Bird’s Eye View:
As per Google maps, Karnaprayag to Joshimath is 80 km, and should take 2.5 hours. But frankly, I have never met the gmaps target time in the hills. My driving is always a couple of notches slower than the paharis. That said, we left at 8.30 am and reached at 1.30 pm, 5 hours total. We stopped at a scheduled stop, got diverted due to landslides, and chatted with some of the locals over tea. So, 5 hours was fine, what’s our hurry anyway?
Roads were good, as long as it was NH7. Even then, we were diverted for 10-15 kms due to road closure on account of a landslide, and at many spots, we had to wait and be let through in single file where road clearing work was going on. Seems like yesterday’s cloudburst had done some damage.
Weather was cloudy throughout, visibility good, and Ms Alaknanda our constant companion.
Leaving Karnaprayag (8.30 am):
There was nothing to hold us in Karnaprayag as such, since we had finished our local sightseeing yesterday. Nor did the Pindar, running muddy due to yesterday’s showers, inspire the photographer in Panna. After a breakfast of alu-paratha and dahi, we climbed onto NH7 and started moving.
NH7 was impressive, wide, two-laned, traffic flowing smoothly. Some points gained here over Kumaon, where most of the NHs were single-track. However, we found that no sooner had one locality finished, the next one was ready to start. A bit like Kerala. The level of human and vehicular population was higher. Desolate pine forests were few and far between. We also found large stretches of hills almost bereft of trees, probably felled. People say that landslides increase when that happens.
We got glimpses of Alaknanda quite frequently. Since we were moving towards her source, she became jollier, more bouncy, more frothy, and more greenish - all in all looking more girlish. The deep valley was banked by rows of mountains receding into the distance, blurred by clouds. It was a nice drive.
Nandaprayag (9.30 am):
Around 20 kms out of Karnaprayag, we reached another confluence of the Alaknanda, where the river Nandakini (not Mandakini) flows into Alaknanda.
For information, Alaknanda has five prayags (also called pancha prayag) or confluences in Uttarakhand. In order of Alaknanda’s flow, the rivers which join her are Dhauliganga at Vishnuprayag, Nandakini at Nandaprayag, Pindar at Karnaprayag, Mandakini at Rudraprayag, and Bhagirathi at Devprayag. We hope to see all the prayags in this trip.
Nandaprayag was once the capital of the Yadu kingdom, whose founder Yadu was Yayati’s son, and the descendants were Yaduvanshis whom Krishna ruled later on. Raja Nanda, the foster-father of Krishna, is said to have meditated here, and the city later got his name.
So much for history. Or is it mythology. One man’s H is another man’s M, you know. Meanwhile, we had approached very close to the sangam and turned off the NH7 down a rough road on the left (directed by gmaps), into which we dived. We had a vague impression of the police having put up a road block ahead on NH7, but did not pay much heed. The Nandakini is a thinnish but fast river, compared to the Alaknanda, and it was only by coming close that we could make out the dynamics of the sangam. Like a very thin Y it was. We had gone down some rough steps to Nandakini’s edge, but could not reach the confluence itself. There was a platform there which could be reached by following a long walkway, the start of which was probably beyond the police barricade. So how to go there? And…er…why at all a barricade.
Our thin rough road had a lot of traffic today. We started driving back to NH7 and asked an oncoming driver as to the current route to Joshimath. “You can’t take NH7,” he said. “Police have blocked it due to a landslide last night. May take a day or two to clear. We have to go along this rough road, up to Chamoli, after which again NH7.”
Oops! We quickly turned our car and followed the bouncing queue. Chamoli, as far as I knew, was an intermediate town 10-15 kms ahead. That could not be too bad. We were now on the west side of Alaknanda. We would have crossed it at Nandaprayag, but will have to do so now at Chamoli instead.
The road was BAD. Rough surface, often broken up, twisty and narrow. Mind you, the full NH7 traffic of LMVs was now on this back road, and there were umpteen instances where we had to juggle back and forth in order to avoid Mexican stand-offs. Those 10-15 kms almost took an hour. Only a few kms before Chamoli, we climbed on to NH107A (blessed relief) which in turn soon put us again on NH7 and pointed us towards the direction of Joshimath. We found a police barricade there as well, diverting traffic coming from Joshimath onto the back-road. Trucks and buses lined the highway, simply held back, because they could not possibly negotiate the narrow back-road.
In mountainous road trips like this, landslides and road blockages are a reality. So we do the following. Firstly, we travel short distances. Today’s plan was 80km/3 hrs, and we ended up doing 90 km/5 hrs, which was still within control. Secondly, we always drive in the morning and reach before lunch. In the mountains, weather changes unpredictably in the second half of the day. And thirdly, we keep dry food and 3-4 bottles of water in the car. I don’t know about you, but delays make me peckish.
Tea at Pipalkoti (12.30 pm):
We passed Chamoli with a sigh of relief, our row of cars rattling over the bridge on the Alaknanda, something that we should have done at Nandaprayag. Chamoli is a fair-sized town, with a population of 400,000, a junction, a trading centre, and a tourist centre for treks. We did not stop here, but carried on. When passing Piplakoti, with an hour to go, we stopped at a roadside stall for some tea. The lady got busy preparing our request for black tea with ginger, while her daughter sauntered in to help.
Casual enquiries revealed that the daughter Sonika, the fourth child after two daughters and a son, had just passed Inter, which was the limit of her village school. Now what? Well, college was too far away, in Gopeshwar, a solid 10 km distant, so they didn’t know whether she could continue. Oh, here we go again, we thought. Though it is another debate what a college education is worth nowadays, in terms of employability, the college in question did not seem THAT far. Nor were online graduate classes an impossibility. The trouble still continues to be what worth the parents see in further education, especially in villages, vis-a-vis getting “married off”, like the older two sisters have been.
Entering Joshimath (1.30 pm):
“I ❤️ Jyotirmath” proclaimed a hoarding as we neared town, throwing us into confusion and causing us to tap the Gmaps software enquiringly. When did this happen? Before we could discuss the nom de plume further, another road block, just 1 km before GMVN, where we were booked for three days. What now? “One-way sir,” proclaimed the young cop. “You’ll have to go around the petrol pump.” And off he sent us down a steep narrow road that rolled downhill for at least 5 kms, till we reached the said petrol pump and clawed back onto NH7, turning right along the reverse one-way into the marketplace. All these controls were in anticipation of the tourist season, which is technically from 1st May (yesterday).
GMVN Jyotir (now I know why it is named like that) had a narrow entrance lane right in the heart of a crowded marketplace, which we climbed onto, manipulating the steering for dear life up a curving steep slope. But, as usual, inside there was plenty of empty space. Even the reception desk was empty. However, the minions hurried up, and, looking at our booking, they started whispering in a strange foreign tongue. After tapping our toes for two minutes, we entered the conversation and understood that the room next to our allotted one on the first floor was undergoing renovation, and wouldn’t the noise disturb us? We said it jolly well would. Then could we take a room on the ground floor for tonight and maybe tomorrow as well? We gaped at the bugger. Two out of three nights? There is absolutely no comparison between a balcony on the first floor, where one might have morning tea gazing serenely at the mountains in front, and a balcony on the ground floor, which basically belongs to the people walking outside, not to us. We said as much. But it was an impasse, and for tonight, we accepted a ground floor room, extracting a promise that we would be able to live in peace upstairs by tomorrow noon latest. Or else. (Or else what? I don’t know).
We finished a timely lunch of rice, daal, mixed veggies and french fries, and chilled in the room. Today we do not plan to go out anywhere. Usually, our arrival days are days of rest, especially if we are staying more than one night. An evening of inertia, watching a serial ("The Resident" - comic thriller) and a quiet in room dinner of is what the doctor ordered.
Tomorrow, we will continue in Joshimath, and do some local sightseeing, perhaps Auli.
Photo credits: Panna Rashmi Ray
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