Arnab Chakraborty's trips

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Last updated on Fri Dec 03 18:51:24 IST 2010.

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22/10/2010: Bantoli to Chopta

A clear sky hailed me when I got up at 5:40. Ballu and Chandra Pal have the fire burning again. The place where they have made the fire is a horizontal step hewed out of the mountain side for farming. Stubble of last season's crops are still visible here and there. Our mules are busy munching some hay spread before them. A local dog is sniffing around, and is rewarded with a piece of bread from Ballu.

I finished my breakfast (chana and chapati) around 7:00.

We started our trek at about 7:40, and arrived at Gondar barely half an hour later. Very close to Bantoli is a dilapidated cottage once erected and owned by Umaprasad Mukhopadhyay, the well known trekker of bygone days. At present all that remains is an uncared for heap of debris with a single wall standing.

The return trek is uneventful. We are merely retracing our steps down the same trail that we went up by. Do I feel a bit sorry that I am leaving this place so soon? Shall I not miss that transparent sheet of water that is fleeting over the polished stony bed of the mountain brook? Will I forget the mules drinking their fill from a trailside puddle created specially for them? I know my heart will yearn for these sights after I return to Kolkata. Yet right now I am standing amidst nature, my body mildly soaked in perspiration, the trail beneath my feet rising up steadily towards Uniana. A pleasant dizziness is coming over me at times, blurring the distinction between dream and reality...am I really here? Or am I still In Kolkata daydreaming about a perfect trek?

At Ransi I visited a local temple. It was not the temple, but rather the the inside of the village, that I was more interested in. It is a pretty dingy village with lots of inns.

The trailhead from Uniana was about an hour's trek from Ransi. When Ballu, Chandra Pal and I arrived there at 11:50, the car to take our team to Chopta was already waiting for us.

Those familiar with trekking routes in this part of the Himalayas know well that a typical trailhead consist of a shop selling all sorts of goods. This trailhead is no exception. A low roofed cabin of middling size perched on the verge of the road housed this local centre of commerce. A man in military uniform (which he had got from his brother working in the army) runs the business. There he sits in his wooden throne in front of a large makeshift oven covered with diverse kettles and frying pans. A perpetual swirl of smoke is issuing from a pot of boiling teas, which seems to the commodity of maximum demand. One side of the shop is occupied with an overfull showcase (standing precariously on uneven legs) bursting with biscuits, candies and what not. The other three sides are lined with wooden benches covered with cardboard salvaged from Maggy cartons. Three types of people sat crowded on these benches, the trekkers like ourselves, the muleteers, and some local people in tattered clothing without any apparent reason explaining their presence there. The two chief activities that the people are indulging in are sipping tea and devouring noodles.

At 12:30pm Tublu-da and his wife arrived, followed soon by Tubu-da, who was alone. The latter was surprised to find his family not arrived yet. Apparently there was a lack of communication, and his family members had spent quite some time looking for him at Ransi! Anyway, they all arrived after about fifteen minutes of worried speculations.

It is now raining heavily for some time. And the wind outside is sending a shiver down my spine. We are still waiting for the elderly couple escorted by Dipu-da. Ballu went to look for them.

1:50pm. The elderly couple and Dipu-da has arrived at last. At 2:20pm our car started for Chopta.

I do not feel tired at all. So the fact I slept all the way from Uniana to Ukhimath owes more to boredom than to exhaustion.

At 3:25pm I am roused from my sleep as our vehicle wheeled into the busy marketplace of Ukhimath. With all the shops open, people bustling and cars parked, it is indeed difficult to recognise this as the desolate place where we had arrived but a week ago in the late evening!

After a hurried refreshment (which for me consisted of some raw tomatoes and a fruit cake), we started towards Chopta at 3:45pm.

An hour of sleep followed, which in its turn was followed by our arrival at Chopta.

The market place at Chopta

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Chopta is a very beautiful place that the human beings (both us the tourists, and them the locals) are in the process of destroying. Like most hilly villages, Chopta is centred around a marketplace through which passes the only road connecting it to the rest of the world. The market place is surrounded by tall trees that hide the surroundings from the view. Indeed, looking from the marketplace you might even mistake it for a plane land. But just walk a few paces away from the centre, and a wide horizon dotted with many a snowy peak would unfurl itself in a moment. Or, at least, this is what should happen if the firmament were free of fog, which unfortunately is not the case today. However, even then a green slope losing itself into a dense forest which extends up to a misty nothingness is alluring enough.

The road down which we have come passes right through Chopta. On one side the mountain slopes down into a dense forest of tall trees looming large in the translucent mist. On the other side the slope continues up through a similar forest. Up there I see a rocky peak, barefaced and black. The trail to Tunganath, where we shall go tomorrow, goes close by that peak, I am told.

The slope going up

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Barely a 5 metres down the slope is a cute little cottage facing the forest. We decided to put up there. We had no prior booking as our original plan was to trek up to Tunganath and stay somewhere there. But thanks to the late start from Uniana we are now lagging behind our schedule. So we are forced to stay at Chopta. Not that I am at all unhappy with this new plan to stay in this little cottage from whose veranda one sees a deep forest against the backdrop of the Himalayas.

Our cottage

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The sky is still veiled in fog. The cottage has no kitchen. So Ballu has set up his temporary kitchen under the open sky.

For the first time in this trek I am not feeling well. I feel a churning in my stomach. Apparently Dipu-da is having a similar feeling, too. And there is another mishap: I cannot find my diary! Possibly it is somewhere inside my rucksack, but I cannot find it. So I am unable to unload the diverse feelings that are welling up inside my heart. But fortunately there is the toilet. So at east I have to trouble to unload my stomach...Ah, that's much better!

I had a light dinner. It was cold. So I slipped inside my sleeping bag, and went to sleep...