Deoriatal Chandrashila trek and Rishikesh

We completed our second Himalayan trek this year! What an awesome experience it was! Tough to describe in words, but here is a shot at it.

I started trekking to the Himalayas with my kids last year. Exact one year later we started planning our second trek. This time as well we chose Indiahikes company to trek with. We chose the Deoriatal Chandrashila trek. This seemed similar to the trek we did last year in terms of altitude and level and hence decided on this but it turned out harder than our previous trek. Each trek in the Himalayas is unique and special - it does not matter if we trek for one day or ten days, if we climb 7000 feet or 17000 feet. A trek is a trek in the Himalayas - and each one is incredible and leaves us with a memorable experience.

The whole process of a series of booking started in the month of February this time. My friend and her son and another friend's son also joined us this time. First I booked the trek online, then booked the flight tickets to Dehradun. I generally book the same hotel from where the pickup is scheduled to go to our base camp. So this time it was a hotel called 'Live free hostel' at Rishikesh for a one night stay. The pickup is usually early in the morning, so we fly to the place the previous day. Our trek dates were April 21 to April 28. I booked a cab from the Dehradun airport to Rishikesh hotel via the MakeMyTrip website.

After all the bookings were done, I had to go through the list of items needed for the trek. I had most of the things needed for the trek. But I needed to borrow/buy a few things for the kids like shoes etc. And then came the packing part - packing all our stuff in one big trek bag. I ended up taking one big trek bag and one small backpack that we checked in. Each one of us had our day backpacks that we carried with us. I am tempted to list down all the things that are needed for treks for easy reference, but will do that on a separate post.

Day 1

April 21st was a Sunday. We had breakfast at home and left for the airport around 10.30 am. After checking in our bags and finishing the security checks, we had a nice lunch at the airport. Soon it was time for us to board the flight. We flew from Bangalore to Dehradun on an afternoon flight and reached Dehradun at 5 pm. We took the pre-booked cab and reached Rishikesh around 6 pm.

We checked into the 'Live free' hotel. It was a decent hotel with clean rooms. My friend's son joined us at Rishikesh (as he was in Delhi). We spent some time at the hotel restaurant area where kids played table tennis and a few board games. After a while we walked to a nearby vegan restaurant where we had our dinner. We headed back to the hotel after dinner and slept.

Day 2

We woke up around 5 am, took a bath knowing we won't be having a bath for the next 6 days, had coffee and left around 7.30 am from the hotel by cab that was arranged by Indiahikes.

There were 2 tempo travelers and one bolero. We boarded the bolero car. Needless to say, it was one of the most scenic routes, as we drove along the Ganga river. We stopped for breakfast at a restaurant opposite the river for some yummy aloo parathas and tea.

We continued our journey and stopped at Devprayag. Devprayag is the place where the two rivers - Alaknanda and Bhagirathi merge and become Ganga river.

We continued and enjoyed the view of the river all along.

We stopped again after 2 hours at Rudraprayag. Rudraprayag is where the 2 rivers Alaknanda and Mandakini merge.

We stopped for lunch after a while and had rice/dhal/thali.

We started again and reached the base camp of Sari around 3 pm.

After a steep descent from the road to the base camp site, we reached our tents.

After all of us settled in the tents, we had popcorn and tea/bournvita outside. Kids got busy playing and after a while we met our trek leader who briefed us about a lot of things like the do's and don'ts, about washing our vessels, disposing waste, timings for everything for the next day etc. We submitted the required documents, got our oxygen levels checked and had a nice dinner. We had to pack/re-pack our bags based on what we wanted to leave behind at the cloak room or transfer to our offloading bags. We finished doing everything before we slept.

                                           

Day 3

I love waking up early even when I travel and especially when I trek. One reason being my love for early mornings, but the second reason is I get to use the loo when everyone is sleeping 😜 So I woke up around 5 am, finished all the morning chores, changed and packed. We had black tea at 6.30 am after getting our bp checked, ate yummy idlis and sambhar for breakfast at 7.30 am and we were ready to leave by 8.30 am. We had a few demo sessions regarding how to carry the bags and use of trek poles before we left. And of course a few warm-up exercises before starting our trek.

We started the steep ascent and continued our trek with a few quick breaks for water. This was the first day of the trek and was relatively an easy one with a short distance of around 4 km.

The first sight of Rhododendron flowers

The beautiful Deoriatal lake and the greenery surrounding the lake welcomed us. We sat near the lake for sometime and then continued to our campsite.

By the time we reached the tents it was around 1 pm. We had a nice lunch and relaxed. There was a viewpoint higher up at the top with benches. We could see a lot of snow-clad mountain ranges from here and it was a beautiful sight all around. Few of us spent the afternoon here, relaxing, chatting and taking pictures.

We had hot tea at 4 pm and started our walk to the Deoriatal lake. The view near the lake was breathtaking. We spent a lot of time here. It was interesting to hear the stories about the Pandavas and Yaksha Prashna to Yudhisthira - the story behind the Deoriatal lake. We had a slight drizzle before we headed back. We ended the evening with a parikrama walk around the lake.

We got back to the tents and relaxed for sometime while my older one got busy making Rhododendron juice.

After having dinner at the camp, we wound up and got ready to sleep.

Day 4

Woke up early to the sound of birds and saw many birds, one of them resembled a blue jay.

We got ready, had black tea at 6.30 am, breakfast at 7.30 am and left the place at 8.30 am sharp. It was supposed to be a long day, covering a distance of 9 km and hence we were given a packed lunch of chapatis and aloo sabzi. We started the trek and it was a steep ascent throughout the day except for the last stretch.

It was a lovely trail going inside the forest area seeing a lot of birds, listening to their calls and passing the beautiful red Rhododendron trees. After taking a few breaks in between, we stopped for lunch around 1.30 pm.

We started the ascent again and after around 30 minutes of a steep climb, we started the steep descent leading to the next place.

We reached the next campsite, Syalmi around 5 pm.

It was a beautiful place with the tents surrounded by mountains from all sides. We got treated to yummy pasta here (a real luxury!) and hot tea. We got 3 people tents here, after settling down we explored the beautiful area around us.

The first highlight of the evening was watching the gorgeous sunset 💛💛. The sky turned into so many colours during the evening, I could not take my eyes off.

                                          

Finally had to get back to the tent area for dinner around 7.30 pm. All the children were playing UnoJust before sleeping, we were treated to another beautiful experience of watching the amazing moon rise 💛 from behind the mountains. It was just wonderful.

Day 5

It was one sound night 😂 I could hear 2 birds singing continuously all night. It was so loud that in the middle of the night, I took out my phone and recorded the birds calling out.

Woke up around 5 am, and after brushing, I opened our tent door flap at the back that opened directly to the mountains. It was beautiful.

                                           

We had black tea at 6.30 am and an amazing breakfast of dosas and poha at 7.30 am.

We left Syalmi at 8.30 am. We had snacks packed for the trek. It was one of the best trails with amazing views. It was a very good trek and we climbed up, up and above. The path was inside the Rhododendron forest area with many streams. We crossed a beautiful river called Akash Kamini where we drank the fresh water from the river and filled our water bottles.

We had a quick snack break for eating the chapati rolls that we had packed in the morning.

Medicinal plant, used to treat fever

First sight of the pink Rhododendrons 😊

We reached the next place, Baniya kund around 2 - 2.30 pm. We had lunch and relaxed a bit. We had tea around 4 pm and a briefing about the next day's trek by our trek leader.

Later, we went uphill towards the small meadow where the children started playing cricket while the adults just enjoyed the 360 degree view of the mountains. We spent about one hour here and ended up watching the sunset.

Just born following the mother 💗

We had dinner around 7.30 pm and had to get ready for the next day (night), keeping our day bags ready, packing our big bags etc. as we had to vacate the tents before we left for our trek the next day. We finally slept around 9.30 - 10 pm.

Day 6

The day of the summit! That meant we had to leave in the middle of the night to reach the peak to see the sun rise. It was the kids’ first summit climb and they were super excited before sleeping. They had kept an alarm for 11.30 pm and we had to force them to sleep before that. We woke up at 11.30 pm, used the toilet and had ragi malt, dahlia and upma and got ready to leave after moving all our big bags to the dining tent as we had to leave our tents for the next group that was expected to arrive that afternoon.

We left sharp at 12.55 am. It was dark and cold. We were covered in tshirts/fleece/down jacket/caps/gloves and started the climb. We kept climbing with a looot of short breaks. It was tougher than expected and kids also had to push themselves. We kept drinking water and munching on trail mix that was given to us. After many hours, we passed Tunganath temple, though we didn't stop here. The trail became narrower from here and we tried walking in a line.

By then we could see the golden hue at the top and the first rays falling on the huge Chaukambha mountains.

And we made it to the top! Oh my, the feeling of trekking and reaching the summit was absolutely unexplainable! We did the trek and that's all there is to it. We soaked in that. The view was gorgeous all around. We sat there for more than an hour, looking all around at the vastness and the beautiful mountains. We took pictures, walked around and relaxed a bit. We reached the summit around 7 am and left around 8.20 am.

We slowly started our descent.

We stopped at the Tunganath temple for 5-10 minutes. The temple was closed (they close during winter and open in the month of May), but we could climb up the steps and see the temple from outside near the gate. It felt blissful just to be near the temple, overlooking the huge mountains. Tunganath is one of the panch kedar temples, the other 4 being, Kedarnath, Madhyamaheshwar, Rudranath and Kalpeshwar temples. It is also the highest Shiva temple in the world. 

We continued our journey down. As we neared Chopta, the pink colour just overtook the place. The whole forest area was covered with Rhododendron trees immersed in pink flowers! It was one of the most beautiful sights! The trees were overflowing with various shades of pink!

The pictures hardly do any justice to the gorgeousness and beauty of the flowers/trees/forest.

I felt very reluctant to move away from this area, but had to 😊. At Chopta, we stopped for juice. Few of us had Rhododendron juice which was very good 😋 and continued to trek down.

This trail was also covered with Rhodo trees and a lot of greenery. We finally reached Buniya kund at 1.30 pm. We spotted a few beautiful eagles flying and sitting on the tall trees closer to Baniya kund. It seemed like they were waiting to welcome us for finishing the trek 😛😀

Tadaaa, we finished the beautiful trek!

And like always the first thing I did as soon as I reached the camp was remove the shoes/socks and walk on the grass!

We had aam panna juice for welcome drink and were ready for lunch.

We had salad, lemon rice and dhal sitting outside. Soon we were packed and ready to leave Buniyakund to go back to the base camp. It was a short 45 minutes drive to Sari from Buniyakund and the kids slept during the journey. We left around 3.45 pm and reached Sari around 4.30 pm.

We put our bags in the tent, had tea and chowmein around 5.30 - 6 pm. We had to pack/repack everything and around 7 pm all of us in the group met and spoke about the experiences with the trek leader and guides.

We were a group of 25 people who trekked together along with the trek leader and two local guides and it was amazing to see a lovely bond amongst everyone. Each and everyone was so kind that it made the whole journey a memorable one. Our guides were so great with everyone and especially with the children. We bid goodbye to the group on the last day as we had planned to leave early the next morning to Rishikesh by cab.

                                            

Day 7

We woke up at 4.30 am and while getting ready we saw the whistling brush sitting on our tent, with a yellow beak and a loud beautiful call. After climbing up till the road we left Sari at 5.30 am by car to Rishikesh.

Bye Sari

We drove along the beautiful river called Akash kamini when we start from Sari, which becomes Mandakini, then later is called Bhagirathi and finally flows as the Ganga river.

We reached Rishikesh around noon where we met our friends. All of us - 4 adults and 5 children - stayed at an air bnb called Aarohan that had 4 bedrooms and overlooked the mountains and Ganga river from the terrace balcony.

The kids were over excited and also tired at the same time. After a nice hot bath, we were ready to step out to have lunch and explore Rishikesh. We walked down the road and that led us directly to the river banks.

We had lunch at a restaurant that had a nice view of Ganga on the banks called 'Chotiwala by the Ganges'. We ate north Indian food and came to the river banks. Children started playing in the water and sand. We adults put our legs in the water and after a while sat down on the sand. I was so sleepy and was wishing for tea, and a vendor passed by selling hot lemon tea 😁 We had sweet masala lemon tea sitting on the banks of Ganga.

I had never seen Ganga arathi and wanted to see the arathi this time. So we enquired and realized that there was an arathi happening right next to where we were sitting at 6.30 pm. So finally around 5.30 pm we forced ourselves to get up from the sand and went up towards the shops as we wanted to do a bit of galli (street) shopping. We quickly bought a few things for the kids, had roadside kulfi and came back to the steps where the Ganga arathi was supposed to happen. We sat and waited for the arathi to begin. In Rishikesh, Ganga arathi happens at many places, few known big ones are at the Triveni Ghat and Parmarth Niketan Ashram. We saw the Arathi below the 'Chotiwala by the Ganges' restaurant, closer to Ram Jhula. The Arathi started around 6.30 pm and went on till 7 pm. We got prasad and kumkum after that.

After the lovely arathi, we sat near Ganga eating yummy bhel puri.

By then children were exhausted, especially since they had trekked and were on the go the whole day. So we went back to our bnb place and ordered dinner. Children had planned a night out, but after dinner they crashed by 11 pm. Few of us sat on the terrace overlooking Ganga and chatted till around midnight. The weather was great to sit out till it got very windy and we came in and slept.

Kids tea party

Midnight moon rise

Day 8

It was Sunday morning, the last day of our adventure. I woke up around 5 am to the sound of birds and a bright sky. I saw that the children were awake and playing and munching on their midnight snacks 😋 I spent time watching the sun rise, Ganga flowing, lot of birds chirping and flying for almost an hour while sipping my coffee (coffee after a week!!) sitting on the terrace.

The 3 of us headed out for a walk around 7 am. One of our friends was not feeling well, and so she stayed with the kids at the bnb. It was a lovely walk along Ganga river, the air and water seemed so fresh in the early morning with very few people around.

We crossed the Ram Jhula and went to the other side of the Ganga river.

We had masala chai on the banks and continued our walk along the river with Ganga on one side and different ashrams on the other side throughout.

It was a beautiful walk! We came across a river side cafe where we stopped to pick up breakfast and had amazing coffee.

We also bought handmade hemp bags/pouches/caps from a local store before we reached the famous Laxman Jhula which was closed. Looked like they had closed the Jhula and were renovating.

Laxman Jhula

So we turned back and tried getting a boat ride to cross to the other side, but there was a long wait. So we took a cab till Ram Jhula and walked back to our bnb.

Immediately after having breakfast, the children changed to a dry fit kind of clothes and we walked back to the river, crossing the Ram Jhula to the other side.

We dipped in the Ganga river, spending more than one hour here in the water. This was one of my most memorable times spent in Rishikesh. It was lovely!

It was time to go back to our airbnb place. We took a bath, got ready and packed before having a quick lunch of rice and dhal. We left Rishikesh around 2.30 pm by cab and reached the airport around 3.30 pm. We boarded our 6 pm flight and got back home around 1 am.

Just like all our trips, this was an amazing one too.

And I can’t say it enough, each Himalayan trek is unique and special - doesn’t matter how high or low, long or short, easy or tough! I am so glad we were able to do this trek! Thank you!

Thanks to everyone who made this happen, thanks to everyone for the lovely company and thanks to everyone from Indiahikes for organizing the trek 🙂