Goechala Trek — Day 8— Back to Yuksom
Today was our final day of trekking back to Yuksom from Tsokha. The day started quite eventfully with the yak caretaker losing his Jon in the night. He asked around the campsite to check if someone had seen which direction the Jon had gone in. The jons that didn’t get lost in the picture below. Mountain things :D
It was a bright and sunny day that started out with a big breakfast where we finished off the last of our fruit supplies. We had to cross the same 3 bridges that we had crossed on day 1. It was a perfect day to hike and as we walked on an undulating trail, we continued a regular tradition of playing our ‘story’ game. The game’s objective was to build a story with each player speaking one sentence turn-by-turn. And boy did we come up with some really funny, weird, creative stories. Most stories involved the wild west, nature, guns, violence, mermaids, cowboys, sex, love, passion and were worthy of a Bollywood movie :D
On the way up, me and Saurabh had made plans to take a dip in the water at one of the bridges. Unfortunately, there was no way to descend down this bridge to the water area.
Here is me thanking my shoes for not breaking and enduring the rough terrain :P
As we covered the miles back to civilization and 4G, the fatigue of the whole trek was definitely catching up with everyone. It was a long day and we were all fretting putting back on masks on reaching Yuksom. The news of the number of Covid cases going up from 2lk/day to 4lk/day during the span of our trek was something that we were definitely not looking forward to.
We eventually reached bridge 2 and me and Saurabh finally got to take that water dip. This is the mini pond where we took the dip.
The way down to the water from the bridge was a little dubious especially given that we were tired but the cold water made up for everything. We felt super refreshed post our first bath after a week and it gave us the energy for the final stretch. Harsh might have taken some sketchy photos too when we were in the pond. Views from the pond below.
As we marched onto bridge 1, we saw the weirdest thing. A group of college kids wearing jeans and sneakers going up to Tsokha. They definitely didn’t seem fit or prepared enough to reach Tsokha, let alone the campsites later in the trek. One of them was already bandaged and to top it all off they were carrying suitcases instead of rucksacks :O This gave us all a huge laugh at their expense. Captured in the pics their strollers and suitcases :D
The army folks were also heading back along with us today. Unfortunately, the captain had twisted his knee which was causing him a lot of pain while descending. His pace was still super impressive though.
Arriving back into bridge 1 — the start/exit point of the Kanchenjunga national park.
As we exited the national park, we bid goodbye to the army folks and walked back to our homestay. Over there, we all got busy checking our phones as we took turns taking our first bath in over a week. The hot water felt like heaven and exposed all the tiredness and fatigue. Today had been a long day with lots of kms. We had basically combined two days of ascent into one!
Post the bath, we hogged on multiple rounds of fries, pakodas, and chips as we played cards before dinner. Below is a snippet of our favorite song from the trek, the infamous ‘diamond biscuit’ that we all sang whenever a diamond trump card was chosen in Court Piece. Something etched into my memory forever, courtesy Gaurav :D
To go along with our snacks, we chugged on an extremely tasty local Sikkim millet-based alcoholic drink called Tongba. It left us pretty buzzed!
Saurabh and Harsh got pretty drunk and recalled their ISB memories and stories and drunk-called a few people. Gaurav was the teetotaller who tried hard and unsuccessfully to contain them at the dinner table.
Post dinner, the Tongba drinking continued. It was quite an amazing drink. Every time the drink finishes, one has to pour hot water on top of the millet, and bam! more alcohol is ready to be sipped from the bamboo stick. Given the cold weather and our sugar-starved bodies, it was an absolute delight and it was very hard to control.
We all recalled our favorite moments from the trek one-by-one and the general consensus was one of an amazing experience, fantastic company, and something that we needed to repeat.
We eventually dozed off, waking up at 5 am, traveling back to Bagdogra, saying our goodbyes, and flying back to our homes. Signing off here, with happy and drunk faces of the entire group!
