viii. 24 May 2022 - Skiu to Sara .............
Yesterday evening the trek lead Mayank had given us the timings for today as 630/800/830.
Sunrise happened around 5AM. We got out of our sleeping bags and reported for tea at 630 AM. After a steaming cup of black tea, we folded the sleeping bags and kept them in its cover. The next step was removing the additional layers of clothing which we had added on to tackle the Himalayan nights. The next stage was disassembling the tents and keeping it back in its cover with the rods, pegs, etc. We were given specific instructions at the beginning of the trek that hot drinking water would be supplied at the catering tent at 630 AM & 630 PM everyday. I gave my thermos at the catering tent for filling it with hot drinking water. The bags were packed and we were ready for break fast by 8 AM. Each day the cook would come up with some new item in the breakfast. During the course of the 6 days when we had break fast in the tents we tasted porridge, bread and butter, parathas, noodles and momos. Readers would remember my mentioning earlier that we Trekk(iy)ers had carried some supplementary items - these included ready mix upma and ready mix poha which we requested the cook to prepare.
We
commenced the trek at 840 AM on Tuesday morning. At the briefing
(before we started the trek) Wangtok informed that in today's trek we
would be covering around 10 kilometres and would be reaching our
destination Sara village by around 1/130 PM. The destination would be at
an height of around 11800 feet above sea level. He also mentioned that
for those interested we may get some sort of Home Stay facility. Home
Stay is where instead of spending the night in the open in a canvas
tent, one stays indoors with the bare minimum creature comforts like a
good mattress, a fluffy pillow and a good thick blanket and hopefully
for attending natures call you get an enclosed wash room instead of an
open air facility! To say the least having spent the previous night in a
tent and a sleeping bag, I prayed sincerely that a home stay would be
most welcome.
Group foto before starting the trek for the day
The
day's trek was again through dry roadways. Same as yesterday. But as we
started crossing mountains, we got to see some spectacular views.
Zoom in the foto to see 2 of us standing on the rock
Wangtok gave us regular breaks, an hours walk followed by a 10 to 15 minute
break, but made sure that the breaks were at spots which gave us ample
scope for photography!
Wangtok - our local guide
As per one of the group members'
Garmin, we covered around 14 kilometres in approximately 5 hours and
reached our camping site Sara village by around 130 PM. As always the
camp site was next to a little mountain stream that was flowing. We saw a
couple of houses practically touching the camp site and assumed these
to be the Home Stay points. Hot lunch awaited us. We had instructed the
cook to have plain rice for us. Today we had puliyodarai rice!
Puliyodarai is basically tamarind paste in sesame / gingelly oil with
spices in a specific measured quantity. This when mixed with hot plain
rice gives yummy puliyodarai rice. Immediately after lunch 2 members
from the group went enquiring for the home stay and after fixing the
commercial terms with the hosts, 7 out of the 9 trekkers, i.e. everyone
except Akhil & Anil moved in with their luggage to the Home Stay.
Comfortable in Home Stay
Again
strict instructions from Wangtok NOT to doze off after lunch. We had
tea at 4 PM and left for a short walk - the "Climb High, Sleep Low"
walk. After this walk, we returned to base by 630 PM. Had soup and got
the oxymeter readings done. Dinner was served by 730 PM after which we
were lured to the mattresses, pillows and blankets at the Home Stay.
Half an hour with my ebook - continuing the Alistair Maclean thriller
which I was reading (South by Java Head) and then Zzzzzzzz. I expected
to have an uninterrupted sleep, but it was fragmented and with breaks.
Could be because of the height gain, we were at 11800 Ft above sea level
now.
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