs.

Overall it was a fantastic trip that i had,be it for the sceneries i got to see at the top of the hill or for the physical enrichment my otherwise un-exercised and lazy body received(the result for the next three days wasn't pleasant though!!).I should sincerely thank the LOCO wing and Varun for organizing this wonderful trip.

some interesting conversations:

in the 9 men rickshaw:
Ct:Eh nanna kunde eegaa slice aagtade. vollee SAW8 shooting naditha untuu.

jogi:Loafer galu!mooru jana nanna kunde spank maadidruu maaraye.

during the trek:

KK to teja:alli bale hannu kaanthade.allinda right side hoogu.Yeenu baale hannu illva??yaaru tokondu hoodru maraye.

Anonymous:"teja ge egaa beejaa illa"

In the Bus:

kk to SHRI  SHRI Sohan Suvarna'ji:"Oh! adhu joke itta!"

teja to his supporters:ondu sati belthangdy barli,ella vottige seri s*h*n annu rape maaduva.

ct:"yenuu KFC hooguda???heg hegay hogudu maaray?alli volley hudugiyaruu barthare!naavu ella volley kaan beku!

in the mao ching restaurant:

jogi to me in full confidence before calling up to the HOD:"HOD iddre yenu maaraye nanage maathdlike barrudilaa antha  ensiddhya"

jogi during the call:"Hello madam.Yes madam.Ok madam.Thank you madam"---->got chickened out before eating the chicken in front of him.

jogi in conversation with another prof:"No sir.not many have gone home.Most of them are still here.You should take a class tomorrow."--->the departments CR.

13 Idiots in Kodachadri

THIRTEEN IDIOTS

Starring:4d, shik, ss ,kk, G**,aks ,me,Don Nath ,jogi ,bhatta ,teja and pd

Written by:me

Produced by:all 13 of us

Directed by:shik

Disclaimer:The characters in this film are not fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or not dead is purely  not coincidental and we do not regret for any inconvenience caused in any form.

Third sem was nearing its dawn with its “DON”(referring to the most important event of every sem i.e the END SEM).before we could get over this painful procedure we already started discussing about the

stress busting trek. it would a complete test of the body in the sense,we already had a mental test and we would have a physical test soon after. Anyway I was pretty excited as it would be my first “trek”.

Trek got postponed by about 10 days thanks to the very good Enthusiasm shown by my friends. Finally

the trek took place on Saturday 5^th December. Most of us were “supposed” to assemble at the service Bus stand at “8.15”(IST).i was punctual for the first time and reached at eight .But Mr.”You know who”(I mean Mr G** (D S)) delayed our start by about 45 min. Then we took a direct bus to kollur.

I sat in a three seater with kk and Mr. you know who. The bus journey of about 3 hrs was initially spent in discussing the probable pointers every one could get. PD was on every ones hit list as he failed to secure ten only in one course.4d was busy asking for other peoples phone to drain their phone bat-treys in order to listen to music.

We got down in the holy town of kollur. From there we a took a bus to entrance of the trek route.

The beauty of the western ghats was unfolding as we climbed up the the ghat section. we could get a mesmerizing view of the other hills and the land at the bottom once we were at the top. To add this there was the lush green cover of the trees,plants,small waterfalls in the ghats. Finally we got down at the trek route entrance. There was a signboard which showed that our destination was 0 km away. on careful observation we noted that the '1' preceding the the 0 had faded. so we had to trek 10 km up the hills which was a challenging task for a person like me who has not walked 10 km in one week also.

Initially the route was little uneven in the sense there would be steep up for a long time then we had a down.(only later did we realize that this was pretty easy compared to what we had to face ahead ).Soon we realized that we were not alone .The forest had sent only one particular creature to welcome us .Any wild guesses with regard to what it can be ??????Leeeeeeeeeachh(leach).in-spite of the precautions taken by us they some how managed to break all the barriers and accompany us. They were in love with two people specifically:jogi and G**. Jogi I can understand ,he didn't wear shoes. But Mr. “you know who”(G**) had worn thick socks and shoes,but in spite of that at least 5-6 leaches managed to kiss him. We know that he has affinity towards the mosquitoes,XY of homo sapiens but now even leaches. Hope he has not lost his v******** due to them ;if at all he was one till then. Then some “brilliant” people suggested that to prevent leaches from biting shoes we should ditch our pants and shoes and were sandals and shorts instead.(Reasoning:we can at least see the leaches after they bite us!!!!!!!!!!).Strangely we finished 60% of food stock within the first 3 km of the trek itself. we got divided into three groups according to our walking speeds. we would occasionally stop for taking pics or for emptying our tanks. finally we reached our first pit stop after covering 4 km which was a small shop made out wood and dried coconut branches. We had refreshment in form of lemon juice and buttermilk. Then we met some cows on the way ,4d was busy staring themmm. After some time we encountered a rural school right in between the forest and close by there was a shop where we had our second pit stop. The easiest part of our journey had been completed and the challenging part was yet to come.

The route became narrow and was filled with rocks and small stones making it hard for us. some times thick bushes and trees were surrounding us in the dense dark forest or we would come across open fields were sun shone brightly. we weren't very happy to go out in open sunshine(not because we were bitten by vampires!!!!!!!!!!)as we would get dehydrated quickly. Bhatta was in the thick of things when we were taking photos(he would pose for a photo every 10-15 min;proof:check the trip photos on face book and show me a pic in which bhatta is not there (except the non human ones or the ones in which teja is there).Best part of the trip was when we were climbing the hills. it was a gorgeous view we could get to see. Lush green hills standing tall and adjacent to each other and the sunlight mixing up with dust and forming a heavenly bliss up there,something I wont ever forget. Suddenly teja gets sick and starts vomiting.(before your thoughts go in some direction let me make it clear that it was just because of the deadly combination of the banana and the lime juice).Finally after much hard work we reached Bhattare Manne(a hotel kind of place beside a temple).we rested for a while in that place.

Instead of having bath in that place we decided to do something adventurous,that was to take bath in a waterfalls in a nearby place. The owner asked us to follow a pipeline that would eventually lead us to the so called “waterfalls”. On the way we got to see a beautiful scenery from top of the hills. I could not believe what I saw,i could see clouds below the hill on which I was standing,something I was not accustomed to(have always seen clouds above me).then we started tracking the water pipeline to get to the waterfall pipeline lead us deep inside the forest and it was quite dark in there and really started doubting whether it would lead us to the waterfalls. but after some time some of us hit a masterstroke, they found the “waterfalls” which was a tap from which water was coming out rapidly. All of us were pretty disappointed as it took us a lot of effort to get to that place ,but ss,4d and jogi didn't loose hope and followed a water stream which might have led to a waterfall. They were brave enough to follow the trial merely by walking down the water stream while we came from a safer mud route in the forest. Finally we did not get a huge water fall as such ,but it was about seven feet, long enough for us to take a bath. we had a small cheddi party there and many of us got in to the cheddi mode except some few shy people like me and Don nath. We had fun having bath in the ice cold water there but at the same time every one was getting afraid of being seduced by some one. This was the only time in the trip where Bhatta himself put a “BAN ON PHOTOGRAPHY”. Later we headed back to our base camp in darkness.

What do I say about the dinner...... all I can say was that it was a FEAST not a dinner. By saying Feast

I don't mean the food was delicious or there were many items(no ice cream). All of us were didn't have a proper lunch or tea that day ,we had managed to trek on the basis of the break fast we had in the morning and the small refreshments we had eaten on the way. So all of us were like hungry wolfs who had not got their prey from a long time. My rice intake was about 4 times my normal intake. All though the food was not that tasty,it was food(no complaints).Later in the night, genius 4d introduced us to the game called mafia which was quite fun and we went on to play it till midnight. Bhatta had made elaborate plans to wake up at about 5.45 in the morning and watch the sunrise from the topmost point of the hill.(i wondered whether it would happen considering the natural lazy element that all of us shared in common).finally we decided to sleep .me,pd, kk ,teja were unlucky enough to sleep outside on the corridor and the rest of us slept together in a small room that was comparatively “hot”.I could barely sleep in-spite of using about three blankets I used ,thanks to chilling cold affecting by feet and head,Also I got sandwiched between two people(please don't take any other meaning out of this).some how the night passed on. pd. made a record by waking up 67 times that night if I am right.

Nobody bothered about the 5.45 deadline(our lazy instincts over came our enthu) and got up around 7-7.30.we quickly had our breakfast and decided to go to the Shankara Peetha which was the topmost point of the hill (also the topmost point in kodachadri) .we had to do a little bit of climbing to go till there.

While we were on the way we could get a breathtaking view of the surrounding hills and the vegitation below them which was quite cool in itself. Finally we got to our destination ,where we spotted a temple having the idol of Saint Shankaracharya. An small incident occurred which was seen only by me:

Bhatta learn that it was a Sarvagnya Peetha(A place of All Faith worship) from a local. Immediately he started praying there in three ways each pertaining to three different religions. At that point of time I had great respect for his secular credentials (dil mein izzat bad gayeee)and also it strengthened my belief that India is indeed a secular country.

Reaching that place was an achievement as I reached peak of something,may not be something like Mt. Everest,it will be written in “My book of records”.It was afternoon when we reached our base camp. We started packing our bags and took some last moment pics. We decided take the jeep route

which was easier to trek(but we had walk 10km for that).we got split into three groups according to our speed. Each group had its specialty,first group was in top speed and wanted to finish the trek as soon as possible,second group which included me was focused on playing football with a plastic ball while walking,the third group which was very casual made regular pit stops for taking an occasional pic.( now you can at least guess one member in this group).after walking for about 1.5 hours a new race had begun group three overtook group two. In the quest for reaching first many people started to take shortcuts by going in to the forest instead of following the jeep trials. But me, kk & Don Nath faithfully followed the jeep trial. one batch led by 4d ended up in a plantation and finally came back to the right track by hearing the jeep sounds. Another batch containing teja, pd and Mr. You know who got lost in the forest and started a new trek to find their way out. All of us had reached the bus stand except for these three. Every one was worried and furious with these three,also there was no network coverage .So all of us were fully loaded with scoldings and all special words to be fired at these people when they arrived. After waiting for about one hour, our heroes finally emerge out of the woods in style. After a fiery discussion on the sequence of events we boarded a jeep to nittur. Aks had half of his body inside the jeep and the other part outside(must have had a hard time balancing (balancing what??).From nittur we caught a bus to kollur. we caught S.R.K.T to get direct ticket to udupi. Funniest part of this bus trip was that on the way bhatta opened a packet of bread ,applied jam and distributed to every one,that was our lunch for the day. Finally we reached udupi at around 6 in the evening.It was a fantastic experience overall for me. The trip might have ended but the memories of this trip will remain alive in my mind for ever.

Some interesting questions:

1.Who owned the Sony Cybershot that accompanied us in the trip???

2.Who was the heart throb of the leaches on the trekking route???

3.What was the actual reason for teja to vomit???

4.Whom did bhatta call  in the first night(quite confusing)???

5.Did any special activity happen in the room at the night????

6.Why was aks preferring to stay under the table all the time???

7.Was the lost batch actually lost in the forest????

Please try and answer these questions when you review this script!!!!!!!