ix. 25 May 2022 - Sara to Markha & 26 May 2022 - Markha to Hangkar - last village ..........
At the time of going through the organiser TTH's website to gather information regarding the trek, I came across a term AMS - Acute Mountain Sickness. On googling about this I understood that when one travels to high altitudes he/she is likely to experience a form of altitude sickness. The symptoms are mild and generally improve when one descends to a lower level. If one has AMS at its mildest form he/she may have a headache, feel tired, feel sick or vomit, lose one's appetite, feel dizzy, have difficulty sleeping or combination of one or more of these symptoms. If the symptoms get worse, the best way is to descend to a lower altitude as quickly as possible. I remember reading about two other severe forms of altitude sickness namely HAPE High-altitude pulmonary oedema and HACE high-altitude cerebral oedema. These occur at "very high altitudes". The googling which I did assured me that the current trek which we have undertaken will not make us go into "very high altitudes". However it was necessary to know about this because should any of us experience this, we should be able to identify the symptoms and report to the trek lead, so that necessary arrangements for descending can be made without delay.
The TTH website had this interesting graph indicating the heights we would be covering during the course of this trek.
25 & 26 May 2022 i.e Wednesday and Thursday was like the earlier 2 days.
Walking during the day through dusty roads.
Wednesday's trek was from Sara to Markha - a distance of about 10 kilometres, gaining altitude from 11800 feet to 12200 feet.
Thursday's trek was from Markha to Hankar - a distance of about 14 kilometres, gaining altitude from 12200 feet to 13400 feet.
However on Thursday i.e 26th we crossed several mountain streams / rivulets ranging in width from 3 feet to 20 feet.
It
was when crossing one of the broader streams that the 2 (probably)
youngest members of the trekking team - Anil and Akhil with enthusiastic
participation from Mayank & John, instead of crossing the same
through the bridge like the others, decided to build an impromptu bridge
across this stream by throwing boulders into the stream. This
immediately reminded us of the historical Ram Setu constructed by the
vanar sena (of the Ramayana fame)
Stream crossing by a group trekker
Whenever
we neared a village / settlement we came across a stage like
construction made out of rocks. These rocks had some inscriptions carved
on them. An historian would probably have made sense of what has been
carved on it, but for a lay person like me it was just a work of pure
art.
On both these
days the schedule remained more or less same. Luckily we got Homestay
facility for both the days, though the Homestay point was a bit away -
say 200-250 metres - from the camping site. Black tea at 630 AM,
Breakfast at 800 AM, start walking by 830/840 AM, reach camping site by
1/130 PM, have lunch, check into the Homestay facility, Tea by 4 PM,
soup by 600 PM, oxymeter reading, dinner by 730 PM, hit the bed. Of
course the mandatory "Climb High, Sleep Low" walk after Tea.
On
Thursday we got a taste (literally) of Ladakhi hospitality. As part of
the 4 PM mandatory "Climb High, Sleep Low" walk after Tea, Wangtok took us
to a huge Ladakhi residence. He informed that this house belongs to one
of the members forming part of our kitchen group. Those interested were
served with "chang" a local beer, just a little bit, for taste. Others
opted for mint tea.
Mint Tea
We also got to see, basic agriculture being done, using yak instead of bullocks.
At dinner we took out another supplementary item from our personal stores. We mixed hot plain rice with paruppu podi & had paruppu podi rice.
After an early dinner (730 PM) when we hit the mattresses, I was reminded of Wangtok's few random statements from time to time since we started the trek - (1) Hangkar is the last village
(2) there will be no human habitation beyond this point, till we descend on Saturday and reach Chokdo village, so no Homestay on Friday night
(3) the trek on the last 2 days will be more demanding than the first 4 days put together
(4) friday night would probably be the most difficult period for us to manage
(5) If anyone were to develop any health issues - specifically breathing related - by tomorrow evening, the only way is to return to Hangkar village which is at a lower altitude
(6) the altitude gain over the next 1.5 days would be from 13400 feet (Hangkar) to 17100 feet (summit - Kongmaru la on saturday morning) i.e. a gain of 3700 feet against the 1900 feet, what we have actually done so far in the past 4 days from Leh (11500) to Hangkar (13400). Also tomorrow the total distance we had to cover was around 14 kilometres along with altitude gain, so we would be beginning earlier than usual i.e. at 730 AM instead of 830 AM. With these thoughts I closed my eyes and dozed off to a not so good sleep, fragmented as in the past 3 nights, with a couple of breaks requiring me to go out for nature's call.
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