Day 6 - Saturday/Suniwar - Over The Hill And Far Away

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Woke up at 7 for a breakfast of spicy omelette, bread and ketchup - not my usual choice, but actually quite tasty! After eating we took a short hike up a nearby mountain, to see an old temple/shelter, and then hiked up further to see the ruinous structure of an old fort and look-out post. After rain overnight, and for the past few months, the rocks were quite slippy so we had a few hairy moments where feet did not exactly grip, and had a tendency to fly out form under you - not very comforting three feet from a rather rocky tumble back down the mountain!

The view from the top was amazing - we could see the temple we'd just visited as an inch long spot through the mist, and could barely make out the village we'd slept at through the cloud layer! We stoped and rested, posed for photos around a huge granite water storage tank, and then began our descent. Intheir wisdom, our guides decided to use a rope, which they secured on a medium sized rock behind the anchor man. We's got about half way down, when we heard a crashing and saw the rock tumbling down the mountainnaext to us! Thankfully we were going diagonally, so the rock went well wide of everyone, and the rope can't have been too well secured to the rope as it wasn't still attached, and therefore the guide wasn't tumbling down the rock face too. The resulting domino effect would have been carnage . . .

Back at base camp we refilled our water bottles, had some tea and biscuits, and set off on our next hike. aaaaw were told this would be a bit harder going, but would take "about 2-3 hours". We trekked for about thirty minutes back along the route from the previous day, with shrek leading the group in singing tuneless songs. He managed to rope me into singing along to "Sweet Child O' Mine" and Hotel California", albeit with slightly more tune to it than his offerings, and was kicking and splashing water at me from the many puddles on the road. Without warning, he grabbed my wrist, shouted "Let's go splash Nikki!" and took off towards the front of the group, dragging me behind. we ran about 100 yards and slowed slightly for a bend, but with the water inder my feet I aquaplaned and my feet carried on going, straight out from under me! I fell like a cartoon character on a banana skin, flat on my back, and just lay there, laughing. Luckily I only jarred my back and neck slightly, landing mainly on my rucksack, and only had one small gash to my elbow, which looked far worse than it was. Shrek apologised profusely, but I simply laughed it off and called him an "effing liability - you're supposed to be looking after us, not injuring us!" - in a jokey way, of course!

We then broke off the main trail for more off-road offerings, over a far less-travelled and almost invisible trail. At this point Raj, our porter, was leading, as the guides hand't done this particular route before. The track was very narrow and steep, over rocks and through trees and undergrowth which hadn't been disturbed since before the monsoons, so it was tough going in places but I loved it! We crossed a couple of streams, and walked along the tall side of a man-made water channelm with an eight foot drop to the right and a sheer fall down the mountain on the left. This freaked me out slightly - I don't mind heights, but I'm justifiably scared of walking along a wall a foot wide with no hand rail, especially when Nikki stopped in front of me to take photos of the waterfall ahead of us!

We passed by this and a cople of other small waterfalls, up through the cloud layer to the summit of the mountain, and then back down the other side to another small temple. We kept stopping, as the group kept getting split up due to the different paces being made by our group at the front with Raj, and the other two groups behind us. As the guides hadn't done this before, we couldn't just leave them, and the 2-3 hour trek in all took us 5-6 hours because of this. This didn't bother me, or not as much as the pace some points, particularly when we got stuck behind Kusum, who insisted on being in the lead group despite being in her 50's, and trekking in flip-flops with a carrier back instead of a rucksack! What I did find more than a little irksome was the constant complaints when the other groups did catch us up, about the difficulty of the terrain and the pace. If Kusum, at her age and in her equipment, could do it, I don't see why 18-22 year olds should find it too hard?

Anyway, I tried not to let it bother me, and in the end just kept setting off again as soon as the group behind caught up, which at least put me out of earshot! On the final stretch from the temple down to the village which was our destiantion, I stayed behind for 15 minutes with the last of the group sharing my supplies of glucose biscuits and jelly sweets, and then just "power-trekked" at my own pace towards the front of the group, overtaking the moaners along the way. I'd nearly caught up with the front of the group, whenI heard drums and chanting, and around the next corner I found a group of Hindus, carrying a statue of Ganesh (to be ceremoniously washed in the river) and coated in pink powder! They were throwing handfuls of the stuff around, but somehow managed to miss me with it - I was a bit gutted, the 3 guys at the front were covered from head to toe, clothes, rucksacks and all!

About 20-30 minutes after I got to the village, the last group rounded the corner (the last stretch had taken me 15 mins, them nearly 45!), and we said our goodbyes and thanks to the guides before piling into minbuses back to the Hotel Chandralok. On the way back we passed five or six other groups taking statues to the river, and the bus was coated in pink powder by the time we arived back, where Kristian and I found our room had been double booked. Luckily we were upgraded to a double + single room, and being the first there I bagged the double!

After one of the most welcom and warming showers of my life, I dressed in my best and comfiest clothes, and met the group for dinner at the Hotel Kumar restaurant. This had been booked prior, but it wasn't until 9:45 that the first of the food arrived - not brilliant considering it was a buffet and they'd know what to cook two days before! The quality of the food, however, more than made up for the wait - butter chicken, pappadums, naan bread and other side dishes. I ate surprisingly little considering how hungry I was beforehand, but was stuffed and feeling rather sleepy after the food and two Kingfishers. Kai, Keith, Kristian, Krishan, Dipu and I stayed for a couple more beers, then proceeded back to our beds for a much needed and very deep, exhausted sleep!

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