Yesterday was hectic.
Reaching Gethia directly from Kedarnath via Hardwar was enough for a day, which took a 23hr bus journey and a couple of miles of walk through the forest road early morning. But sleep didn't follow for there was plenty to update myself upon and Kedarnath anecdotes to share. Nobody feels sleepy around 'The Family'. Then a 3km walk to and back from Nainital, my core intention of visit: to be having the best jalebis in Asia.
Nainital is much cooler now. Lesser haze than on my last visit a few weeks back. The crowd is decent - both in quality and quantity. But come June and it'll be flooded with all sorts of people from nearby lands harrowed by the sun. Roamed around, played video games (still love the arcade). Missed out on the Jalebis, they were on a lunch break :(
Heavy downpour right when us (me and baby brother Shiv) were about to leave back for home. That altered our plans. We stayed in shelter for a while, then boarded a taxi to Bhowali, getting down a couple of km before Bhowali - where the road branches off to Gethia. 6km to cover, with dusk approaching and black clouds looming over our heads, but the downpour luckily ceasing for the time being. We marched on, enjoying our surroundings and kicking stones off the road, trying to mimic the football greats while in the act. This road is in light use, thanks to the alternate route to Haldwani from Bhowali (via Bhimtal). The road winds through a few patches of dense forests and abundant water streams. Saturated landscapes, with a couple of villages falling midway.
Coming across the ravine popularly known as 'Murdaghat' (Ravine of the Dead) that leads to the most dense of forests around, we couldn't resist deviating off the road. My association with this tract of land has been growing with every visit (earlier blogposts build on that). I was expectant of coming across the barking deer that graze on the lower slopes of the valley. There is plenty of other fauna, but it really becomes wishful thinking.
After the initial unpleasant experience of smells (courtesy truck drivers with bowels movements beyond control midway a long journey), we crossed over the stream and started to walk alongside it. In little time were we out of the sight from the road, hopping from boulder to boulder along the stream, moving forward. Shiv branched off to climb up the rubble from the broken hill face to our left and examine the white rocks now exposed. I continued upstream. The usual stuff - vegetation gets thicker, temperature drops, becomes more damp, the walls on either side of the ravine close in on you, the boulders grow in size and the moss and ferns growing on these boulders multiplies making it difficult to climb up. I moved forward with very light steps. Any harsh noises and the surrounding animals/birds would've run away, their impluse telling them not to trust that which walks on two feet. Around a sharp bend where the stream takes to left, I heard a rustle in the bushes ahead and saw a large jungle fowl running up along the stream. I wanted to push forward, maybe there was something more to see as I would've come up around the bend. But it started to drizzle. I didn't want us to get trapped in the ravine at time of heavy downpour, hence turned around to descend down. Shiv was also done with his investigation - he found some slate and little water up that broken hill face. We made our way out in haste, Shiv making a splash at one point falling into knee-deep waters. We managed to work our way out without much difficulty.
We still had about 3km to reach Gethia, and decided to pace along despite the drizzle growing in volume. It turned into a downpour midway but we didn't care and continued forward. No shelters for us. The whole hill was soon drenched in rain, we could see the showers streching across a kilometre to the other side of the hill, coming down in swathes - one of the most memorable of experiences in the hills in general. Lucky that none of us carried anything on us. We had full freedom to freak out. We reached back soaked to consummation. Chilly water from the skies, the discomfort exaggearated by the winds. I relished it, despite any of that.
Dried myself, stepped out to be greeted by a lovely rainbow stretching across the mountains on either side. It quickly faded away, but not before I took a snap.
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