The Historic trip of my life – Siachen

“WHEN YOU GO HOME TELL THEM OF US AND SAY, FOR YOUR TOMORROW, THEY GAVE THEIR TODAY”.


Landing in Leh by flight took my breath away. And I mean literally. The low oxygen content in the air hits you bad when you are a sea-level creature and you suddenly gain a height of 11500ft. and getting out of the airplane door did just that. The air was cold and crisp and no matter how hard you tried to suck it in, it wasn’t enough.
The first few hours of acclimatization was not too eventful as my body was still trying to figure out what was wrong and how to react. The only symptoms I could feel was the accelerated heart beat which was going up to 110bpm even for the simple task of drinking water. HAS set in later when I had headache, body ache and severe loss of appetite for the next 3 days. Hmm.. 3 days it took me to get acclimatized properly.

The first few days in Leh were heaven, leaving aside the acclimatisation period. The walk through the market, the local sight seeing trips, the beauty of the barren mountains and the snow capped peaks, the high passes, the traffic free roads with the hilarious and innovative road signs, the absolutely blue waters, the kind and cheery ladakhis with their pink cheeked children, the pleasant sight of the greens along the river, the chill, the army, the air force, the soldiers with pink cheeks, the big shaggy dogs, the monasteries, the lamas, it just stays with you.

We left for Siachen on the 6th day of my stay in Leh. Never have I been so excited. The entire journey I was hanging out the front seat window like some dog, who likes to taste the wind with its tongue out. I never stopped clicking, I couldn’t stop clicking. I wanted to take back each and every scene with me. I squealed like a kid at each and every thing that I had never seen before. The water leaking from a pipeline that had turned to ice, the cute and cuddly little marmots, the snow, the breathtaking scenery, the steep drops to one side of the road, the icicles emerging from the rocks, the cold air, the depleting oxygen as we went higher and finally Khardungla Top. My hair stood on ends as I finally came to a realisation that I was on the highest motorable pass in the world, come to think of it, it may have been because of the cold too.

Peeing is another task, the rate of recurrence of which highly increases in cold places. And when the road is as bumpy as it can get, holding it in really tests your bladder controlling skills. After we had attacked the souvenir shop, we looked like we wanted to open a shop of our own. We actually bought everything they had on offer. An hour on K-top and we set off again towards Thoise Air base which would be our stopover for the night.

5mins into the journey and we again had to wait for an hour, this time due to the breakdown of an army truck in a convoy in the middle of the narrow road. This is the 1st instance where I saw people of a totally different race, people who are extremely simple, helpful and kind, who don’t have a single selfish bone in their bodies, people who wave at complete strangers and wish them a safe journey, people who always have a smile on their face and people who are extremely thoughtful of others. Everyone who was stuck on that road had gathered around the broken down truck to offer whatever help they could, finally helping out in pushing it to one side of the road so that the others could pass. Me being from a fast city like Bombay, this is something you rarely get to see. Even though I love Mumbai as much as I do, yet the people of Leh have stayed with me.

2hrs with such low levels of oxygen had taken a toll of us. Severe headache being the 1st signs. Getting down from the other side, the landscapes change drastically from, snow, to barrens mountains, to sand dunes. Sand dunes in the Nubra valley are another spectacle. Bactrian camels on the sand with the snow capped peaks in the backdrop, paint a perfect picture of the cold desert. These camels are the descendants of the camels that originally traversed along the silk route between India and china. The mountains in this area looked like chocolate brownies covered with chocolate ice cream. And the tranquillity in this area was unsurpassable.
We arrived at Thoise Air base at around 5:30pm, which looked liked it has been built in the middle of nowhere. Siachen base camp is about 4hrs away from here which meant that we had to leave early morning at 6am to be able to spend a decent amount of time there. Sleep came easily due to the tiredness of the journey, the 1st uninterrupted sleep in days.

Next day morning we left for Siachen at 6am sharp, through the beautiful landscapes of the Nubra valley and reaching Base camp at 10:40am. It was nothing like I had imagined it to be. Everything was neat, clean and tidy. Everything was well planned, the roads, the bridges, the helipads and the officers’ mess. There were more people around than I had imagined. We watched the aircraft operations in pure awe, and met with all the pilots there. We were taken around a tour of the igloo huts which were a modification of the prefabricated huts. We sat in the conference room and were served hot steaming maggi and fruit juice. Later when I was looking at the maps curiously, one of the officers politely obliged to explain it to me. Having read “Heights of Madness” by Myra MacDonald, before coming to Siachen, everything on those maps seemed familiar. And it felt good that I could even identify few of the places.

When you think of a glacier, you can imagine only ice and that too white. What we were witnessing was the ending point of the glacier which was a mixture of ice, rocks and sediments. But before going to the glacier we first went to take the blessings of O.P. Baba. The O.P. Baba Sarva Dharma Sthal is situated right at the base of the glacier and every soldier and officer alike take his blessing before heading off to the glacier. O.P. Baba is believed to be the guardian spirit of the Siachen Glacier, protecting everyone who seeks his blessing, from coming to any harm. After darshan we walked up to the glacier and tried climbing the lose gravel and rocks. The rocks were sliding down due to the ice melting underneath it. We were finally on the Siachen glacier. It was a historic moment of our lives.

On walking a little more ahead we stood transfixed as we watched the birth of the Nubra River from the ice melting from the glacier. The water was muddy brown and so cold that as I dipped my feet into it, they went numb within seconds. We even built our own prayer stacks along the river bed. On returning back to the camp we were taken on a tour of the Air force living quarters, and their Ante room. We had lunch here and then went back to the helipad to bid goodbye to the officers.

The last place left to visit was the Siachen War Memorial. Our trip to Siachen wouldn’t have been complete without a trip to this place. This structure stands as an acknowledgement towards the bravery of all the soldiers who laid down their lives during the course of the 25yr long Siachen conflict. As you begin to climb the stairs, the gate justifies the lives of these soldiers by reading “HOW CAN A MAN DIE BETTER, THAN FACING FEARFUL ODDS FOR THE ASHES OF HIS FATHERS AND TEMPLE OF HIS GODS” As you move inside there is a modest monument of ‘AMAR JAWAN’ behind which is the memorial wall on which is etched the names of all the martyrs. Tears evidently well up in your eyes as you enter this place, as you read the names and the prayers. And it hits you most when you begin to leave, as written on the back side of the gates are the words “WHEN YOU GO HOME TELL THEM OF US AND SAY, FOR YOUR TOMORROW, THEY GAVE THEIR TODAY”.