I wrote a few weeks back about hiking in the Himalayas. Now I am going to tell you about trekking in the Himalayas. “What is the difference?” you might ask.
I didn’t really understand myself until I embarked on this journey from Darjeeling toward the peak of Sandakphu mountain along the eastern border India and Nepal with a group of 20 other trekkers, two guides, a porter and our trek leader, Deepak Danu.
In my last blog, we left off as I was traveling east by train across the entirety of the Indian subcontinent toward Darjeeling, where this trek would begin. The train ended up being eleven hours late to Siliguri, which put the total duration of the trip around forty-four hours.
I then took a three-hour public bus ride north from Siliguri to the mountain town of Darjeeling, created originally as a British officers’ retreat that is famous for the high quality teas grown throughout the region.
A steady stream of locals crowded on and off the bus as we made our way up the mountain, pressing into me uncomfortably on my seat near the front. Riding on public busses in India or tuk-tuks and four-wheel drives with 10-plus passengers is definitely not the most comfortable position to be in for several hours – especially if you are six-three and carrying luggage.
Regardless, we arrived without incident and I made my way up to the Mountaineers Homestay I had arranged in advance. As I wandered through the public square or mall at the center of town, a stage had been set up for a regional boxing tournament, that would be the backdrop for much of my initial day in Darjeeling.
After checking in and showering, I roamed around and did some shopping, including a stop at the Teattoria for some of Darjeeling’s famous tea. They gave me samples of top quality orange pekoe teas, explaining the difference between the first and second flush – an explanation that fell on pretty much deaf ears as I knew very little about tea and before this journey have never really been much of a tea drinker.
Regardless, I bought some tea as gifts, a hiking pole and a book to read on my trek, but I also found a small cafe that was serving some excellent coffee locally sourded from the native people of the Kalimpong mountains. Darjeeling also has excellent pastry shops that serve these huge doughnuts, not exactly like what you get in the U.S. but quite yummy, nonetheless.
I spent the evening talking with my homestay host, Shambu, about the United States and other random topics.
The following morning, I awoke and prepared to head out for the Sandakphu Trek at noon. I’m not sure if I mentioned it previously, but I booked the trek with a company called Indiahikes that offers a variety of guided treks throughout India.
Shortly after our four-by-four arrived near the pickup point, my first fellow trekker, Ajay, showed up. I then got a call from Mansi, another trekker who needed to get a pole for the hike. Mansi and I went to the Mountain Gears store I had found the prior day to get the pole as we waited for the fourth and final trekker, Niru. After she arrived and we posed for the obligatory pre-trip selfies, we embarked on the ride from Darjeeling to the basecamp at Sepi, where we would start our trek the following morning.
The nearly five-hour drive through the mountains was bumpy but not so crowded with only four of us and our bags in the vehicle. The driver, Dawa, whose dashboard featured Buddha statuettes and a prayer wheel, lived in one of the villages we passed and knew the road well. He navigated it skillfully as the four of us enjoyed a conversation.
We would actually become close friends on the trek, as the four of us and a few others would typically hike near the front of the pack on the days that would follow. To summarize, the three of them, along with most of the rest of the trekkers, were from business backgrounds, largely in the tech industry and primarily from the Bangalore area, although Mansi lives in Mumbai and Niru and another trekker, Madavi, are Indian natives living in Texas.
We arrived at the basecamp / teahouse that evening shortly before the remainder of the trekkers/ We had our evening tea and a pre-trek briefing before dinner and retiring for the night. Of all 21 trekkers who arrived that day, I was the only non-Indian native, but pretty much everyone spoke English comfortably.
The first day of the trek was cloudy and rainy as we left out on a thirteen-kilometer hike toward the village of Samanden where we would also stay in a teahouse. To briefly explain, teahouses are stopping points along the trek that have dormitory style rooms and serve meals where hikers can sleep in beds and eat warm meals. We would spend four of the six nights in such lodgings and the other two in campsites.
So the technical difference between a trek and a hike is primarily the duration. I guess I could say that I have been on some treks before – specifically the Inca Trail and Colca Canyon in Peru and the Grand Canyon at Havasupai – but none of those prior trips was quite as extensive as this weeklong trek.
In addition to the walking, our trek leader, Deepak, would guide us on several group activities, which included a game of name volleyball, organizing our entire group into a straight line while blindfolded and the literal hugging of a tree. We were also tasked with carrying Eco Bags, which we used to gather litter strewn by other trekkers or residents of the villages along the paths. Indiahikes recycles the litter via a partner organization or sends to the landfill. (By the end of the trek, we had accumulated upwards of ten kilos of waste to be removed from the trail.)
At the end of each day’s trek, as we gathered and waited for our late evening dinner, we would play games or tell personal stories – and I mean very personal. The questions that were asked at these evening conversations led me to reveal my past struggles with alocohol and drug addiction and the series of failures that constitute my romantic life. One thing about Indians is that they are not afraid to ask, and generally pretty open to answer, some deep and personal questions.
Although the Sandakphu Trek is advertised for its spectacular views of the Kachenjunga peak and the surrounding Sleeping Buddha mountain range, as well as views of the distant Mount Everest, Mother Nature had different plans. Apparently, the monsoon season has decided to stick around longer than normal this year and the mountains have remained largely shrouded in mist for most of my time int he Himalayas. The clouds did not descend low enough into the valleys to provide views of the 20,000-plus feat peaks. Other than a fleeting scene of the Sleeping Buddha at the start of day three and a very brief glimpse of Everest on the next to last day of our trek, those views eluded us.
Some people might be inclined to call it a failure on this basis, but our trek leader encouraged us not to have expectations about what we would get out of the trip. I tried to go into each cloudy morning with that mindset.
Instead, I have memories of meditating on rocks as the lead trekkers waited for the rest of the pack to catch up; eating lunch amid a clearing in a bamboo forest; sleeping in a tent on a mountaintop on the India-Nepal border; sharing stories with my fellow trekkers; and dancing to Bollywood tunes during the party at the Gurudam teahouse on the final night of the trek.
Those memories will be far more meaningful than a few photos of snow-capped mountains that anyone can view on the internet.
On the final day, we made the short descent back to Sepi and loaded onto cars for our respective destinations. NIne of us were headed back to Darjeeling so we split two vehicles and rode comfortably.
Once back in town, I got a different room at Mountaineers, a little closer to town but with not as nice a view. After my first shower in over a week, I joined Mansi, Madhavi, Aditya, Devika, Vindhya and Akshata for an evening meal at the upscale hotspot Glenary’s. The rest of the group got a little tipsy but I just had coffee and one sweet and fruity non-alcoholic concoction as we danced to a local band playing covers of American rock music, including Rage Against the Machine, AC/DC and Alice in Chains songs. I never imagined I would find myself banging my head to hard rock on my journey to the east.
By about 11 p.m., the restaurant had closed and we wandered about on the dead quiet streets that were bustling with crowds of people, commerce and merriment just a few hours earlier.
The following morning, Mansi sent a photo of the view she had of the Sleeping Buddha from her hostel so I went in search of a similar perspective I could call my own memory. The journey led me to the Japanese Buddhist Peace Pagoda about two kilometers south of town, where I not only got photos of the mountains, but also took pictures of a family posing with the impressive golden Buddhas that adorn the stupa.
Our Darjeeling group met up later that morning and made our way north to the zoological gardens, which also houses the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. We toured the mountaineering museum and Mansi had to depart to catch her plane back to Mumbai.
As I said goodbye to the final remaining member of the four of us that loaded into that car a week prior, it felt that our trek was coming to a close.
I caught a car to Siliguri later that day with Madhavi, Vindhya and her husband, who had showed up in Darjeeling to surprise Vindhya after the trek.
“So what is trekking?” you might still be asking.
It is more than just walking along mountain paths for a few days. There is more to it than that.
It is about cultivating a relationship with nature and those you are hiking with, if you are part of a group.
For me, not only on this Sandakphu Trek, but also with the Austrians and Dutch girl who were on the Inca Trail team, the lanky German who went into Havasupai with me and the group of us at Colca Canyon, the trek has been about the experience.
And I know the memories I have of these experiences will be with me for the rest of my life.
To me, trekking is about creating a new view of the world – a view that cannot be captured in the lens of the camera – a view that we carry not in photo albums or on cell phones but like a glittering jewel in our mind’s eye.