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Monday, September 3, 2012

Trek to Chandrataal

Trek to Chandrataal

At just a few minutes past 3:30 am, I woke up and started getting ready. Water in shower was very cold at that time. Felt strange wishing for hot water in middle of August. After getting ready, I checked out of the hotel and reached the  taxi stand. Tenzin, the driver secured my bag on roof of his Tata Sumo by a rope along with luggage of other passengers and started driving by 4:15.  Apart from me, there were 3 Israeli tourists and 4 locals. A local 3 day long festival was just starting that day in Kaza and some of the locals were going there to attend it. I took a seat in back and sat down hoping to doze a little.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="400"]View near Rohtang pass View near Rohtang pass[/caption]

But that hope proved to be futile. For 30-40 minutes or so, road was well paved but after that it got bad, helped in no less deal by the recent rains. It was full of rubble and stones due to big and small landslides and the ride was not exactly smooth.  I even started to get a little motion-sickness but it wasn't too bad.  After 5:30 am, sun started to come up and one could enjoy the sights. The scenery was beautiful beyond words. We were traveling on mountains and could see dense clouds covering the valley below. Going by the view, we could've been flying in an airplane. By that time, road had been completely  replaced by a dirt track with mud up to 10-15 cm deep, sometimes even more. Just a few km before Rohtang pass, we got stuck in a jam, but fortunately it didn't last long.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400"]This is road This is road[/caption]

We stopped in a place called Gramphu

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