Day-3: June 14th, Loharjung( ~ 7900 ft) to Tolpani ( ~ 8900 ft) via Kuling I had a sound sleep and got up early to have a view of the sunrise. Since it was summer, it was bright already by 5.30AM. It was from the lodge that we got our first view of the snow-capped mountain, Nandghunti. We again had a chit-chat with Arjun and roamed around the guest house to have good snaps. The weather was excellent and the sky was clear of clouds which gave us the much needed boost to start our trek. When our guide told Raju that he will put his luggage on the mule, Pavan who was desperate to reduce his load, tried to stuff half of his load into Raju's rucksack. He stuffed so much that the backpack got teared and it was in such an awful condition that no trekker would expect it to be. Raju has to tie the rucksack with ropes. While Ram, Raghu, Vasanth and our guide went to Loharjung market to buy rations, me, Raju and Murali went to buy some clothing and to make calls to our homes.
After having breakfast, we started our trek on a good spirit. Mohan singh informed us that the mules and porters will follow us and we can start our journey. On the way we met a govt. official who gave us a receipt for doing trek in that part of the region. We had snaps on a bridge and met some localities. By looking at their face, one could clearly say that they were content with what they have. They were always in a talkative mood whenever we talked to him unlike the city people. We had a good glimpse of Kuling village and it looks like a cluster of white houses against the landscape of stepped hills.
On the way the trail splits into two, one way goes towards Wan and the other to Didna. We have to take right to reach Didna. We drenched our thirst and bought some chocolates to gift to the village boys. From the Kuling village, we have to trek down to reach our campsite at Tolpani on that day. It is quite a descent to the Wan river and we didn't like it, knowing in a while that we have to climb all the height lost on the other bank. As we rested near the Wan river we saw a small hut. When we asked a woman what is inside, she told us that it has a 'girni' operated by the flowing water. We were amazed at these villagers who are extracting the most from the nature without disturbing it. We saw the same skills when we went for Sharavati valley trek where the villagers were generating electricity from flowing water(just like in Swades Movie).
Now we faced the most difficult part of a trek. We have to trek uphill and gain all the height that we lost while getting down through the Kuling village. This is where we consumed most of our glucose and electral stuff. While we stopped near a house, I was able to capture some nice moments of a local woman and a boy.
At some point while we were resting during our uphill climb, the porters along with their mules overtook us even though they started one hour late. This is where Vasanth handed over his rucksack, unable to carry it. After lot of huff and puff , we were able to reach Didna, one of the camping sites. It was lush green and that was the first meadow that we faced during our trek. From here, one can have a view of Loharjung, Kuling and Wan by spanning from left to right in a sweep. We were told by our guide, Mohan singh, that we were going to camp at Tolpani but not at Didna, as we have to walk a lot the next day, if we camped at Didna. He told us that it is just 10-15 minutes from there but we found out that is almost ½ hour after reaching our day's campsite, Tolpani.
We pitched our tents and waited for some hot tea and maggi. The tents were alloted based on groups speciality: Telugu speaking guys( or gults), the snoaring guys( or silence killers) and the left overs. Based on this division, me, Murali, Karthik and Raju entered tent-1, Ram, Vasanth and Pavan entered tent-2, while Raghu, Vivek, Hari and Aswin entered tent-3. This division got carried on over the entire trek. We had a camp fire during our dinner and we started playing dare or truth as suggested by Karthik. We found out some interesting things during our discussion. One of them was, if given a second chance, most of us would opt for completely different profile jobs like NGC photographer, Artist, doctor, geologist,etc...
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