A Ride on the Falcon, and Welcome to Base Camp

5th May 2008
Delhi.
Pune-Mumbai by road, Mumbai - Delhi flight, took a rick to Munirka. After a brief halt with my friend Vinayak who studies there, I made by way to Central Secretariat from where I took the Metro to Connaught Place. I was to rendezvous with Naveen there, before we head off to the Bus Terminus (Inter-State Bus Terminus, ISBT).

I wasn't familiar with which ISBT to take the bus from. Apparently there are three of them in Delhi, and I didn't know where either of them were. The auto driver who took me to CSec told me something about it being near the Red Fort. That meant I had to get down at Kashmere Gate. With that vague notion I put forward the idea of taking the Metro from CP to Kashmere Gate.

Imagine my compete surprise when the Metro announcement came : Next Stop: ISBT, Kashmere Gate. Brilliant.

We walked around for quite a while searching for the bus terminal for Kullu Manali buses. The usual touts and agents were of little help. At the ticket stand, one fellow from Haryana Transport took us under his wing. The wing of the 'Millenium Falcon', as you can see in V the Saadhu's post. Fuck man. There are buses, and then there are buses driven by Haryana Transport folks. They don't just drive their buses, they race them.

We reached Babeli at about 9.30 am on 6th May. After a brief walk we came across the Base Camp.

6th May, 2008
Base Camp. Babeli (4000ft). (Part 1)
We were assigned Tent Number 7, where we met this guy called Kartik Chandra, originally from Puri. There were also two fine gentlemen, Mr. Agarkar and Mr. Sanjay 'Sanju baba' Aggarwal, both from Indore.

We were given permission to go to Kullu, and we did so to gather some supplies. We got to chit chat with each other over a spot of tea. Kullu market as such was a pretty boring experience. It was pretty hot and the uphill climb through the market didn't really make matters pleasant. I took note of some Tibetian (veg, non-veg)restaurants.

Now as you must be knowing, YHAI serves vegetarian fare on their treks. That's fine, but it is the same at every meal - potato and/or cauliflower, dal, rice, rotis. V and I instinctively kept our eyes and ears open for any non-veg eateries.

After an uncomfortable and sleepy bus ride back to the base camp, we took our plates to the lunch area. People were getting done with their meals as we reached, and I looked at my food. I sincerely do not know what it was. Certainly not potato or cauliflower, but koftas in a strange yellow curry which tasted of besan. I looked at Naveen. He was as aghast as I was. The rest of the lot didn't find any trouble gobbling up their meal.

(To be continued)