[jimnylife]

Hey folks, back again with an adventure filled travelogue! Gonna be a detailed one.
During the Diwali holidays we travelled to Harsil, Nelong and Gangotri.

Trip Prep:
Initially it was a solo trip I had planned since I didn’t want to spend 4 days of Diwali holidays at home Then my mother decided to tag along with me and now it was a duo trip and 1 day extended as well, so a 4N 5D trip.

Nelong Valley requires a permit from the Uttarkashi SDM office which sometimes takes 2/3 days in case of public holidays,etc. Since we did not have any buffer days, decided to get it done via an agent in whose hotel I stayed in Uttarkashi. Permit was ready before I reached Uttarkashi and collected it upon checkin.
Actual cost of the permit is 0. But since I went via agent, I was charged 500 per person which I felt was okay saving me the running around in government offices.
Documents needed: Aadhar card, DL, Car RC, Date of visit.

30th October, Day 1: Ghaziabad to Uttarkashi
Travel time: 8.5 hours

Started at 4am from home and took the first short break at Haridwar at 6:45am.

On the Delhi-Meerut Expy


Beautiful sunrise


Bio break at Haridwar


We climbed upwards bypassing Rishikesh and next stop was planned at Tehri Dam. Found a little off-road patch going down to the river, so why not take the car down there

Demonstrated the hill descent control in 4H to my mom while coming down.


The climb back to the highway


Reached Tehri Dam View Point at 9:30am. I had never seen a dam before so I was pretty amazed at the sheer scale of Tehri Dam.You can actually drive down the dam as you can see in the photos.





Breakfast on the highway with a view:


The roads to Uttarkashi is amazing barring a few landslide prone areas, and you can keep up 70-80 kph on those wide mountain roads. After that pretty much uneventful drive until Uttarkashi tunnel, where the police was diverting traffic and had to go into the narrow bylanes to reach our hotel. The compact size of the Jimny made sure it trickled through the narrowest of lanes. Reached our stay at Hotel Himalayan Inn around 12-30 pm right on the highway with parking available. Checked in, had lunch and rested for a few hours. Visited the Kedar Ghat and Kashi Vishwanath temple in the evening to see the Aarti. The Indian Oil pump near the Uttarkashi main market had run out of Petrol and I had only 2 bars of fuel remaining. I was told if there are no road blockages, we would get petrol the next morning at 7 am. Hoping for the best, retired for the night.

Diwali in Uttarkashi-


31st October, Day 2: Uttarkashi to Harsil Valley , Gangotri
Travel time: 2hr 20 mins

First job of the day was to get fuel. Went and refilled at 6-40 am. Departed from hotel at 7am.
After Uttarkashi, road became quite narrow and had to slow down to give way to oncoming vehicles. Road quality also deteriorated considerably. But this is where the Jimny shined. No need to slow down on potholes, undulations etc. just fly through everything that comes in the way. Beat the Google Maps time by 35 minutes even after so many photo stops. Reached our Homestay in Bagori village- Nelong Homestay. We had booked this for 2 nights.

It was pretty cold here in Harshil with temperature around 7 degrees.



Some views on the way to Harshil:




Window seat view


After checking in, next plan was to leave for Gartang Gali. Harshil to Gartang Gali entry point took 25 mins.
Entry fee- 150 INR per person.
Don’t carry use and throw plastic bottles as they aren’t allowed on the trail.
Carry sufficient water as the trail doesn’t have any water sources. The trail is a mix of ascent and descents and it took us 50 minutes each way for the 2km trek. The wooden bridge itself is 150 meters long. It’s amazing to even think how this must have been built back in the days. Doesn’t feel scary when you’re on the bridge but if you see it from the opposite side I.e the Nelong Valley road, you’ll be able to see the sheer scale of it.

Photos from the trail-

Entry point










Being goofy


The road to Nelong on the other side of the river


Road to Gangotri


The whole trek took around 2.5 hours. 50 mins to go, 55 mins to come back, and the rest of the time was spent relaxing on the wooden bridge.

Now plan was to reach Gangotri. Gartang Gali checkpoint to Gangotri takes around 15 mins. Reached Gangotri parked the car on the roadside and had a sumptuous lunch at a dhaba. We spent the afternoon and evening in the temple premises. Watched the Aarti. There are 2 Aartis- first on the Ghat at 5-30 pm and the next on the temple courtyard at 6-15pm. Divine atmosphere must say.
Gangotri gets very very cold and windy post sunset. Temperature was 1 degree.

Photos from Gangotri













By the time the second Aarti concluded, it was pitch dark. Had a hearty dinner at one of the dhabas and started back for Harsil. This was the only time where we had to use the heater on the whole trip. The journey of 40 minutes was exciting with not a single vehicle on the road and in pitch darkness. We did spot an animal with the very thick furry tail on the roadside, not sure if it was a wild cat or a snow leopard. We reached our Homestay safely and retired for the night. It was a long day.

Homestay decoration at night

[jimnylife]

1st November , Day 3: Harsil Valley to Nelong Valley

Today was the most exciting part of our trip. Woke up, had breakfast, did some shopping for woollens and apples. Left for Nelong at around 10am. The permit gets checked at a point called Bhaironghati, which is just few kms after the Gartang Gali checkpoint. Entry fee is 250 person and 300 per car. Ours was the third car to enter Nelong on that day. We had 2 cars from Gujarat before us.
The road condition is immaculate since this is a border route to china.

The view of Gartang Gali from this side of the river. Half of the bridge was in air supported only by the wooden planks.
Spot the wooden bridge


Close up shot


Stopped at multiple places for photos. One can guess from the remnants of the old road that this road used be something like the Kaza- Manali section or maybe even worse than that.

Road to Nelong Valley:















The view from the Army checkpoint in Nelong Valley. If you have Nelong Valley mentioned on your permit, you’ll be allowed till this point only. More on this later.







We had a long chat with the army guys there. This is where the adventure starts. So the army guys had to take some supplies uphill to their forward post for which they asked if I was willing to go. I said YES at the chance of exploring uncharted territory. They waited for the other tourists to leave and meanwhile they were securing permission for us to go to the forward post. Around an hour later, we were told that the seniors didn’t allow supplies to be carried in a civilian car and so we couldn’t go. At that moment, 2 other civilian cars arrived from Chandigarh and they had permission to go deeper in the valley until Jadung and Nilapani. Since we had waited for long, the army asked them if they were willing to take us with them to Jadung and Nilapani. They added our names in their permit and off we went, what an amazing stroke of luck I must say. We were now in a SCross followed by a Jeep Compass.

Jadung was one of the villages where the tribal people stayed, who were relocated after 1962 war to Harshil. The Homestay owners in Harshil and Bagori villages are the people from Jadung village originally. As we leave the army check post and go deeper into the valley, the terrain changes and mountains become barren, exactly Spiti like. The altitude is around 3900 m above MSL. The road is a mix of off-road, a few water crossings, but nothing too difficult. We had a chat with the Jawans posted there and they were very kind to offer us warm water and tea. We shared sweets with them and wished them good luck and moved onto Nilapani now. Photos from Jadung-













Proceeded to Nilapani, basically the river here is named Nilapani due to its bluish colour water. Nilapani is the last road head and it is 10 kms from the LAC. The path after nilapani is steep, full of huge stones.



Watch catching China time- +2.5 hours from IST










Spotted Ibex


Play of sunlight




We returned to the Nelong Valley checkpoint, thanked the Army personnel profusely for allowing us this lifetime experience of seeing unexplored territory. Picked up our Jimny from the checkpoint to proceeded back to Harshil. Had dinner in the Homestay itself and crashed for the night with amazing memories.

So here is the thing about Nelong Valley permit, if you wanna go further from the army checkpoint, mention the below names of places in your application to the SDM Uttarkashi - Nelong Valley, Naga, Jadhung, Nilapani. If you’re lucky, and the army allows, you would be able to visit these places.

2nd November , Day 4 Harsil Valley to Mussoorie
Travel Time - 6 hours

Today was supposed to be rest and relax day after the adventures we had the previous day. Left Harshil at 8am and reached Mussoorie at around 2pm. We had taken our accommodation just 800 meters before the Mall Road to escape the traffic and turns out it was a great decision. When we stepped out to visit Mall Road in the evening, there was a 3km jam for vehicles trying to enter the Mall Road. Mall Road was a 15 min walk from our hotel and coming back took less than 10 mins. The view of Dehradun from the hotel at night was beautiful.



3rd November , Day 5 Mussoorie to Ghaziabad
Travel time- 6.5 hours

Left Mussoorie at around 10am after the complimentary breakfast and reached Dehradun in 1 hour. We had planned to take the Chutmalpur-Deoband route while coming back. Turns out it was a bad decision.
While exiting Dehradun, where there is a forested area where the winding road goes downhill and where the ending point is Delhi-Dehradun expressway is, we got stuck in a huge jam at 11-30am. The cars were moving very very slowly. We got to know that some “honourable VIP” is coming so they have put up blockages which resulted in the jam. But Indians being Indians, somewhere the NEW’s leaked to locals that the VIP was coming using the under construction Del-Ddn expressway and it was open at the other end. Instantly we found a spot where we could leave the current old highway and climb onto the expressway. It was a tricky climb and a Polo and WagonR in front of us got stuck. We pushed the cars to clear the way for the cars behind. Put the Jimny into 4H and climbed up the steep dirt road with huge ruts without any trouble whatsoever. Now we were on the expressway on the wrong side, gunning it so that we reach the end before they close it again. Rightly so, midway we saw the VIP cavalcade passing us due to which the common man had to suffer so much trouble. Fortunately we were able to cross the expressway before they closed it again and we joined the main highway. God knows how many hours we would have spent in the jam if the kind local hadn’t told us about the expressway being open.

Got stuck in a huge jam again near Meerut and suffered a puncture as well as I had been driving on the Dirt to escape the traffic on the road. To end the otherwise wonderful trip, my windshield got hit with a stray stone and got chipped on the Delhi-Meerut expressway. Bad luck I would say, that too near the fag end of the trip.

Total distance covered was 1200 kms
Average fuel economy was 13.5 Kmpl overall.

Anyway, that’s the end of this travelogue. I hope you enjoy reading this and feel free to ask any queries.

Ciao

[Rudra Sen]

Mod note: Thread moved to Travelogues. Thanks for sharing.

[DasAuto1985]

It's a pity that you couldnt carry the supplies for the Army. Damn, you could have told the story to your grandkids on how you "carried out a mission" for the Indian Army.

[Eco_boost]

Had a wonderful time reading this! Brought back memories of my trip to Gangotri way back in 2013. We did it in my uncle’s Indigo diesel in the month of May. We had to switch off the Ac every-time we went through an uphill climb
But overall it was a good experience.