14th june, 2009

7:00 AM

Kaathgodam Station

Here we are !! Finally we reached the kathgodam station at 7 in the morning. It was a wonderful morning and fresh air filled our lungs that were on verge of bursting since we had been sitting besides the lavoratory the entire night. By this time nothing seemed bizarre for us, we freshened ourselves at the public utilities at the station ( we are quite used to this ). Then we decided to plan the next segment of the journey. But alas, tired mind does not work so first some of us had a cup of tea and chhola bhatura ( if m not mistaken) then the planning started.

We had two options : 1). Take a bus to almora and then connecting bus to bhageshwar and then a shared taxi to song. 2) hire a taxi from kathgodam to song.
Well, no prizes for guessing, we followed the latter. We divided ourselves into two groups. Anshul and rahul were to go out and look for taxi while the three of us waited at the station and looked after the baggage.

Anshul and rahul came back after half an hour with all the information and we hired an Innova for 4000 Rs. The driver was a middle aged man and Dax named him Ranveer singh as we did not take pains to ask him his name ( though dax has been stresing on the fact that he did ask him his name) . He claimed to have a lot of experience of driving in the hills. Never-the-less we started the journey with each one of us unwilling to sit at the back seat. Eventually it was decided that the seating arrangement would be changed after a fixed time interval. So we began our road trip with daksh as co-driver jatin and anshul in the middle and me and rahul (the scape goats) sitting at the back.

It was fun for an hour or so while we crossed bhimtal and surroundings but then the altitude began to take its toll on us, esp on me and within minutes I was able to see the earth rotate and drowsiness took over my brain. I tried sleeping but all in vain, I looked around to see what others were doing and they all were fast asleep. I then again closed my eyes coz it was getting worse for me n I don’t know when I fell asleep.
It would not have been more than an hour that I had slept when I was woken up by my ringing phone. I thought that my brother would be calling me to ask where was I going or when will be back but to my surprise the screen displayed “ Akriti calling..” that time we had crossed almora and co incidently even she happened to be at the same place with her family, the short chat was made shorter by the ever failing network of Vodafone, then I reminded the others that we now have to swap seats. The scenic beauty was mesmerizing so we stopped to stretch our selves a bit and to swap seats.

The driver was quick to understand our state of drowsiness and so he started some “boys talk”, out of which the most attention catching was the "nashe wali goli" . [J] that had an immediate effect and everyone was up within minutes. the driver told that the pill had an effect of one quater whisky. the second thing that caught evryone's ears, esp roadie, dax n anshul was the "sexy chewing gum" (description awaited in comments). finally all were up and We stopped again to grab some pet bottles of aerated drinks and some candies.

The journey commenced and it wasn’t long enough when we saw a sign board that displayed “ Lohar Khet – 53 kms , Song – 47 kms”. Okay, we were nearing !! Just as when we were planning our trek then the SUV came to a stop, it was a small restaurant, n later we came to know that it was driver’s friend’s restaurant. We grabbed a quick meal there and reached lohar khet. My (richa’s) wrist watch showed 16:00 hrs.

Finally we were out of the terrible (atleast for me) car journey through the hills. We were told that Lohar Khet was still 5 kms uphill. We looked at the driver, but he vanished like alladin’s ginnie ! Now we had two options : 1) take another car/suv to lohar khet or 2) trek those 5 kms on foot. The latter was decided. Initially it was fun but soon we realized that its not as easy as we thought it to be and if these initial 5 kms are giving us so much to think about what are we going to do on a 60 km trek that awaits us !

Jatin true to his name “roadie” asked us to follow him on shortcuts rather than following the proper route. All pumped up as we were, we agreed and thought it would be fun to climb rocks. But it wasn’t late when we realized that we are in middle of no where n we could not even find our way back to the original course. Every one looked at Mr. Roadie n he gave a “ what can I do??” look. Having no other option we trespassed a local’s field ( step farming) and found a god sent lady. She was helpful enough to guide us to the main route and not shout on us for walking over their plantation. Back on track, now we had one more thing to deal with, the weather was getting worse with each passing minute. I had just heard it till date but it was then that I believed that whether does change within minutes at higher altitudes.

We put on our so called raincoats and started walking to our destination. Finally after a long long walk we reached Lohar Khet at 18:30 hrs. we were told that there is a government rest house called KMVN ( kumau mandal nigam or something ).

Now lemme take you a bit into the flashback:
13th june , while going to bus stand with anshul.

Me: Anshul yar wo KMVN ki online booking hia wo karwa lete hai.
Anshul: Arrey nahi yar wahan koi nahi jaata pindari. Hardly any tourists. Aaram se mil jayega room wahin ja kar. Online book karwane ka koi fayeda nahi hai .
Back to the present
We finally reached Lohar khet !! It was such a relief !! expecting a warm bed with a hot cup of tea we quickened our steps in the direction of KMVN. While on our way to KMVN we passed a forest dept guest house. The care taker told us that there is no room available in KMVN and its better that we take a room in the forest guest house.

Caretaker: bhaiya wahan koi kamra khaali nahi hai. Ek school ka trip aaya hai 40 ladkiyo ka.( did any one notice jatin's ears pickin up?? ) Unhone poora book karwa liya hai. Yahan room khali hai aap yahin ruk jao.

Anshul: nahi bhaiya, humari booking hai KMVN mein. Humne neeche se hi booking karwa di thi. ( liar liar !!)

(Anshul whispering to us) : ye log apne paise banane ke chakkar mein aisa bolte hai ki aare room nahi hai. Mil jayega aage room.

N we like blunt asses believed what anshul said n rejected the forest dept’s care taker’s offer and walked ahead. N then 10 mins later we were regretting that why did we not listen to that forest deptt guy, KMVN was actually packed to capacity. Shivering in cold we sat there on ice cold rocks while anshul and rahul went back to talk to the KMVN guy if he could offer us just one room. If this was not enough, it started raining. I think I don’t need to define how it feels to sit in rain totally dejected and fatigued with cold wind blowing against your ears and icy cold rocks beneath your asses. Anyhow we waited in hope. But alas, one again unlucky us!! We then walked back to the forest deptt. The caretaker was now holding his head high as if he had won “the great civil war”. We checked in, ate food and dozed off after a long tiring day.