The Ghosts of Goechala: Part I

 Good treks are about endurance, fitness and strength but also about the camaraderie of fellow trekkers and the stories you share on those dark chilly nights. This is not a faithful retelling of the trek ( there are enough blogs that do that but rather an anecdotal and sometimes humorous and somber account of my experiences and emotions. 

The Goechala Gang

We were eight of us on the Goechala trek – Priti and Raja, super fit trekker couple who had just completed a long difficult trek in Nepal and were rearing to take this on, Upasana – supremely fit yoga trainer and second time trekker ( she did ABC with us last time) and was ahead of all my of us including the guides, my sister Aarti who cribbed before the trek that she would never be able to do it and did it like a pro ( did I mention that she is tall, statuesque and trekking clothes look good on her unlike me who looks like a bit like the Hunch back of Norte Dame); my friend and fellow organiser and conspirator , Jayanthi who kept us entertained and rearing to go despite the challenges, Anand, my better half who was indifferent till the trek started and then waxed eloquent on every aspect of it for weeks to come and is a fount of stats and numbers on altitude, distance and anything in between. 

Bhaskar, the new comer to the group, who had seriously trained ( unlike the rest of us) for this trek , was a bit formal at first and finally loosened up with the help of ‘spirits’ to to sing Kannada gems and oh did I mention the ace photographer of the group and then finally me, the organiser and the slowest trekker, (the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.) I creak and crawl while the others race past, but the trek starts as an idea in my head ( and Jay’s). So I give myself extra brownie points for that. And of course, we had Indranil Kar of Ongoz Escapades whom I contacted on a whim based on a blog post I read. That turned out to be the best thing I did, because he turned out better than warm apple pie with ice cream – guide, DJ, philosopher, story teller and comedian and finally has now become good friend to all in the group.

The Ghosts of Goechala

As we huddled around a warm wood fire oven in the caretakers hut at Dzongri sipping the local millet beer, we heard stories about heroic feats and near death experiences of guides and trekkers and WAIT FOR It spine tingling ghost stories that will strike fear into your hearts. Surely they are exaggerated but make for great listening; anything that takes your mind away from the bone numbing cold and the thought of slipping into an ice cold sleeping bag at the end of the day despite several layers of clothing. A good dose of healthy fear increases your heart rate and your sluggish blood races and thrums through your arteries and veins, inducing a sense of heightened anticipation and brief flashes of heat. And so we heard Ghost stories in instalments. Hearing it at one go may give us a ‘heart burst’ as Indranil puts it.

Our first day

But I am getting ahead of myself. We first heard about the ghosts of the dancing girls at night on the 4th bridge (or was it the 3rd bridge) during our first day to Sachen. This I think was the bridge below which the Prek Chu river was gushing wildly through a steep gorge. The suspension bridge shook as I walked over it. Thump thump thump,and then a sway. I felt slightly nauseous looking at the deep gorge below. Nima Thaju our head guide told us about a guide who went down to the river to have a bath at this very spot and slipped on  a cake of soap he had kept aside and was swept away by the river. The guides said these stories with a certain relish as our faces turned a bit pale and we looked at each other uncertainly. The trek had a fearsome reputation of bringing trekkers to their knees; did we have to also contend with ghosts and the like?

Gory stories at Phedang

Sachen to Tsoka was difficult but the real test was yet to come. After our first night in tents, we opted for the trekker huts in Tsoka, we were afraid that the rain might wash the tents away. From Tsoka, after a difficult ascent, which never seemed to end, we finally arrived at Phedang. Phedang at 12000 feet is a green slushy meadow with an open hut which serves as a dining room. Given a choice, I was all ready to spend the night there; there was a another steady incline of 3 hours to Deorali top and then a slight descent to Dzongri at 13000 feet. But during lunch, Indranil regaled us with the stories of two porters who died in a fire that engulfed the wooden hut they were spending the night. Since that event, most trekking guides and porters are superstitious and bypass Phedang as a place to halt at night. It is believed that those who stay are woken by a (symbolic) knock on their tent flaps and when they open it are witness to the horrifying and terrifying sight of blackened charred faces staring at them. That was enough to get me scampering from there post lunch and do the tough climb to Deorali top where the skies opened up to reveal enchanting Mount Pandim.

A hard descent

After a day’s rest at Dzongri and a near dizzying climb to Dzongri top at 13778 feet ( saying it in feet rather than metres makes our trek seem like a more impossible feat than it already is), where we walked on narrow ledges and steep ascents ( one wrong step and we would have indeed become ghosts who haunted future trekkers to Dzongri) we did a steep descent to Kokchurang. The descent was the scariest part of the trek and even now I get the heebejeebies thinking about it. I held my guide Limbu’s hands 90 percent of the way as I’m notoriously bad at walking downhill. Even Limbu’s wife or significant other wouldn’t have held his hand for that long. Even if a spirit in the surrounding thick forests were to prance around or shout or scream to make its presence felt, I wouldn’t have lifted my head, so fierce was my concentration on the tricky path ahead. I saw colourful birds flit between the trees and tried to make a note of their colour and size to quiz Bhaskar who seemed to be a walking talking encyclopaedia on birds and has even downloaded a pdf on birds on his phone.I breathed a sign of relief as we reached level ground and the Kokcharung trekkers hut came into view. It was a small squalid nut with several suffocatingly small rooms. We had our delicious hot lunch and proceeded to Tansing. The trail from Kokcharung to Tansing was not easy but anything was better than the nightmare descent that I had gone through

I do hope you enjoyed reading about the Goechala trek this far. Read Part 2 of the Ghosts of Goechala next week. And do comment and share my blog post with your family and friends