Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ances countered 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune'. And so I explained
to Alex and the rest of the team that in three days we had an appointment at the
very top, at the office of the prime minister.
So it was that early one morning Terry and I found ourselves outside Morarji De-
sai's residence, entering the office at the gates to the quiet grounds. The reception-
ist asked us to sit down, and so we sat, anticipating the usual long wait. But after
just a few minutes, a tall, distinguished man wearing a smart collarless white suit
appeared. He was the prime minister's personal secretary.
'Good morning, gentlemen. No need for any amateur dramatics from you today,
Mr King. We have accepted that you will be better off doing what you came here to
do than making any further trouble. Your expeditions will be the last in the Nanda
Devi Sanctuary for the foreseeable future. You can tell that to your magazines
when you get home.'
We made sincere and somewhat sheepish expressions of gratitude, knowing our
act had been seen through. We walked out with our newly stamped permits for our
respective routes. The cool mountain air was only days away and we headed back
to our teams with news of our release. Later that afternoon, a slim Indian captain
in his mid twenties strode into our campsite at the northern end of Delhi and in-
troduced himself.
'Hello gentlemen, I am K. T. Gadgria, your liaison officer for the expedition. K. T.
turned out to be one of the best LOs any of us ever had the pleasure of meeting and
an integral part of our success. That evening, he took Krzysztof and me to see the
Diwali celebrations in Old Delhi. Next morning, he and I returned for the last time
to the IMF to file our final plans. I said goodbye to the long-suffering Mr Ram and
gave him a small gift of English chocolate. 'Dhanyabhad. I am glad you are going to
your mountain.
Thik, thik.
' I think he was pleased by the unlikely outcome and this
final courtesy.
We caught the overnight train to the holy city of Haridwar, where the Ganges
meets the plains. In the morning Alex, Krzysztof and I hired a taxi to go straight on
to Joshimath in the foothills of the Himalaya. We would go ahead to buy food and
fuel and organise porters. Voytek and Doc would come later with the bulk of the
equipment in a truck.
By now, money was tight, but the wasted days in Delhi weren't critical. None of us
had any particular date to get home, and we soon discovered the lingering mon-
soon was creating havoc with the mountain roads. Our taxi team managed to get
within seventy kilometres of Joshimath before a landslide 400 metres wide
