Star Trek#4

2.5.2009
Pleasure trip ends! Here starts the toil and turmoil for the daughters (and sons) of the soil! lol..bahut filmi tha kya?!
so it was acclamatisation day for us and we trekked upto dumpa lake at a height of 3193 metres (I just googled that info to make it sound impressive!) and dumpa gumpa (which is the monastery furthur up)
En route we experienced some fab examples of wind erosion en route...sculpted mountain and hillsides..crossed a laxman jhula kinda suspension bridge! Also experienced Damchi our local trek guide and well my first hour was spent charging ahead solely in his company which started off as somewhat informative then bordered on being tolerable till he erupted to his full self whence I discovered nehadi, mom, madhavi,geet (of jab-we-met fame) and me were mere mortals before this boundless, bounceless eternity of verbal outpour! call it verbal outpour he was cherrapunji..choose to be cliche..his verbal diarrhoea was John Snow's Cholera! thankfully found respite in my iPOD and rita-shamini who were quick to the rescue..abhijit later and deepa sometimes!
dumpa lake is a glacial pond an odd 300 metres up from where we began and is the most unimaginably beautiful blue water I have ever seen..its a colour to be seen not to be believed and undoubtedly beyond description ..toh photo dekho no point my trying!
after the paparazzi had their pics and my unsuccessful effort to brave the chilly waters to reach a white rock 10-12 metres away from its shore everyone decided to trek up to the gumpa! My natural disobedience permitted me to stay as did rita's fraternity!
no sooner did the rest turn their backs..rita charged with defiance suggested we attempt the rock again!
I must admit that was not the real reason I stayed back but nothing tempts like temptation so we vented and ventures out avoiding/ rather ignoring the voyeuristic glare! not surprisingly we managed the same distance with the same success and same fate as my earlier attempt only this time with twice the fun..we regret having just missed a fall and hence returned only half-drenched! we trailed behind the gumpa group ..stopped for a song and reached the monastery that offered a fantastic view encopassing snow mountains, desert, plains. river, clouds, the glacial pond..to my mind it was everything nature could offer!
few of us climbed furthur to the hill atop the gumpa worth experiencing only for the wind that was literally mind-blowing! (well if I wasn't so strong-headed I would be left anatomically mindless as well) prakash and uday sir warned me I would get blown off the hill and again u need to see the wind to believe it...for those who have not seen my profile pic on facebook!
reached back to jomson mountain resort all tired and compltely unwilling for the climb upto the hotl so while shamini took the motorable road rita and abhijit upon my encouragement and joy's too took the path less trodden along the rocky hillside to cut short our weary adventure! 5 minutes inot that route and I was a quadruped anand pleading anand pleading behind me to hurry..rita and abhijit hauled me/anand and joy up to what we thought was half-distance up only to announce there was no way furthur up! :)
going down seemed impossible..we clambered onto the hillside abhijit showed me a path with loose stones and bade me to follow...seemed like an impossible task with the gravel slipping beneath my feet (I was literally loosing ground!) abandoned the plan and without attempting to formulate a backup sat down midway up the hillside!
what I did not realise is I was obscured to vision from the top...sure enough the most famous words of our trip came rumbling down the hillside in abhijit's distressed voice...shruti kya chhe?! I was rescued in no time by divine intervention and of course the magic mantra that continued to echo till I had my feet firmly planted on firm ground!
lunch..sleep and then german bakery down the same road to hot chocolate and black coffee, apple crumble and cinnamon rolls! dinner time and sound sleep!
love
shruti