Thursday, June 5, 2014

Journey to upper Mustang:kagbeni to chele


Got up at 6 am and packed my stuffs. Nilgiri glows orange while the first warm sun rays reached the fields. The day starts beautiful, not a single cloud. Had my breakfast with the team and we all were ready to move. Everyone was excited because the real journey to Upper Mustang was going to start. We started our journey and after few minutes walk there was TIMS office and everyone stopped there as they are entering to restricted zone. Krishna told us to move ahead as he had to show all the permission documents and it would take time, so we all move ahead. Everyone was busy with their camera and I was watching all their expression. Right after Kagbeni the trail climbs up, from where one can see beautiful view of Kagbeni and the Nilgiri. Everyone took out their camera and start capturing those beautiful views and I also clicked for me.

View of kagbeni from top
 
Then the trail follows the river closely and then it leads to a flat piece of dry and desert-like land. The scenery was amazing, like the valley of sand and rocks. Thousands of years of erosion have formed the landscapes. We followed Kaligandai river and the way we could see different formation of rocks and next to river we saw sheep’s grazing all over those cliffs and that was interesting as I was wondering what they would eat as there is nothing except those thorn bush and those sheep’s were busy having their food and we watching them. Life is really hard.
View after kagbeni
After few hours walk I saw flat landscapes from far and I think that may be village because I could see house but when we when we reached there it was a huge apple farm and the project name was Green Project. That was interesting because the walls around the farms looks like a flat land but the landscapes was amazing as we could see red hills n the mountains behind it. It was Just wow. From there we reached Tangbe, first real mustang village. I think this must be our lunch spot but I was wrong. It was next village called Chhusang for lunch. Then following Kaligandaki we headed ahead. On the other side of river are caves high up in vertical walls. After hour and half walks bring us to finally to chhusang(2980m). The cliff were quite unique with reddish colour and I was just looking those caves and cliffs. Finally we arrive lunch place and everyone was so hungry and tired because it was already mid-day and windy on the way.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

View of apple farm
Tangbe village
 
On the way to chussang
 
After lunch we headed towards chele, our destination for the day. The trails slowly followed the river bed and it was easy walk. This area is mostly famous for fossils and the funny thing is that I didn’t knew about fossils and for me every stone was beautiful and I think it must be fossils. It was interesting and funny. A bridge crosses the Kaligandaki which flow through a natural tunnel in that cliff. A steep trail takes us up to chele and I was last among my group to reached chele. Finally we arrived our guest house. I was so tired even was not able to stand on my feet and I went for sleep.


 
pic on the way to chele
 

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