Continued...
The last night was spent in a labourer's tent with the rain pounding the roof and the trail becoming a small size stream. The outer of my sleeping bag was wet, however, the inner was still bone dry, but I was wet and by the time I woke up, the inner had become wet too.
It was 0600 hrs when we awoke. Bose, Pavan and I came out of our tent into the open to see that the jungle was dripping wet though the rain has stopped. The labourers were already kindling a fire in the kitchen area preparing food, and, may God bless their souls, they offered to cook food for us too, not expecting anything in return. We had only heard of the helping nature of the Bhutanese till then, but that was when we saw it, and were touched.
We woke up Sagar and Lucky sleeping in the other tent, and asked them what their plan was for today. Seeing yesterday's debacle in the rain, I wanted to turn back because this is a trekking trail that we no nothing about. Bose and Pavan seconded me in returning back via yesterday's trail which would have taken us 2 hours to descend to the unpaved road that we started from. We however, were not totally against continuing the trek too but Sagar and Lucky were adamant in continuing the trek. We asked the labourers about the trail and they said it is a 4 hour walk (descend) from the pass to Punakha. I was sceptical because the map was showing Punakha at a very great distance (my guess would have been around 20 km) and
descend speed in the hills with a full back pack will be 3 km per hour.
The decision was made after a small discussion where in Sagar and Lucky said the iconic words, "Ithna door aake abh wapas chale jaaye?"
That did it, and in another half hour, we wore our wet socks and wet shoes, put on our wet jackets and backpacks, and started our way up to the stupa at Sinchu La pass again. We reached the stupa in 15 minutes, and took a break to have breakfast - one slice of bread and jam for each person.
We could see the village of Thanleygang from the pass. It showed in the map at about 4-7 km, and I thought that the trail leads us to this village and then we can get onto the highway between Thimphu and Punakha and be done.
We kept walking through a trail that hugged the cliff and winded its way through the Himalayan forest, with occasional growls that we kept hearing, coming, maybe, from the myriad of caves that lined the trail on either sides. After walking for about half an hour with an awesome view of the valley on our right, the clouds came in and obscured the view, starting their drizzle, honouring their pact of keeping us wet.
We started our way down from the pass at 0800 hrs and according to the locals, it was a 4 hour trail to the end, meaning, we should be out and done by 1200 hrs. We kept seeing the ribbons all along the way leading us on our path. Every one hour, we took a break, with me, whipping out my Moto G4 Plus to check the map, and a feel kept bugging me that the village we saw was not the one the trail is gonna lead us to, though for now, the trail was heading in an East-Southeast direction towards Thanleygang village.
It was 1200 hrs and the end was nowhere in sight. By this time, everyone was getting pissed and desperate to end the trek. This was not because we did not have the strength to keep walking (which we did not), it was because of the God Dammit leeches, which, every time we took a break start climbing on us to suck out our blood.
The trail was filled with mud and water 2 feet deep, and every step was a pain in all the wrong places. One hope that everyone had was that the locals had said the trail was only 4 hours long, and everyone was expecting the trail to end in some village anytime. While climbing down, we could see open rice fields ahead and were elated that the trek was over - however, once we came out into the clearing, it was uninhabited except for two lonely cows and some structure made of wood - a cattle pen maybe. I check the map and see that the direction of the trail has changed from East - Southeast to North - Northeast and we were moving away from Thanleygang village. That was when everyone realised the gravity of the situation, that we might not be out of the trail till sunset, and if were stuck here after sunset, our chances of survival are slim in the incessant rain that falls every night in that areas.
To be continued...
