A Man of few Words: Valley of flowers & Hemkund Trek

Every trek is an adventure!

I've been trekking for quite some time and have covered around 14-15 treks so far mostly short to mid range distance.
People say trekking is to find your inner self or to get peace in their chaotic life or to meet new people, I say, being an introvert, I like to watch the serene mountains, feel the nature and walk in the natural trails, not much of a talker but like to observe everything going around- the hilly life, children walking miles for school etc.

Last August, I went to Valley of flowers and Hemkund trek with a couple of my female friends. Our itinerary was

Delhi to Govindghat to Ghangria (base camp)

Bus from Delhi to Haridwar and then from Haridwar to Govindghat, it took us around 16–17 hrs.
Govindghat is a beautiful place located on the way to Badrinath at the confluence of two rivers- Alaknanda and Lakshman Ganga. One can stay at the local hotels or find a shelter in Gurudwara Shri Govind ghat, a holy shrine to the followers of Sikhism. P.S. Do taste their ‘Halwa prashad’ it’s delicious.
From Govindghat, there’s 4 km jeep ride and 10 km of trek to Ghanghria- the base camp for Valley of flowers and Hemkund Sahib. Ghangria has no network connectivity though the locals have a landline BSNL phone which takes time to get you connected but that’s the best you can get.

Ghangria to Valley of flowers and back

The trek is quite easy with very less ascent. You’ll have to take a permit which costs around 200 bucks. It’s around 3–4 km to reach the valley from there and after that you see the real beauty- diverse range of flora blossoming, alluring you to come fall in love with the valley.
After the valley starts it’s as long as you want to trek, the end point is the glacier. The only rule to follow is you need to be back by 5 pm at the permit office.
The valley has a very narrow trail with flowers accompanying you all the way on both sides. There are many water streams in between with small wooden bridges over it to cross. We went till Pegge’s tomb, which is another 3–4 km in the valley.

Ghangria to Hemkund and back

The trek to Hemkund Sahib is very steep, not difficult since the trail is very well built with big stones. It’s a zig-zag trek of 6 km only going up.
One can hire horse on this trek if too tired.
This trek is also famous for one of the rarest and among the most beautiful flower- Brahmkamal

It was a perfect weather with rains, clouds and cool breezes yet not too cold to make you shiver.
As said, I'm a socially awkward creature, but during trekking I feel like getting freedom from being judged, so I like to do random crazy things without having to think it could be embarrassing.
The adventure started during the second leg of our trek i.e. Valley of flower trek, when everyone was following the trail, enjoying, clicking pics I saw a slightly risky location near the river and called my friends to enjoy and click some pics ourselves.

Seeing us, a girl(Stranger I) came and asked to click their picture as well and I did. We went with trekking and after some time the girl crossed path again and requested to have a pic with me.

I (was like): (are you sure) you want to take pic with me not of you. :P

She: Yeah with you since we're both wearing Pink rain top. ( In my defence it was red for me) and that too my friend had that extra for me.

Over the distance of 15-16km to and fro we crossed paths many times and my friends had this theory that she was flirting with me all the way. (I don't think the same). They teased me a lot next few days by calling me - ‘Pinky’.

The second adventure was when we realised we miscalculated the expenses and didn't have money to buy even food for 2nd day in Ghangria. Ghangria is a place with no ATM and very low network connectivity of BSNL only. Somehow, I managed to talk to a hotel manager to give us cash and he asked me to paytm the amount first. After 1 hour of trying, I got connected with a friend at home and had her paytm the money.

The third day we covered Hemkund trek, nothing much happened that day just plain old trekking day with serene view of valley filled with clouds all the way to Hemkund sahib gurudwara.
Next day, we planned to go to Badrinath, it was prompt and out of the itinerary plan. Basically, I insisted to go there since I had never been to any dham, and was very eager to visit one. The best adventure was yet to come.
We travelled to Badrinath next morning and met a girl(Stranger II) in our jeep. She was following the same itinerary as us with her friends but her friends gave up after Hemkund while she continued alone for badrinath. We 4 spent next couple of days together visiting Badrinath, Mana- the last village and returning back to Delhi, with time of our life (in summary)
The whole trip with next couple of days can be summarized as-

Trekked for 45+ kms longest for me till now.
Met Pinky from Gurgaon who according to my friends was all over me ( I didn't buy a cent of it). Never got in touch with her after that.
Met X from Noida,

We didn't have any transport to return back from Badrinath
We hitch-hiked
We walked carelessly on the roads of UK
We asked lift from random truck wallas
We asked lift from anyone and everyone in Chamoli like crazies just because we were enjoying.
We helped open landslide at 5am in the morning with other passengers in our bus.
I took my friends to my college city (Roorkee) and we had the best faluda (they told me this)

The words are not doing justice with the fun we had in those two days as I am but a mere
Man of few words,
Sahil

Few clicks from the trek:
Valley