A flavour of the Orient
Rai & Stephie in Asia

With two horses, two new israeli friends, two tents, two guides we headed off on a 4 day trek from Aru village in the Kashmir valley.  Base camp was set up at 3300m between two rivers after a 4 hr walk across green meadows, nomad camps, clear water streams....what a life ! Weather was good until our tasty rice and dhal dinner arrived. Dark grey angry clouds came in quick and it rained rained rained....was it really such a good idea to set up camp between the two rivers ? We trusted our kashmiri hosts as we slept among thunder and lightning in a moist tent....

 Next day with light rain we headed for the 9hr return trip to the Kolakoi Glacier with our brand new flashy goretex jacket, trousers, thermals... Having photographed the glacier mostly covered by thick mist (not that interesting...) we headed back....unfortunately  one of our friends had a knee problem sooooo horses had to be fetched from base camp to rescue them...they got back to base at 9pm having encountered two hungry bears on route.....

Then the clouds got really angry and it rained non stop for hours and hours. Our planned excursion to see the Tarsa lakes next day had drowned in the rain. Not even the horses could cross the mighty river required to get to the lakes. By midday our campsite was also looking decidely dodgy soooo we had to make new plans....the river was tooo swollen to return to Aru village and our guide was cursing non stop..." what to do, what to do, fk this rain !!!"... Finally  we decided to walk to some mountain huts which were being built further down the valley. Some of the walls of the house were still missing so with plastic liners we improvised, made a fire and dried our bags, our clothes, ourselves...everything was wet wet wet...and we were cold cold cold....

Luckily by the end of the afternoon the sun which had been lost for what felt like an eternity came out. The high mountain peaks were now covered in snow......beautiful....the nomadic herders appeared from their tents and we celebrated with hot chai (tea) and some good picture taking moments....next day the river had calmed down and it was time to head back to Aru.

Flash floods were reported throughtout the kashmir valley while we were trekking....we certainly had some fun even if we missed out on the lakes !

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