Triund (Part 1)

My first trip to Triund was in June 2015 with Imam, Ranak and Dharitri. Neha had to drop out as the trip approached because she had a job interview to attend. Good she dropped out, because she did get the job, and missing the interview would have been cause for regret. That had been a dark time for me. I was just recovering from the Herculean task of saying a firm no to a marriage my entire family had been excited about, and my friends were preparing for. The resulting emptiness was waiting to be filled.

Up until then, I associated our Northern states and their famous hill stations with nausea and general loss of appetite, as I experienced on our frequent family trips there. Triund was a game changer.

We were on a budget, and travelled, ate and stayed humbly. We took an HRTC bus from Delhi to Dharamshala, and from there another smaller bus to McLeod Ganj. The guy who had arranged accommodation for us, Sanjay, had earlier committed to send us a vehicle to ferry us from the McLeod Ganj bus stand to Bhagsu, where our hotel was. On contacting him, however, he suggested that we walk it, because the road up was in a jam, and we'd take longer in a car. Hungry, and carrying luggage, we started walking up in the heat, dodging slow moving, honking vehicles, sometimes along the edge of the hillside. That bit felt disheartening then, the getting to the rooms on foot.

There was some delay in getting to the rooms too; Sanjay offered us some drinks, but we wanted to freshen up first; more than anything I was hungry. After freshening up, we walked to a restaurant suggested by Sanjay, and hungrily ordered and ate up all we could. While we were still there, the weather changed drastically and it started drizzling. We'd carried our umbrellas, yet we decided to wait it out; though the food wasn't that great, the restaurant had a good balcony we could watch the rain from. It kept getting heavier, and after waiting for long, we decided it's better to just try and get ourselves to the rooms for some rest. 

We tried wielding our umbrellas as best we could to protect ourselves from the rain and save our freshly worn clothes from getting drenched. But to no avail. My jeans and kurta were wet through by the time we reached. I hung up my jeans to dry because that was the pair I had to wear on the next day's trek. We watched the rain from the balcony for a while and rested. 

In the evening Imam came back from a short exploration around the place and urged us to join him on another one. He argued it would be a nice warm up for the next day's more arduous stretch of walking. We agreed begrudgingly and set out. We walked a few paths, saw a temple from afar, and tried to guess the trek path. Coming back we stopped at a cafe where Dharitri had some tea and we clicked some pictures.

We had dinner at another restaurant in the town and came back to our rooms, trying to retire early. Next morning, we got up and started, later than planned; the sun was almost up and we knew we'd have to walk much of the 7 kms in bright sunlight. 

We had bought some biscuits and other snacks the previous day; we were able to munch on them every time we took a break from walking and climbing. At some points Imam became adventurous and tried to find shorter ways to climb up, sometimes I joined him too. Struggling up steep mud paths, probably used by cattle, digging both feet and both hands into crumbling soil, clutching on stubby vegetation to haul up bag and myself, and the heart-in-the-mouth trepidation that just one wrong foothold or hand-grab may mean a steep sliding fall, renderred a whole different kind of rush once feet were back firmly on relatively flatter ground.

The trek was a first and was thus quite difficult. My clothing wasn't appropriate, bag was ill-fit for carrying long and the sun wasn't helping. I'd had my black John's koda open to get what protection I could from the glare. We took several breaks to catch our breath and to wonder how badly shaped we (except Imam) were, to get panting every few minutes. It wasn't in the least bit encouraging when we saw families, with kids, trek up and come back down, while we were still struggling on our one-way journey. It was on one of the breaks, when we were spread out on a picturesquely positioned large stone that we saw a foreigner with a plastic bag. He had one of those cotton shirts with Om prints on, and was collecting all the plastic garbage he could find on his path down. We were humbled. 

After a considerable stretch, Imam walked far ahead to reach early and make what arrangements he could for our overnight stay. As the number of people coming down increased, we started asking them, 'how much longer,' uncertain of what effect the answer may have on our efforts. It continually felt that they were all lying because, even after the time they said passed, the destination was nowhere in view. Slowly, all four of us were at four different places on the path, one after the other. I started feeling hopeful again at a point, when there was more of the sky and less of the unending terrain to be seen. The path was also flattening out, with tufts of bushy grass clumps peppered on one side. The sky grew kinder too; with every step the clouds entered the stage, hiding the sun.

As I clambered up onto the narrow plateau, the sight that loomed ahead, melted all my exhaustion and pain. By the time we reached the peak, a gentle hailstorm had started. Our umbrellas weren't much use against it, but we didn't mind getting drenched for a while as the vision of the mighty Dhauladhars held us there in awe.

As the heat of exhaustion started wearing off, the cold wind couldn't be warded off with the single layer of woollens we had carried with us. Soon, hunger started attacking too. We embarrassedly edged into a crowded shack, gratefully gobbled down the dal chawal they served us, and then ran back to the tent Imam had secured for us. 

Dharitri says: I remember how difficult it was for me to complete the trek. And after reaching there, we had rajma chawal for 100 rupees a plate, and maggi for dinner which was 90 rupees a plate. And that rajma was only boiled, with added pisi loon and that's it, with lots of water. Loon was spiced salt, I remember asking for extra salt, and was told, that it was loon.

Soon after, the storm stopped and the clouds, that had partially obscured the view of the snow clad mountains, cleared away. We sauntered out and explored the flattish spread of the green plateau. The place was peppered with tents of all colours. People, ill-clad and shivering, were hanging around the few shops or posing for and clicking pictures.

There were no toilets on the place. When we asked the shopkeeper, he said that we should wait until darkness fell and find a boulder to go behind. That was not news for me, but hearing that on a full bladder, was freshly disappointing. There was nothing to do now but wait. The light was good, so Imam made us pose for the pictures which have remained to be some of the best from the whole trip. Little do the people looking at them know, that we were just trying really hard to hold in the pee. The tea we'd had, to make ourselves warmer, had added to the burden. Once the sun dipped beyond view and the cold wind resumed, the pang to relieve oneself intensified. 

We fought the urge and sought refuge in the tent again, leaving just a bit of the zipper open, to keep the mountains in view, while keeping out most of the cold winds. Imam, who had reached the summit first, was able to secure us a tent quite close to the edge, only one tent lay between ours and the magical view. The four of us played cards and joked around a bit, all the while watching the mighty mountains. One just couldn't take their eyes off of them.

After darkness truly covered the land, with phone torch for guidance, we found an abandoned enough nook at a distance from the tents, to relieve ourselves. After dinner, though momentarily tempted by the few bonfires and groups of people singing, we settled in our tent again, thankful for the snugness. The biting cold seeped through our not-so-warm clothing and the unusual exercise to the limbs that day had started taking a toll on our bodies. We fell asleep instantly. 

The next morning we woke up early, trying to relieve ourselves before full sunlight. As Dharitri lay asleep, Ranak, Imam and I wandered off to the far edge of the plateau, trying to catch the sunrise. We saw cattle herds, more solitary tents and large boulders on the way. The sky became considerbly lighter, but the sun was nowhere to be seen. The towns of McLeod Ganj and Dharamshala, including the cricket stadium lay asleep, blanketed in a thin mist.

We waited around till 7, when we saw a beam of sunlight flowing towards us through two mountains, from the other side of the Dhauladhars. Realizing that the sun would be quite high up in the sky before we saw it rise above the snowy mountains, we walked back. On returning to the tent, which we noticed was only partially closed, we saw a small dog curled up asleep at the foot of Dharitri, who was scared of dogs, and still sound asleep.

After everyone was awake, we had tea, admiring the looming mountains in the morning light. We also spotted a few eagles, majestically soaring in the cool wind at eye level. Before setting out I asked Imam if we could do what the foreigner we witnessed the previous day was doing. I had a huge spare plastic bag with me and we agreed to collect and carry trash from the road between us. 

The descent from Triund was a painful reminder, from my calf muscles, at every step, of how much I exercised them on the way up. Ranak walked ahead and went out of view with the room keys. After we'd covered most of the stony muddy descent, and when we start seeing habitation, Imam too found it easier to walk ahead faster; I asked him to keep the bathrooms used and unoccupied by the time we reached. 

When he went out of view, Dharitri and I realized that we didn't know the way. There was only one path to follow, with a few minor deviations, one of which we must have taken, because we certainly drifted onto unfamiliar paths. Exhausted and thirsty under the bright sun beating down, we bought a small watermelon from a shop and broke it on a rock for a thirst-quencher. 

We finally reached the room, freshened up, checked out and slowly walked towards a restaurant to furnish our overworked bodies with food. Nobody talked much. Though the food was again not that great, it didn't make much of a difference because we were famished. Even at the bus station later that evening, there wasn't much talking, partly from exhaustion and partly from awe of what we had witnessed. A glimpse of that majestic sight was available even from the bus stand. When the chocobar vision of snow and barren mountains wove in and out of view on the winding descent from McLeod Ganj, I made myself a promise to return to the mountains.