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राजनीति नहीं, निर्णय करो, राजधानी गैरसैंण गोषित करो.....!

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

A walk in the bugyals

Hi all,

A few days ago i had gone on a trip to the bugyals - Bedni and Ali, in Chamoli district of Uttaranchal. Here is a description of the trek with some pics (scaled down in size).

Bedni and Ali bugyals lie on the path to Roopkund - the skeleton lake. i wanted to trek all the way to roopkund, but with only 2 days at my disposal, it was an impossible task. the trip started of with everything possible going wrong.. huge queues at the airport, delayed flight, missed train from delhi and finally some drunk backseaters for company in the bus.

the conductor had quoted a higher price for haldwani than nainital and so those buggers were pretty angry about it. a surd from sherwood and a beersheeba alumni were also in the bus, so i struck up a conversation with those chaps to pass time.

we reached kathgodam around 8 am. i got off at haldwani itself and took a jeep. the jeep driver tried his best to fill all possible seats (driver + 12 passengers). sitting in the back made me slightly nauseaus. luckily, nothing more happened. we reached almora around 10:30 am.



Approaching almora



view from almora

in almora, i got off at the taxi stand and went off to bora hotel. to my horror i found that ganga ram (my guide) had checked out earlier. now where the hell to look for him in almora?? anywyas, i checked out TRC and when i did not find him there, i decided to proceed on my own. took a taxi till gwaldam. the route goes through kosi river and kausani. it was just too beautiful..beyond words.



leaving almora and heading down towards kosi river. i clicked a pic of almorafrom the moving car.



this shot was taken from inside the taxi. that is why the reflection of the glass is there in the pic



the path down to kosi river is absolutely heavenly



splendid natural greenery





stopping in the road to take some pics. we were halfway upto kausani by now.





kosi river in its full beauty





green fields surrounded by pine trees.



approaching gwaldam. the road to gwaldam was even more ebautiful than heaven.





had lunch in this small town



by 3:30 pm i reached gwaldam. it is a beautiful town situated next to some stunning pine forests, near the border of kumaon and garhwal. a guide there was waiting for kamal kandpal (kamal also had the same schedule as i had). he mistook me for kamal. anywyas, when i told him of my plan, he said it was impossible to visit roopkund in 2 days. u needed at least 4 days of solid trekking over there.



gwaldam is a nice small beautiful town situated at the border of kumaon and garhwal. pretty soon kamal and guttu also arrived. we decided on the plan at the restaurant. the final paln was liek this: kamal and guttu would go till roopkund (they had the time). i will go till as far as i can go (in 1 day). then on the 2nd day i will come back. so approximately, i will be able to go till the bugyals. so the paln was like this: go to bedni bugyal and coem back via ali bugyal.



the dogs in gwaldam were a playful lot. i took some snaps of them getting naughty.



the guide who was supposed to come with us from gwaldam lost his house keys. his kids had gone somewhere with the keys and he could nto locate them. it seemdd as if everything possible was going wrong. so we waited for two hours and then decided to proceed without him. he had the tents and other stuff locked up in his house. so we would now have to proceed without the tents and get them from somewhere up ahead.



by night we had reached lohajung (after booking a jeep from gwaldam). it was a deadly journey. we stayed at the village council's rest house. dinner and breakfast was at a small restaurant next to the village council hut (run by a chap named rana). got up early morning and booked another jeep till wan village. some local ladies wanted a lift and we obliged.



Lohajung village - early morning



wan village - trek starts from here.

it was a very adventorous ride from lohajung to wan. only a local driver can ride through the village path of 12 kms.







under the shade of a cloud



within seconds it gets bright again.



the trek begins. it is a straight vertical climb. u lose many calories over here.

there is a small shop in wan village which serves as the supermarket of the village. we hired 2 porters from here and also bought the stuff we would need for the trek. finally, we were on our way at around 10 am.





kamal. this was our first break at the porter's house.



me and guttu (kamal's cuz)




there were many small n beautiful flowers on the way up.















we came to the top of a ridge and there wasa beautiful meadow over here. we took a rest, tired after climbing so much vertically up.



Pretty soon it was time to move again. this time we had to go down and then begin the climb to the bugyals.


the porter had a house on the path. so we stopped and had lunch at his place. it was rice with pahadi daal that grows in the wild.





enjoying the bereak with some cashewnuts and seedless dates.



these ppl were constructing a pond over here (to ensure better water supply to wan village)





we had to go down this path and then climb up via the jungles in the hill opposite



the porter had his house over here (he had a total of 5 houses)











took a break for tea over here



kids belonging to the porter's family. the guy in the centre was more interested in the cashewnuts than in getting his pic taken.



the kids here love to get their pics taken



the porter's wife. she was back from cutting grass in the forests.



the porter's kid



another kid



some of the guide's family members. he keeps his cown in the adjacent shed.



lunch - scrunch munch yum. :-)





going down the path..only to climb up again.



After crossing this stream the real climb begins. really knocks the wind out of u.

















in the distance, u can see the path from which we had come. the porter's house is below the path (where we had lunch)



















it was raining for most of the way, so we had to put on our raincoats. the climb was very exhausting.



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finally we reached a place called ghairon patal. we rested here for some time and the porters made maggie. the bugyals could be seen (whenever the fog lifted itself).

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Now go to part 2 over here... Part 2

9 Comments:

Blogger Gucci said...

Awesome pics.. Really thankful for posting such a detailed list of photos..

You're very gifted indeed for being able to visit such places and also for transporting the experience on your blog.

Its almost like being there for poor visitors to your site :)

Tuesday, August 22, 2006 at 1:22:00 PM GMT+5:30  
Blogger Prashant Joshi said...

hey gucci, did u check out part 2?

Wednesday, August 23, 2006 at 10:44:00 AM GMT+5:30  
Blogger Lalit Singh said...

the pics were awesome man... seems u enjoyed a lot...

Thursday, August 24, 2006 at 11:18:00 AM GMT+5:30  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

dude ! thats wonderful ! whr do u get all the time in the world to do this stuff... i guess u were working in some Chennai firm ? but whatever... this is awesome... keep us posted !
KUDOS !

Friday, December 29, 2006 at 8:40:00 AM GMT+5:30  
Blogger Unknown said...

i am a resident of Nainital- near Almora, and really congratulate u for putting such vivid glimpses both of nature and life in the hills. very good resolution pics!

Friday, December 29, 2006 at 10:18:00 AM GMT+5:30  
Blogger Lalit Joshi said...

...beyond expression!!!!!
I'm from Nainital and Almora...
....but its amazing......
I love it....thanks for this.

Friday, December 29, 2006 at 11:00:00 AM GMT+5:30  
Blogger Prashant Joshi said...

guys, i know where nainital is. i was also studying there till the 8th standard

Friday, December 29, 2006 at 12:40:00 PM GMT+5:30  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

awesome!!i was awestruck by the beauty of the hills.i've been living in nainital for 20years and your pics remind me of my childhood days.

Friday, December 29, 2006 at 1:32:00 PM GMT+5:30  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

awesome!!i was awestruck by the beauty of the hills.i've been living in nainital for 20years and your pics remind me of my childhood days.i love the pics and appreciate ur work.thax for such a treat.

Friday, December 29, 2006 at 1:33:00 PM GMT+5:30  

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