First Trek

They say solitude can work wonders; it either makes or breaks you. We five had a pretty much comfortable life at Ace institute of Management; everything was convenient, except for three things: Lectures, Assignments and Passion. One morning, we decided to take a leap. I had to do something great this weekend, I thought. Aimlessly, I started browsing about treks near Kathmandu and about five minutes later, I came across Gosaikunda “The frozen lake”. I had heard about the lake before but had never heard of its English name “The Frozen Lake”. It was one of those few places in entire Nepal that my family would not refrain me from going to. People believe that, the Hindu and Buddhist shrine Gosaikunda Lake was created by Lord Shiva by his Trishul (trident), when he was suffering intoxication from swallowing poison. After drinking this cool water he was relieved of the toxicity and since then Gosaikunda Lake has been a rewarding place for many Hindus and Buddhists. Hindus believe that the image of Mahadev (Shiva) can be seen in the middle surface of the water even today.

Convinced enough,some of us(Manzil bhattarai, Ashish Baidya, Satish Khadkaand me)conformed the trek. RiteshMarwadi joined a day prior to the trek. Chhitiz Shrestha and AyushArjyal backed it off at the final moments because of family reasons.  I and Satish went to Machhapokhari a day before and bought 6 tickets up to Ramche. As the monsoon was at its peak and landslides were everywhere, the bus would only go up to Ramche and then we would have to walk for some time to change the bus and then finally reach Dhunche which is the headquarter of Rasuwa district. All the arrangements were made so haphazardly and quickly that, until we bought the tickets no one in the class believed that we were actually going on our first trek.

Finally, the day arrived. We all decided to meet up at Koteshowor. Apart fromRitesh, all arrived on time and to our utter surprise he arrived after 10 minutes with a side bag for the trek. He had met Ashish a day before and given him a sack full of can beer, Ashish bought it along the tour. We took a cab and reached Machhapokhari on time. Since no body had had breakfast, we took our breakfast on the bus-park itself and divided the beer cans to each of us. Satish’s bag was probably the lighter one while Manzil’s bag was probably the heavier one. Finally, the bus started to expedite towards its destination. Not to our surprise, but it felt like the bus had carried by the entire village with us.   I sat along with Satish and took a nap. Not much later, I woke up to see the most magnanimous sight of tall trees hiding the small cottages and narrow lanes covered with fog. The flowing Trishuli river on one side, the breeze of cool air, the unparalleled greenery of the mountains and the constant swing of the bus going round the sharp corners of the mountains, all of these experiences added up to make every hassle we faced till now worth it. The situation was paradoxical as we were crammed up like buffaloes, but the excitement of the journey ahead made us feel like we were on an adventure.We were tired already but were loving the travelling experience we had juxtaposed to the tiredness. The constant Dohori(folk) songs were keeping us half asleep and restentertained. It was the first time that all of us were in such playful situation. Slowly and gradually, the bus crossed by the places like Kakani, Nuwakot, Kalikasthan and reached Ramche, from where we started to trek. We came across a big land slide that had occurred a day before.

Our plan was to reach Chandanbari on the same day but the delay of the bus had completely changed our plan. Finally, we reached Dhunche and it was probably 3.30 in the afternoon. After talking to some of the locals, we found that we could have reachedChandanbari easily on the same day.  We decided to trust the words of those villagers and started our tour to Chandanbari at 4 pm from Dhunche. It must have been just 15 to 20 minutes of walk,when we saw the manufacturing unit of Himalayas Spring Water. Having heard about this brand for so long, getting to be at its manufacturing unit was an added advantage to our trip, or atleast we felt to add our experience of visiting branded manufacturing units.

After trekking for almost an hour we heard a loud cry from some villagers that we were on a wrong trail, leaving us with no option but to return back almost half an hour to catch the trail to Gosaikunda. The inception of the trek was not the one we had expected. We returned back and started on the trail again. Then came the second problem, it started raining. I had asked all of my friends to bring a raincoat along but Satish had not taken seriously and had forgotten to bring one. We put on our raincoats but then realized that rain coatswere not enough to bypass the rain.Thus, we thought of protecting our bags instead and covered them well enough so that we could have some dry clothes for the night. Referring the rain a problem, would be a serious understatement. It was muchchallenging that, it had pushed up our patience and perseverance to a point where we had to rethink our plan of moving ahead. But, adventures being never easy- we thought, and what so ever the matter, how punched we were, we gathered all of our remaining zeal and moved ahead.

If you’ve ever had a hike extended into the evening whether by choice or because of poor planning, you know that it’s completely different from hiking during the day.It was not long before we five realized what the trek ahead was going to be like. For some of us,the sounds we heard were new and so were the things that we had eyed. But things were about to worsen…

If I can recall well, it must have been past 7pm in the evening. We were stuck in the middle of the Langtang national park. We were desperate to find a hotel to call it  our day. To put it into perspective, we were so alone and separated from civilization that, we were praying to get a glance of a human face. We realized that walking in close proximity of each other and making loud noise would make us audible to nearby villages and in addition would ward off potential danger that could be lurking around us without our knowledge. We started singing songs that all of us could sing and when our playlist was over“BhanaBhana Bhai ho, RamrariBhana” (Nepali ‘festival of light’ song) was the one we sang for almost an hour. Ritesh and Manzil were the one who needed constant break to catch their breath while Satish was called “Ghoda” (horse) for his fast walk and long stripes. We all thanked God when we saw dim light few steps away. Deurali it was. The place had only one hotel and we ordered some rice, and before we were on our senses, we already had felt asleep. Satish, Manzil and I had decided to share a room while Ashish and Ritesh shared with the others. Leeches were the ones who accompanied us throughout the trek. While looking for some warm clothes, I realized that all my clothes smelled beer as Ashish slept over my bag while traveling on the bus causing one of the beer can to break open. and I was smelling beer all over. I could not sleep as the beds were not comfortable and constantly cautious about upcoming troublesome the next day. I thought of taking Nims (medicine for headache), but then realized I had no water in the room. I opened a can of beer and took medicine with the sip of beer. I don’t even remember what it tasted like, but trust me I had been a joke since then. “Beer sanga nims khane Sapant hiyo hai”(the person who had taken Nims with a beer) has been a recurrent phrase my friends used when we recall our trek. Satish and I will never forget how Manzil shook the entire room with his snore. It felt like we were sleeping with a tiger and when complaining about it the next day, he was acting like a murderer refusing his crime.

The second day of the trek brought some warm smile to our faces. Sky was crystal clear and the sun was shining bright and yellow. We had our breakfast in the open dining table and started to plan for today’s trek. The family who owned the hotel had gone to Dhunche and owner’s sister was the one who made tea for us. Out of all the discussions regarding the most stupid of issues possible, we were unanimous about the fact that the server (the lady) was impeccably beautiful. Though we kept our “Boka” (he-goat) senses to ourselves, our friend Manzil lacked that ounce of self - control and started throwing few pebbles on her. She told us that it would take us around 6 hours to reach Gosaikunda from that place. We planned to leave our bags at the hotel and started to trek with some food and water. What we saw ahead terrified us. The way to Chandanbari, was straight uphill walk for more than an hour or two. After 20 minutes of walk, Ritesh gave up. That urge to give up was strongly building up inside me, however the voice inside kept me from falling back. Ritesh decided to turn back to Deurali and wait for us to get back in the evening. From five we were four of us now. We four continued the journey. To keep the spirit alive, we had some boys talk and promised that what happens in Gosaikunda stays in Gosaikunda. But we were idiotic to assume that Gosaikunda was Vegas. Everything that we talked about spread like wildfire and the moment we got back we were received with many angry vibes. There were few other hikers, some natives and some foreigners coming and goingthe path. We took our other breakfast at Chandanbari and continued up the journey. The owner of the hotel red panda said that her father owns a hotel in Lauribina(on the up-hills, way to Gosaikunda) and then she would call her father to prepare us a meal. We happily agreed.

 We spent almost entire day climbing uphill through steep paths, villages, straight roads, forests with rhododendron trees. The nature was surreal.The view and the surrounding mountains took me down the memory lane when I used to look at pictures and canvases of this majestic mountains and wished to touch them. The feeling that I was living my childhood dreams made this moment even more dreamlike for me. The view ofLangtang, DorjeLakpa, Ganesh, Manaslu was breath taking. The mighty Himalayas covered in a blanket of snow and the deep blue sky providing a perfect backdrop to the Himalayas, wow it indeed brings that anxiety back when I think of it. It was around 1 pmwhen we reached Lauribina and were greeted with our lunch at the hotel. The cold breeze was starting to turn fierce. After 5 minutes of walk Ashish and I realized that it was going to very toughfor both of us as we could see Manzil and Satish marching ahead. We took a look around and there was a guy who owned a hotel there. He asked us if we were willing to take a horse ride till the top of the mountain. Ashish and I both looked at each other and pushing our man ego aside, agreed to take one each. Satish and Manzil stopped at the half way and they rode the horse for the other half. Finally, we all were atthe top of LauriBina and the trail was easier from there.

After around 2 hours of walk we began to see lakes deep below. The road was very slippery around 4 feet wide decorated with a steep fall on one side and big cliffs on the other. We reached Gosaikunda at around 3 pm and what a magnificent it was. The first glance of the lake was mesmerizing enough to ease out all our pain that we had endured so far. At the beginning of the trek, it had been difficult for me to fathom why any insane person would want to trek for days to get to a lake. Putting aside its religious significance, I found the idea totally unsettling. But, when I looked into the water inches away from my feet, I could see how wrong I was. Frankly, it was not a majestic lake. But everything about it was so perfect that it seemed like nature had crafted at its possible best to create a landmark of this beauty. A small blue lake surrounded by white snowy hills. The water was crystal clear with stark images of the sky, clouds and surrounding hills. There were around 3 or 4 small lakes nearby but Gosaikunda stood with pride of beauty.Traces of fog swept past the surface giving a theatric feel. I was already in love with this place and apart from the feeling that I made through the trek, I was actually overwhelmed about the opportunity I had got to experience sitting beside this lake and enjoying the mesmerizing beauty it had got to offer. A feeling worth all the lows I had to endure through.

Only we knew how difficult it was to light a match box. We drank a cup of tea worthRs. 500 and decided that it’s high time we returned back. The downhill trek was much faster and we crossed the snow line easily. The trail which took us more than 2 hours of trek to complete earlier, was completed in almost 2 minutes. So one can imagine how fast we travelled. We reached Lauribina where we had earlier taken our lunch. The hotel owner gave us the message that Ritesh had come up to Chandanbari so we had to catch him up there. It was already 6 pm and it took us almost 4 hours to reach up here from Chandanbari. Even today, it is still unclear to us as to why we thought of going for it. Though it was utterly dark, we decided to move ahead and once decided there was no way we would turn back. Four guys, two torch light (one went off after half an hour) and our fate on our hands. We started walking downhill. We did not take a single break and walked tirelessly. We believed strongly that we could make it within an hour and half and there we were after an hour or so at Chandabari. Ritesh was more relieved to see us than we were to see him again. What a day it was. It felt like living in an Indian soap opera, full of drama and emotions. Getting back was much relief.

The next morning we woke up early and we were back on a trail again. After half an hour of walking downhill we reached Deurali. We had our breakfast, packed our bags and started our journey back to Dhunche. Ritesh and I decided to change our bags, after carrying his bag for half an hour I realized why it was so difficult for him. This guy must have felt like he was lifting stones through the entire journey. Finally, it was 10 am when we had reached Dhunche and the ticket counter guy told us that the last bus to Kathmandu had already left. We decided to stay over at Dragon guest house and like all boys do, playing cards was the favorite past time activity. We roamed around Dhunche in the evening and we all admitted how beautiful that place was.  We took an early bus the next morning and this time to our surprise the bus was much more crowded then it was before. For the whole 5 hours of journey, it was the same Dohori song (Nepali folk song) and even Ritesh who hardly listens to any Nepali songs could recite the song “JhanJhanramribhaichaukunsabun le much dhoichau”.

Not only do I stand by, but, I can say I live by the saying “It’s not the destination but the journey that is important”. Every moment of this trek still resides on my memories like it was just yesterday. It is funny how such journey helps you discover who you are, and how much you can endure not only physically but also mentally and emotionally. Though many might claim that this is a minor trek, and nothing so thrilling to babble so much about, for me it was the trek that opened up my passion for travelling, and experience the avenues that Nepal has got to offer. To understand how privileged we are to be born in a country like Nepal, I urge all of you to get your mind off of your busy routines and let yourself experience the beauty of travel. Pack up your bags and move. Believe me, you will be amazed to realize what you have been missing till date. You will discover the real Nepal, and most importantly you will discover yourself. Trust me you will.