Trekking in the Himalayas II

5th of October:

Where to begin? I have catched a cold and my voice is just half of what I need for a school day in Bindraban gov. school. Yesterday we came back from a five days trek in the Himalayas and now it's morning and I am going to work in 1 1/2 hour. It was lovely to sleep in "my own" bed again after five nights where I have been woried that I would wake up with bluemarks on my hips because of the hard bed. But where does the story begin? It begins with the hike we went on two weeks ago arranged by IDEX. The whole volunteer group went for a hike from MacLeod Ganj and slept one night in the mountains at a camp site called Triund. The last post on this blog is the pictures from that trip. (If you click on the pictures in the slidshow and follow the link to Picasa you can read my comments to the pictures.) As you see we had a great hike in a impressive landscape. Before we went there I had already decided for my self to go back for a longer hike and I had checked out some of the companies that arranged trekking from MacLeod Ganj. This was something I already thought about back home in Norway. At the hike with IDEX we had a very nice guide and the food was great and everything was good! We (Ida, Sirvej, Vegar, Mathias and I) decided to go for a five days trekking from 29th of September to 3rd of October with the same company and the guide Mool Raj. This was all inclusive wich means that the trekking company provided us with tents, sleeping bags, food and what else we would need and we also had people carrying all this things for us. We only carried light backpacks with our own clothings and other personal pickpack. The service was without limmits, they even washed our dishes for us. Since I acctually have a Master degree in analycing this kind of trekking I was prepeared for this, but it was anyway difficult to know how to act when you are in the mountains and you are supposed to sit down and relax while someone is setting up your tent and put on pillow cases on your pillow for you. We slept for two nights in tents in the mountains and two nights we spent on home stays in villages on the other side of the mountain range wich we passed.

Very unfortunately Mathias got a flu and could not come with us. We missed you, Mathias!

We skipped four days of work and started on Wednesday from MacLeod Ganj; a small town where the exile government of Tibet holds place together with i big crowd of Indian tourists and foreign backpackers. It takes two hours by bus from our IDEX camp in Palampur and it costs 35 rupi (=5 NOK). This is a great place for shopping, but after 2 days the last time we were there I had enough of the place. We were only eager to get to the mountains and when you take a look at the pictures you can understand why. We had so many experiences during that short week!

Click at the slidshow to get to Picasa Nettalbum and read my comments about the hike!