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Published: September 26th 2007
Himalayas
the trek- 12,000ft up!We departed Srinigar on the 20th and began the 100km drive up into the mountains north west of Srinigar, for a tiny village called NaraNag ("The Temple of Spring Water"). With us at that point was out driver and our chef...yes, our chef.
The village was indeed tiny and everyone, especially the children were soooo friendly. Everywhere you looked there were people waving out there windows and children asking for pens and sweets! We were introduced to our guide and his family and ate lunch in his house, where i had my first squat toilet experience...i survived, narrowly...
We spent the remainder of day #1 on a long walk around the locality and visited an amazing ruined temple that looked like something out of Tomb Raider. We walked along the river bed and met a gypsy family who we took shelter with from the rain. Both the gypsies and the village people live with a lot of poverty and had it not been for how happy and contented they appeared, i think it would have been quite upsetting. It must be very difficult come winter and with regard to health care and education. We had one elderly woman come
Hamalayas 2
The trek up. to our tent on the first night asking for medicine for her eyes, which was a little upsetting for us all because we had so little to offer her. Our walk brought us over a bridge made out of nothing but sticks (!) and the entire mountian is covered in marajuana! We camped with the gypsies that night and ate a lovely dinner that the chef somehow managed to put together over a gas stove!
Day #2 was hardcore! We walked for 6hrs up a mountain and the air was very thin. It turned out that we had two guides, the chef, five helpers (to pack/unpack etc) and nine ponies! Including three for us to ride if we got tired. I rode the pony a good few times and it was quite scary! Much of the hike was climbing over rocks and up muddy tracks and, when on the pony, it felt like you were right at the edge of the cliff! But we eventually made it with only one minor casualty- Sarah was suffering from the altitude and wasn't well that day or night.
The scenery on the way up and the view from the top was
NaraNag
A village girl incredible and there were just enormous peaks (considerably higher than ours!) as far as the eye can see. We had climbed 12,000ft above see level in the end and were seriously proud of ourselves.
Day #3 was a bit of a disaster because the weather turned and it became very wet and stormy. This meant that our planned trek to see the two lakes at the summit was cancelled and instead we sat around the camp fire eating and chatting. It was a good experience in the end though, because we were there for the first snow fall on the Himalayas and, as we sat chatting, we could see storm clouds snowing on the bigger peaks in the distance. We spent the night with thunder and lightning right above our heads and woke up to a light snow fall. The guides had been sleeping in a little log and stone hut, but the rain flooded it that night and they ended up getting no sleep at all. Whats more, despite this they continued to wait on us hand and foot and wouldn't allow us to lift a finger at any point in the four days.
Our final day
NaraNag
The 1st snowfall was great because (a) the weather improved and it was sunny for the descent and (b) we saw four HUGE golden eagles beside our camp site. They had wing spans of approx. 3m and were amazing to watch soaring above our heads as we climbed down.
The down was considerably easier than the up and only took us 2.5hrs, so we were very pleased with ourselves and looking forward to hot showers in the near future (we were absolutely manky at this stage).
Saying goodbye to everybody we had met on the mountain top was strange because we just couldn't thank them enough for everything they had done for us. But a hefty tip did the trick and the memories and photos we brought down the mountain, made the climb up it more than worthwhile.
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AndyBob,Andrew & Julie
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We are having lots of fun reading....
Keep up the adventure spirit! We love to imagine the scenery and smell of spice in the air. Be safe, be happy!