The 12 hour, 200km bus and taxi ride
from Ranikhet to Jossimoth was certainly an experience, although not the most
pleasurable. Some of the drops from the edge of the roads were draw dropping to
say the least, on a particular bus we were stood up holding on for deer life as
the door was open, the Indians however seemed quite relaxed and a few of them
stood casually in the door way not holding on. The roads were horrific, a lot
of the time we felt like we were being shaken around like being inside a
washing machine and by the time we arrived in Jossimoth we felt all shrivelled
up, like a dried up spider.
Luckily we managed to catch a trekking
agent just before he closed his doors and we arranged to do a trek which would
depart the next day. A 1 hr drive from Jossimoth brought us to the ski resort
of Auli and an amazing panorama of the Indian Himalayas including Nanda Devi (India’s
highest peak). We had wanted to travel as light as possible but felt that given
we were taking heavy Indian camping equipment and that my back was still not
the best, a porter would be useful as well as the guide. The small Nepalese
chap had no problem with carrying about 25kgs with a strap over his head for
the entirety of the three day trek. The guide also did a great job and chatted
a lot and provided a wide range of information on India culture that we would
have not received if we had gone it alone.
We were blessed with sunshine and
amazing views for all three days of the trek. The show peace being the view
from the 3770m Kuari Pass (see pics). Both nights were spent above 3000m and
thus were subsequently very cold, we did however manage to get a fire going
which kept us a little warmer. Unlike previous treks we have done, it was a
very remote area to be trekking and we barely saw another sole, other than the
odd farmer and a German lady doing a similar trek.
The journey back to Ranikhet was a
little quicker though was more hassle as we had to take a lot of shared taxis
(7 in total) each not wanting to go further than their regional area. It was a
great short break and good to be out in the mountains but after the long
journey we were glad to be back in the tranquillity of Ranikhet, with no horns
and no taxi drivers to haggle with.
The grassroots chef had prepared
chicken for our arrival back, which was very tasty after two weeks of
vegetarian food.
