Sub zero temperature- an experience in itself

Visiting higher altitudes during peak winter has its own charm and adventure, this is what I realized when I along with my husband, mummy, sister and cousins visited Gurudongmar Lake situated at an altitude of 17100 ft, near the Indo China border. It is one of the highest lakes in the world.

We left Gangtok at around 10 am which was pretty late, by the time we reached Chungthang it was already 2:00 pm, we had to reach Thangu, the last village that provides accommodation.

We reached that place around 6pm, it was pitch dark, snowing and I realized that the place just has around 10-12 houses. We were worried whether we would get an accommodation however we were putting up brave front saying if ve don’t get a place to stay we would stay in the vehicle itself. By the way it was sub zero temperature.

Luckily we found a house and the lady provided two rooms. We huddled into her kitchen while she cooked for us. Plain Dal chawal had never tasted so divine. We went to sleep at around 7 Pm there was nothing to do, no electricity, water and drain pipes were all frozen. We did not have the guts to sit and chat as there was no centralized heating. We all decided to hit the bed and get up early in the morning and make a move towards the lake. It was one of the longest and most unforgettable nights of my life. Time seemed to have come to a stand still. After every hour someone or the other would be checking the time. It was so cold -we had carried extra blankets and the land lady too had given ample blankets- we could not even move. Moving an inch meant letting the cold air enter. We slept like a statute.

The morning was glorious, the surrounding hills were covered with snow and it was a sight to behold. The mountains had turned golden; the sun’s ray made them sparkle like diamonds. Oh! it was so beautiful. The morning air was crisp, the environment pristine.

There was clear stream gurgling down the slope, one of my cousin decided wash his face there and the minute he touched the water…he let out a yelp. The water was ice cold and the minute u touched it felt as if thousands of needles had pricked at one go

[FONT=&quot]We decided to make an early start as if the weather turns bad Army dos not permit to up till the lake. So the driver started the vehicle and lo and behold it did not start. We realized that the diesel had frozen (technically diesel does not freeze but turns into a gel like substance), our driver was an amateur, he did not know what to do. We boiled water in a tin with the help of the land lady and poured it into the engine, burnt twigs and wood underneath the vehicle to heat it. The guys could not hold the spanner for long…. After hours of trying a Samaritan in the form of another driver came and helped us.

Finally we started our drive up hill… to my amazement instead of finding steep mountains the topography changed into a desert. We had reached the great Tibetan plateau; it was brown in color with stones and boulders strewn around. I was surrounded by snow-covered mountains of the Himalayan range. The sight was amazing. I could just not dream that we would find a lake in such high altitude and in such a barren land. We drove over a small hillock and on the edge surrounded by snow-covered mountains was a beautiful lake.

It was frozen, but lovely. We got out of the vehicle and were pushed back a few steps by the cold biting wind. We had to stoop and walk; it was sooooooooo cold and because of the high altitude oxygen was less. We had to take small baby steps and we could not even go near the lake. We just gazed at the beautiful lake. An army Jawan was posted there, he said, “We generally offer tea but today it’s so cold that I could not light the stove, here take some chocolates.” Hats off to the Indian army for being helpful even in such condition. We could hardly stay there for 15 mints. But it was a ones in a life time experience. [/FONT]