July 19, 2016, 2010 hrs.

Am all bundled up, and have had five cups of the green herbal tea. It’s not the kind of tea that you might imagine. It’s made by boiling water, sugar and immersing those little pink flowers that we saw growing all over the hillside. It’s awesome – beats all other teas and coffee hands down (as far as I am concerned).

But what we all really need now is food. We have walked and climbed and climbed down a sum total of seven hours today.

So I went to the kitchen and got talking with Hari Singh. The smell of the maa ki daal with rajma cooking in the pressure cooker was driving me crazy. The rice was whistling away on another cooker. And then Hari Singh and his assistant started patting together the dough and proceeded to make hot rotis.

Dhaba-style, home-cooked food in Chandratal – just what we needed.

I have just had three heaped helpings of food, and am now going to go straight into the tent and under the blankets and zzzzzz.

Photo: Sanjay Mukherjee

Photo: Sanjay Mukherjee