pmoneytravels

As always I was excited and looking for this trip to Mcloedganj and Dharmasala for this would be my last one before I move my base to Mumbai. I had it all
planned (meh). Our itinerary was planned just a day earlier. My friend Dillep was accompanying me this time. On the day one we’d start for Mcloedganj and have a fancy breakfast followed by bhagsunag waterfall and triund trail. The evening was planned for visit to local eateries and a casual stroll. The next day was planned for the visiting the Buddhist monasteries and Dharmasala stadium. But things usually don’t go as planned. I never thought I would have one hell of a story to tell after this weekend. When we reached Dharmasala we boarded a bus to McLoedganj and hit the Kunga and Nick’s Italian kitchen. We were famished, so started with waffle, fruit custard, omelette and bread toast. And we were all charged up!

The climb up the stairs towards Bhagsunag waterfall was beautiful. It was probably around 3 kms till we reached Shiva cafe. I had seen this cafe on the google maps. My plan was to walk the waterfall trail and try to reach the Triund peak. I never thought for why this was not the established trail to the peak. The trail was full of huge rocks and covered with forest on both the sides.

The measured distance from the shiva cafe to triund through the waterfall trail and forest came to about 2.45 km, which was a piece of cake.
There was plenty of water in the falls throughout the climb and the sound had a soporific effect on me. The water was crystal clear and as the place was less explored by travelers there was no litter. The smell of air was crisp and I could feel it inside my lungs. We crossed shiva cafe at 12 pm and crossing many small waterfalls and natural spas, we reached a huge upper waterfall at 2 pm. It took 2 hrs to climb 1.10 km so now you can get the idea how difficult the terrain was. It was just the rocks and we were jumping all over them. The climate was chilled and on our back McLoedganj seemed smaller and distant.
We decided to step inside the fall for a bath. The water was freezing cold! I could feel it like  pins pricking my body. The end of the waterfall made loud noise, I gathered all my courage to get to the bottom of it but I did not, as I could not estimate the depth and it was friggin scary. The most important part of visiting a waterfall was to take a long exposure shot for silky effect to the water. I tried my hand for the same on chandrashila trek and couldn’t miss the chance in this one. The picture turned of reasonably good considering me as a rookie in processing of those raw files.
The decision to go further on the trail after that bath under the waterfall was the worst decision my irrational mind had ever made. We packed our wet clothes and I hung my towel like a cape on my neck and started the climb which was exactly right from the waterfall. We climbed for about 450 meters and came to a vertical wall. On the map it looked like we were just 1 km from the Triund peak but a vertical wall stood in front of us. I had my day pack with camera and some tshirts on the back and water pouch on the waist. I started to grab whatever stones and roots protruding out from the wall and climbed. I climbed to about 30-40 feet and saw that there was no scope of trying further. Dileep stood on the stones asking me to carefully come down the same way that I went up. I came to about 20 feet and tried to cross a huge boulder. I tried shaking it to check if it could bear my weight. Then grabbed the top of the boulder and tried to cross it. The boulder lost its stand and loosened itself from the mountain.
As I crashed down it felt like Lucille (Negan’s Lucille) beat the shit out of me.

I still remember Dileep’s face when he shouted my name as I fell off. I landed in the heap of sharp stones and bounced on my back with my hands above my head. The boulder landed a few inches away from my arm. I blacked out for a few seconds until Dillep came to check my injury. It was all blood on my feet. Lying on my back I saw a Raven flying towards me to have a look. I wanted to figure out if it was a three eyed Raven or not, but then I realised it was a crow. The rocks had cut my leg just over the foot on the fibula which as about 10 cms long. There was a small cut on my left foot and right leg, and cut on left part of pelvic. There was blunt force of the rocks on my foot, tibia, fibula, ankle joint, metatarsals and abdomen.

Luckily it did not shatter my bones or however I hoped it didn’t. I couldn’t open the zip of my bag. My energy was completely drained out! That was the worst feeling I had since the time I fainted in gym after donating blood 😐 a few years ago.
I asked Dileep to make a tourniquet out of my vest to stop the bleeding. We took a few breaths before trying to figure out what was to be done now. All we had to do was get back down, but DAMN! I couldn’t stand on my feet! I started to crawl using my hands and butt. Crawling thought the rocks, mud trees with thorns and what not. The first 450 meters took me 2 hours.”Crawling in my skin, These wounds they will not heal Fear is how I fall, Confusing what is real” Remember this song?

I knew this was gonna be a treasured memory. I crawled and crawled, took a few breaks on the way. My wrists and shoulders were giving up. My pant was completely torned because of my crawling. Luckily I had a spare shorts which I could wear on top of it. It was around half past 5 when we passed from this beautiful section of waterfall.
Look at that face! I see ‘regret’ written boldly on it! The regret was not of what happened to me, but that trauma that my friend Dileep went through because of me. At times I was involuntary shivering so I wore three tshirts. We were without any winter wear or raincoats (another blunder). Soon it was dark. Around 7 pm we were still far from shiva cafe. I had one led flashlight and Dileep used it to find a way to get down from the rocks without getting wet and falling. The rocks were huge and we could not estimate the distance, however Dileep could jump his way down but it wasn’t for me. Jumping down he raised hands above his head, I lowered my legs on his palms and then he lowered me down. This was done quite a few times. I wish I had a GoPro on my head to document the extent a friend can go to help out a friend in need. On the further way down, we engaged ourselves in various talks to forget the situation. My pituitary gland was at max work secreting all that adrenaline for me. Thank you ‘my pituitary’. We reached at shiva cafe at 11:30 pm and disturbed the guys who were having a late night party. They helped us out and fed us some cake and juice. There we opened that tourniquet to check out the cut. It was deep and painful. Now from shiva cafe there were three friggin km long steps to get us back to McLoedganj and that took us another two hours. With this we happily came back to McLoedganj😅.

What if that Boulder had landed on my hand or leg? What if that fall had triggered a rock slide? The boulder came off. “What if” the question still remains, and that’s a boulder sized IF. Well I neither want to complete the question nor answer it. We were traumatised both physically and mentally. As I began to heal I could hear the sounds ‘deshi basara’ in the background 😜 (again some self praise) So when I heard about my broken rib I thought would I be hung on a rope harness like Bruce 😅.
No one is gonna applaud my gusto but I would rather end up getting whipped when I tell someone this story. There is a different high (the oxycodone types) when you come back from a killer situation. Cheating death gives you a high that can’t be compared to any other shit.. Trust me.
But I am curious, how could I tolerate all this pain? Read More