Saturday, January 27, 2018

Lost and Found Wallet (& myself) @ Chadar



Chadar trek. Walk on the ice. Extreme negative temperatures. Survival trek. This is all I knew when I registered for the trek in Jan 2018.  This trek is so close to my heart that I am writing this blog after a year and half, yet the memories remain fresh and it has caused greater impact than any other treks.For those of you who are new to the Trekking world, Chadar might just be another terminology, but it is a major checklist item in most of the trekker's bucket list. And the reason - it is a survival trek!


History (skip if you already know the basic details):
Chadar trek is a very popular frozen river trek, located near Leh in Kashmir. In the winters when temperature drops to negative degrees, the Zanskar river freezes, thus forming a sheet of ice between the huge mountains. The roads are shut, thus blocking the day-to-day survival of the multiple villages around this area. Surprisingly, the humans never stopped exploring and mastered the art of walking on the ice. This continues till date and it gave birth to the famous Chadar trek. People from around the world come to Leh every year in the months of January and February to experience the daily routine life of Zanskaris.
[On a bright sunny day in Chadar]

The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) are trying their best to construct roads to help humanity. While the roads are helpful to many, it brings damage to the peaceful environment and unemployment. Yes, Chadar trek offers a lot of employment opportunities to the local crowd who help in transporting the items between campsites, cooking food, setting the tents and a lot more - overall, they make our life easier in the extreme temperatures and takes extreme care of everyone! While walking on ice is itself a challenge, these people are the real heroes who also pull a sledge with our items loaded on it. Also, if some parts of the river are not frozen, they carry the sledge on their back and cross the area. Yet they reach the next camp ahead of us and keep the tent & food ready before we reach.  REAL HEROES, right?

PRO tips before the trek:

·       Fitness is very important – so exercise regularly and keep your body in shape before the trek

·       Get used to the cold weather. It is okay to take bath in cold water.

·      Buy appropriate trekking gears, but my advice would be to buy woollen attires from Leh market which is cheaper and effective for the cold weather.

·       Purchase your boots only from Leh market and give it to the porters during the end of your trek because it is very cheap over there and waste of investment if you are planning to re-use it within India

·      Book your flight tickets in advance and we would prefer Air India as the probability of flight cancellation is less. Don’t forget that Leh airport is prone to shut during bad weather.

·    Plan a day or two to acclimatise in Leh before the trek. It is a beautiful city and worth spending those additional time.
[Excitement in the air?]

PRO tips before the flight:

·       Take enough cash from the ATM. Do not rely on ATMs at Leh!

·    Take your sweater/jacket and cover yourself from head to toe before checking-in your luggage as Leh airport will start to freeze the minute you step on it.

·       Carry just one ID cards and only necessary items. Get rid of everything else.

 25th January, 2018

The flight from Delhi to Leh was itself an experience that anyone can’t afford to miss in their lifetime! You get to fly on top of the mighty Himalayan ranges and the winter time is an advantage. Our travel time during the sunrise was an icing on the cake! I stepped upon an interesting person during my 1-hour flight travel – Naada, a trek organizer from IndiaHikes. who inspired with her mountain experiences, and the snow-capped mountain views outside gave wings to my dreams. In no time, we reached the small town in Jammu and Kashmir – Leh.

[View from the flight to Leh]

The minute you step on Leh, as much as the weather brings chills to your skin, the Indian flag and soldiers dressed in their uniform will make you look prouder. We took the prepaid cab from the airport to reach our hotel ‘Palace View’. Rest of the trip was managed by Bikat Adventures. Having reached a day prior to the schedule, we had sufficient time to get acclimatised and roam around the streets of Leh. We were craving for non-vegetarian food in the cold weather and the local crowd suggested Wazwan restaurant in the main Leh market, but the day happened to be a local pooja fest and non-veg wasn’t available. Yet, their vegetarian food was also amazing, a must try!

[The famous outlet for snacks/food in Leh Market]

Then we went around the streets mainly to buy boots, but ended up purchasing a lot of attires including woollen hat, balaclava, mouth cover, fleece shirt and pant (fleece pants were helpful during the night), woollen gloves, socks for the Chadar trek at a cheaper rate! DO NOT SPEND MONEY PURCHASING IN YOUR CITY. THE LOCAL VENDORS HAVE EVERYTHING IN STORE AT A CHEAPER RATE! Ensure that you buy multiple pairs of woollen sock because it gets wet quickly and your leg will start freezing if you don’t change them. Warmee (self-heating warmers) might help you get through the night and early morning, but I survived without using even one, so buy a few to save yourself in case of an emergency. Do not miss having food in Neha snacks located in the main Leh market. Since everyone were tired without sleep, we returned to our room very early. Being the enthusiastic me, I thought of exploring Leh myself and then the unexpected magic happened! A revelation!

While I roamed around the streets and clicked random pictures, I lost track of the number of items that I was holding. Since I kept juggling between my mobile, wallet, and the multiple cold-protectors, my wallet fell somewhere and I didn’t notice it till the next day.

26th January, 2018

Oops moment and my mind paused for a moment because I had a lot (really a lot) of cash, two debit cards and mainly, my government ID proofs – PAN and Driving License without which I won’t be able to board the flight back home. Even if I wanted to block my debit cards, I was in a black hole situation as my mobile didn’t have network and no messages (security code) would reach me. Luckily, Ajay was the only one who had network in the entire group and I called the Axis Bank help desk to block my number describing the entire scene. Best part was that I remembered my 16-digit debit card number and it was validated with an automated PIN verification! I felt proud of my memory capacity 😊 and hurray..! card was blocked and one step done. Remembering my Dad’s usual quote ‘Hard-earned money will never be lost’, I hoped for some magic to happen and got ready for my dream trek in full enthusiasm. *Curious to know a super dramatic climax? Read till the end to witness the magic moment of my life – I am not talking about the chadar trek here!*

27th January, 2018

We had a brief round of introduction to the group whom we were going to spend the consecutive days along with yummy breakfast comprising of hot aloo parathas, curd & coffee. Two tempo travellers filled with enthusiastic trekkers and a whole lot of trekking bags & poles - the adrenaline rush began! Something flashed my mind to inform my trek leader about the lost wallet, he spontaneously asked if it was a red wallet and clicked a photo of me. As we didn’t have enough time to research more, I left the responsibility with the hotel people to help me to find my wallet. *But I was happy that someone was looking for me*

[Sangam - The intersection point between Indus and Zanskar river; 
Observe the colour difference]

On the way to Chilling (trek starting point), the porters also joined us with the raw materials & camping items. We crossed a lot of military zones, saw some touristy places - magnetic hill and Hall of Fame. We were stunned at Indus-Zanksar convolution point (Sangam) looking at the clear difference between the colour of the water. The drive was itself an adventure – frozen Zanskar on one side and huge mountain on the other side with a very small lane where it was extremely difficult for two vehicles to pass at the same time. A huge salute to the Indian Army as they maintain these landslide prone roads too and make our lives easier!

TREK ROUTE

Chilling -> Bakula -> Sumod base camp -> Tibb camp -> Nerak -> Tibb -> Bakula -> Chilling

Trek Details:

Day 1 will be the most fascinating day as you will try to take baby steps on the ice, balance yourself, have some dangerous fall and laugh about it with your group. And as the day progresses, you will master the art of walking on the frozen river and slip & fall in the right way without breaking your bones (Go with the flow, slide with your back support and never try to balance using your hand or leg when you fall!) Ofcourse, you need to be careful to not to move closer to the flowing waters as slipping into the ice-cold water is almost equivalent to death.

[Lying on ice bed with cold water behind us and below us]

[Non-Frozen waterfall]


The silent environment without any distraction, interacting with strangers and watching every single step that you take – Well, I can assure that you will live your life every second. You will wake up every morning to hot chai served by the Sherpas amidst an ice-filled tent (literally) because of the abnormal temperatures which goes up to -40 degree Celsius. It will become a routine that you hop from one camp to another for 7-8 hours, play ice football post lunch, some crazy UNO games, endless MAFIA & its arguments and the day will fade away to another freezing night. Despite the routine, each day will give you surprises and more memories!

[Stunned at the frozen Nerak, you beauty!]


Nerak was the most beautiful campsite in the entire lot as it had the astonishing Nerak falls – the frozen waterfall. We had to hike 5000m hill to reach the falls as the river path wasn’t frozen. That day also marked Viji's birthday, where one of our co-trekkers Robin, the master-chef joined hands with the sherpas to bake a quick cake with very limited items (yes, in the middle of nowhere) Few of the many reasons why I love to go on treks - Not just for the cake (haha) but for such gestures which indicate love and humanity still exists in this world, understand the importance of every small thing and appreciate it.

Just like how all good things aren’t easy to attain, the return journey from Nerak to Tibb gave us a near-death experience as the ice that we walked previous day had melted and we had to cling to the rocks and slide one-by-one in the thin sheet of ice along with our trek leader without falling into the freezing water. Luckily we survived the stretch - thanks to the boss. The longest distance that we travelled in a day was 14.5 KMs between Tibb and Bakula.

On our final day, we got the opportunity to have a dip in the frozen chadar – thanks to the sun which helped us to withstand the temperature for few minutes. That was one hell of an experience. It wouldn't have been so much fun without an enthusiastic group, and it would be a sin if I don't mention about our Devanshi, 11-year old brave woman, who dared to take this challenge along with us and she completed the trek like a pro. Bidding good bye to the chadar, we went to Leh by road and stopped at Pathar Sahib for (free) lunch. Stayed at Panorama hotel that night and it took a while for us to shift from the fantasy world to the real world.

[Little Devanshi]

[Clean us - After the dip in frozen Chadar]

On our final day, we did some touristy things. Took a van and visited Thikse, Hall of Fame, Sindhu Ghat  and finally ended in Leh market to buy souvenirs for friends & family.

Food served during our 7-day trek:

·       Breakfast – Bread, Butter & Jam, Corn Flakes, Porridge, Poori, Roti, Egg

·       Lunch – Macroni, Maggi, Pulao

·       Snacks – Bajji, Tea

·       Dinner – Chowmein, Rice, Dal sabji, Fruit Salad, Custard
  
The Story of Lost Wallet

To those of you who are curious to know about the story of my lost wallet, it ended up in the hands of an amazing lady, who took efforts to search for me using my ID card; who went to help centres and tried to call me on the number on my ID card; who tried to reach me via FaceBook and indeed pinged people in my friend’s list to reach me; who didn’t want to give the wallet to the hotel guys or my guide just so that nobody stole the cash in the interim; who walked all the way to the market from her house; who waited all the time to give the wallet only to me after confirming that the photo in the ID matched my face. This superwoman is Zohra, a teacher in Leh. Words weren’t enough to let her know how grateful I was. She proved that HUMANITY STILL EXISTS! Thank you Zohra for the best memory that I could keep passing for generations!

[Superwoman Zohra]

Cost Split-up:

Flight expenses - Rs. 16000 (BLR-DEL-LEH and return)

Trek charges - Rs. 22420 (including food and stay during the trek)

Trek Sherpa Head - Mr. Stanzin Chomdan (Contact +91 9469457388 / stanzin_chomdan@yahoo.co.in)

Trekking Group - Bikat Adventures

Hotel - Rs.2500/night for triple occupancy (stayed 2 nights before and after the trek)

Photo Courtesy: Thanks to Neha's mobile and Neha :P who clicked most of the pictures.  

[Happy us - Viji, Ajay, Neha, Shamili]


***My journey to Leh was indeed a rejuvenating experience – not just physically but mentally! ***