After the day in Badrinath and Mana, I caught a bus back south to Govind Ghat, which is the starting point to the trail up to the Valley of Flowers National Park and the glacial lake, Hemkund Sahib, which is a holy place for people of the Sikh faith.
I overnighted at a small hotel there and started trekking the next morning. It was rainy and I thought of throwing in the towel on the three-day hike. I am glad I toughed it out though as the rain cleared by late-morning and the remained at bay for most of the rest of the trip into the mountains.
It was tough hike up from 1,800 meters to 3,150 meters in altitude with my full hking pack on my back and took about seven hours. I met quite a few interesting people on the way, including a family from Amristar in Punjab -- Harman, “Bobby”, Amit and Lakhbir Singh – with whom I became close friends for the weekend.
I rented a campsite just south of the town Gangaria and went into town for the evening, where I ran into the Singh family again. We had some small snacks together and called it a day.
The following morning was clear and I started hike up to Hemkund Sahib with a much lighter pack. I ran into Harman, “Bobby”, Amit and Lakhbir about halfway. They were kind of slow-moving, so I pressed onwards and up to the 4,350-meter lake. It was beautiful and sunny when I arrived, but clouds kep passing through the area and cooled things off when the sun was not illuminating the lake.
For the Sikhs, this lake is considered sacred and to bath in its waters, like the Ganga to the Hindus is to wash away sins of this and previous lifetimes. Anyone who knows me well, knows that it doesn’t take much to get me to try something like that at least once. So I dipped into the icy water a total of six times (the minimum number of dips to meet the requirement is five). The sun was nice to dry me off but it was still icy cold coming out of the glacial waters.
I don’t know a lot about the Sikh religion, but one of the fascinating aspects is that they have places called Gurudwaras, which not only serve as places of worship and prayer but also serve free meals and offer housing to anyone of any faith who comes through the doors. The only requirement is that you must cover your head with turbans or scraves that they have at the doors.
I had some paneer and rice they were serving that day, along with some milk chai to warm me up.
The Singh family eventually made their way to the top of site and I shot a video of Harman and Amir doing the dunks into the waters.
I eventually made my way back down to the town where I had dinner and my campsite for the night.
There was some rain early the next morning but it had mostly subsided by the time I left camp. It remained dry for the rest of the three hours or so it took me to get back down the mountain.
Back at Govind Ghat, everyone said it would not be possible to catch a bus to Rishikesh or Haridwar that day. Fate would have other plans, however.
I decided to share a car to Joshimath, which is not far from where we were. Three of the guys in the car – including one Sikh pilgrim I had met on the descent earlier that day – managed to work through the driver to negotiate a ride on an empty passenger van, two vehicles behind us in traffic, that was en route to Rishikesh that night. The driver had already been paid for the trip and the 700 rupees each of the four of us paid were free money to him.
We had to wait about two hours for rock slide to be cleared at one point on the trip, but we made it back safely to Rishikesh by midnight that night.