07/06/2016
It was 6:30 (IST) in the morning when my high pitch alarm woke me up. I couldn't recall when my eyelids closed the night before, the excitement to trek on lofty mountains was getting the best out of me and as far as I remember I was browsing through the virtual world when the sleep angel came and casted her spell on me.
The day was Saturday the 28th of May 2016 when almost every people of the town were engaged, villagers from all parts of Dima Hasao travel miles on rough roads with their produce hoping to net some decent output.
As usual I went through my chores, which took me round about 45 minutes packing all my requirements for the trek. I kissed my mum goodbye and called up Sambu to cross check the route we'll be using.
To our luck it was a cool breezy morning, we started from at 9:00 am descending a long flight of stone laid steps after which we crossed the old abandoned metre gauge railway track and reached a village called Robi part 3 (roughly consisted of around 35 families) which were mostly inhabited by the humble Nepalese.
With great respect we were cheerfully welcomed by the village headman who offered us tea & water. On telling him about our desire to trek up the mountains which lies beyond their village, he showed us the way that we should take and gave us the full info like names of the villages, several turns and points which we will have to cross in order to reach the peak point.
After descending some more steps from Robi part 3 we reached the infamous Robi Nala (a small river). According to the headman, we had to cross the bridge taking a right turn to continue the rest of our journey but looking at its dilapidated condition it was quite a spine-chilling experience for me to walk over it, I didn't realise when this simplest part of the journey shaped into the wildest and the hardest one. The bridge had two concrete archs at both ends which was all good and looked solid but what worried me was the rest of the bridge, it was a a hanging bridge suspended on a not so usual type of string as we normally see on such bridges which was still fine on one part but the bed of the bridge was very alarming as it was made out of twigs and branches of trees all coiled up with medium sized string and a hard metal sheet was pinned down to give it a smooth surface.
My curiosity made me bent down to have a closer look at it and saw that most of the branches were dry, fragile not fit to hold alot of weight. I could literally hear the creaks with each steps and to be frank I might had even tore up some of the tiny twigs as I Ninja'd my way across it (Insert Laughter)...
After our near collapse encounter on the bridge we moved up towards Boro Robi (Hindu Colony) this village is dominated by the Hrangkhol community which were divided into two colonies(Hindu & Christian). The word Hrangkhol has been derived from two words Hrang means Money and Khol means a Guard or an overseer . In the olden days people from this community were given the task to guard the treasure houses hence the name Hrangkhol - "People guarding the Treasure" .
After crossing Boro Robi we came to the point where we saw mother nature in all its beauty. We took our time to capture the landscapes on our DSLR's.
In no time a crazy idea popped into my mind i.e cooking the 2 minute maggi outdoor by stuffing it inside the bamboo funnels and without adding any water. The next step was to find a good location to cook and accordingly we found one, we settled down to unpack my knapsack and took out the packets of maggi and the veggies that I brought along. My partner brought me two well cut bamboo funnels and collected some dried twigs to lit the fire. After litting on the fire we had to wait for 30 minutes as this style of cooking has to be slow and steady. Meanwhile we took everything we could from mother nature and enjoyed our moments lying down on green grass bed with cool breeze blowing on our faces as the aroma of slow cooked maggi was slowly dominating the environment, it was indeed an enticing moment.
After finishing our business, we move towards Rautilla another Nepali village, on our way up we got confused as to which which path would lead us towards our destination, there were so many narrow paths all going in different directions covered with tall grass. In our midst of confusion we saw a hut on a small hillock not very far from the point we stood, we somehow made our way till there where we were greeted by a humble man of mid 40's, after hearing us patiently he offered us tea and some t**s bits.We bade him farewell and made our way down towards Boro Robi (Christian Colony) capturing nature on our cameras. It was late evening by the time we reach our base camp, we hurriedly took our newly bought Tent and pitched it perfectly, It was a perfect asset on a perfect location to camp up for the night.
Our main motive to go on a trek was to collect landscape pictures for our page but we had to deviate from our previous plan, our editor for pushed us to do a people's story on the villagers of that area. We interacted about their way of life, it was very touching to hear about their hardships which they had to face each day. None of these villages can be accessed by road, no medical facilities or primary health centres have been set up for these villages, they have to walk till even for a packet of salt. I barely had the strength to imagine the hardships a pregnant lady and sick people of these villages have to face for medical supplies. Although they cultivate ginger and other produces their main problem lies in transporting their goods till the market. Every eye potrayed hope, a hope that someday the Government or the administrators would better their prevailing situation by implementing a better infrastructure and a satisfactory life for them. Till then they have to wait and burn the lamp of & ..
