TOURISM INDIA MARCH 2019 TOURISM INDIA MARCH 2019 | Page 46

D E S T I NAT I O N / F E AT U R E S THE BEST TIME FOR CHADAR TREK IS FROM MID-JANUARY TO MID- FEBRUARY, THAT IS WHEN THE ZANSKAR RIVER FREEZES AND YOU GET TO WALK ON MASSIVE SLABS OF ICE SPREADING FOR MILES AND MILES. walk, the river had entirely unfrozen with no way ahead. After noting every possibility, we had to decide to turn back. In all honesty, there wasn’t much dejection in the group, for by now we had all realised that the true joy and purpose of this trip was not the destination but the journey. And 46 Tourism India March 2019 oh boy, was the journey anything but dull! We get back to Tibb cave to face the worst temperatures of our whole trek. It hit -30 degrees that night. Not a single one of us managed a wink of sleep. Day four marked us retracing our original path. The dipping temperatures managed to shake us now, like we hadn’t been before. Yet we marvelled in the cracks we saw upon the chadar, the mini waterfalls, some frozen some not, and especially the grooves upon the cavern which the river flowed in. At some points, the distant roar of a helicopters blade could be heard, and a somber mood would fall upon the group. A chopper nearby could mean only one thing, someone was in danger. In this state of mind, we arrived back at Tsomo for our last night out in the open. We huddled about the campfire, desperate for a sliver of heat. A bonfire was less of an activity, and more about survival at this point of time. And thus, we retired to our tents, our last night in the green traps of our sleeping beds. We woke up on Republic Day, and after breakfast had the honor of raising the flag and singing our national anthem upon the ice. Spirits were on a high, the gruesome journey was nearly complete. However, our return journey was tougher than we expected. The chadar had not kept steady, there were times when we waded through water hoping desperately that none of it ended up in our boots. Skidding across ice and stepping across rocks finally had us at the end of our journey. A tearful goodbye ensued, the support staff had been remarkable and lovely to us, and if not for them, we would not have successfully completed our expedition. We huddled into the vans quickly and set back to the guesthouse. The rest of the time seemed to slip by in a wink. Before we knew it, we were awake again and on our way to the airport. As I stood on the tarmac, I took a look around one last time, at the land that gave me life’s biggest adventure till date, and I wondered whether I would ever feel this restless and sated all at once again. That, remains a question for another day and another adventure.