Of Butterflies & Snowy Peaks

The orange and black butterfly brought back memories from my childhood, flying right above Gobind Sagar reservoir waters, visibly enjoying the new day that had just begun. We were on our way to Kasol, running very late, primarily due to the traffic jam in Delhi and partly due to a few slow moving members of the group. We had stopped for breakfast somewhere close to Bilaspur, with still a long way to go.

Our group captain set the tone for the day by playing some nice numbers on the Volvo’s music system once everyone was back onboard. We were passing through small towns and villages, with open fields on both sides; the mountains beckoning in the distance. The drive to Kasol/ Manali is one of my favourites, with the mighty Beas river flowing alongside.

At Alpine Guest House Cafe

We finally reached our hotel – HHH around lunch time, although we were very tempted to lie down on the soft and luxurious bed; we resisted. My friend, Sukhmani and I decided to head out to one of the many cafes in order to make the most of our free day. The next day, we were to trek up to Kheerganga, a perfect long weekend summer getaway. Alpine Guest House café was our first stop, it had a beautiful view of the snow clad mountains as well as the roaring Parvati river. A hot glass of coffee and paneer pizza provided us with the much needed energy. We went to a German bakery later to have those delicious chocolate balls. Later, we shared the leftover chocolate balls with a beautiful husky who sprang out of nowhere. He did not leave us with much of a choice.

Jim Morrison café, another well known café was unfortunately shut for renovation. We found another great café right behind our hotel called River side cafe. It was a nice, quiet find; by the river as the name suggests.  Their mint tea coupled with the sound of the flowing river was refreshing.

Fresh mint tea

For dinner, we went to an Israeli café on the main road, right opposite Alpine Café’s entrance. Although service was understandably slow, their hummus with lamb and freshly baked pita bread was worth the wait. 

Breathtaking view en route

The next morning, we made our way to Bershani in a taxi, our starting point for the Kheerganga trek. It was a beautiful 45 minute drive past Manikaran and a few other villages en route; the river Parvati flowing alongside as we steadily climbed towards the snow capped mountains. We bought walking sticks for our 14 kms long trek, at Rs. 20 apiece, got a group photograph and off we went. These walking sticks were a good decision, as we later realized. It helped us keep our balance at various rocky, marshy areas.

Our first stop, Nakthan village took us about an hour to reach, the way up here was fairly easy with a few steep areas in between. As we were carrying rucksacks and the sun was out in all its glory, we took frequent water and rest breaks. There were a fair number of trekkers, majority of them carrying day packs. As we kept walking and climbing higher ground, we were getting closer and closer to the snow clad mountain tops. Passing through apple orchards, streamlets and waterfalls along the way made for some amazing photographs and memories. We took a long-ish break at Rudranag which has a couple of dhabas and one of the larger waterfalls; many people took a dip in the icy cold waters there. I lay on the ground, resting my back and taking in the scenery.

Breathing in the deodars

The real trek started post Rudra Nag. It was a steep incline pretty much all the way from there. We were now surrounded by deodar forests, providing us with the much needed shade. As we kept trekking our way up, we could feel the strain in our lower backs. Sukhmani and I made several rest stops, sometimes just to take in the sound of the birds, the river flowing down below, to observe the butterflies flying past us or to simply breathe in the fresh mountain air.

         

Made it!

Campsites at Kheerganga

After a couple of hours, I was absolutely thrilled upon seeing the ‘Welcome to Kheerganga’ sign. After taking a victory picture with it, I dragged myself up the last steep stretch towards our campsite. We were lucky to get a roomy tent for two, the mixed vegetable and rice gave us the much needed energy. After a short nap, we made our way to the famous hot springs. One dip and I could feel the pain and tiredness in my body disappear. Definitely recommended after the arduous trek up!

Reflection of the setting sun

As the sun began to set, we watched it light up the snowy peaks with its warm, orange glow. Once back at our tent, we layered ourselves up with all the woolens we had as it was starting to get cold. It was night sky full of stars; I had not seen so many stars in a very long time. We lay down on the cold ground, star gazing, trying to spot different constellations.

Soon enough, the bon fire had been lit and we could hear everyone singing and dancing around it. As we joined in the merry making, it was a night full of stories, music and laughter under a blanket of stars, a perfect ending to a perfect day.

Time to awaken the writer in me

I've been meaning to update my blog since a while now. 

I started a new job earlier this year, the demands of which took over and my travel writing took a back seat. I also lost my 9 year old dog soon after my last blog post after which I didn't feel like writing. 

I have travelled a fair bit around India this year. Lots of weekend getaways and even an extended weekend getaway with my family for the first time in 15 years. Jaipur, Kasauli, Shimla, Mussoorie, Mumbai, Goa, Naldhera, Alwar, and most recently Kasol & a trek in Malana.

With the high pollution levels in Delhi, I was finding it hard to breath. In spite of buying oxygen inducing plants and wearing a mask outdoors, the city was beginning to stifle me. Fresh mountain air is what my body was craving. After asking for trek recommendations on a travel group on Facebook, I came across a travel community called Tripver. I like their website's UI & UX, they had great reviews and so I decided to book it. 

It was a 14 hour overnight Volvo journey from Delhi to Bhuntar, Kullu. Suprisingly, I managed to sleep quite comfortably during this time. We were woken up in Bhuntar, when we had to change buses as a Volvo cannot travel on the narrow road leading to Kasol. The seats on the local bus were freezing. I zipped up my jacket, put my hoodie on and sunk my hands into my pockets. The driver decided to wake us up by playing old bollywood songs at a really high volume. An hour later, we had reached our destination. Soon after getting off the bus, I took in a deep breath of crisp mountain air. With our rucksacks on our backs, we hiked down a mountain path, over a rickety wooden bridge, a few people at a time, over to the other side of the Beas. We then walked through the woods, passing a couple of cafes and homestays, to our hotel White House in Katalga, Kasol.

It was a quaint hotel with a huge garden full of flowers and vegetables growing on the side, overlooking the Beas. A breath of fresh air from my daily life in Gurgaon indeed. After lunch, we went for a long walk to Kasol and Chalal. Everyone stocked up on goodies, we did the same, buying old monk and chocolate balls from the German bakery. By the end of it, everyone had gone their own seperate way. As it was getting dark, we decided to make our way back with the help of torchlight. Many cars passed by, some with blaring music and buses swerving on the curves. We flashed the torch their way so that we wouldn't get run over. It was quite a long way back, 3 or 4 kms. Luckily, as soon as we reached the hill from where we were to begin our descent, we saw the others. We passed through the woods, over the rickety wooden bridge,  listening to the sound of the passing river.

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We sat around a bon fire later that night, one of the guys had a guitar. He took song requests, we all sang along and had a great time. Everyone struggled to get out of bed early the next morning. It was the day we had all signed up on this trip for - our trek to Malana, a remote village at a height of 8700 ft known for its hash around the world. We took a bus up to the trek's starting point. The bus journey was quite gruesome. As the villagers in Malana like to be cut off from the rest of the world, they have not let the government build a road there. As the road was very narrow, there were many times when you could not see the road below and it seemed like we were floating (with a few bumps here and there). I tried not to look down as all you could see was a sheer drop right into the Beas. The conductor was communicating with the driver through a whistle - two whistles indicated that there was room to manoeuvre and one meant he should stop. Every time there was a tough turn and the driver would reverse, the whistling began, making my heart sink with fear. An hour later, we reached the starting point for our trek. 

We found out later that ours was the only bus that had actually climbed up that hair raising route.

We were given instructions on how to behave in the village and not to touch anything as the villagers would otherwise create an issue and not let you leave till you paid a fine. We climbed 1200 plus steps to get to the top, stopping many times to catch our breath, realizing how unfit we all were. The locals seemed to climb up and down the mountain with ease. I found the village architecture to be quite unique.

There was what seemed to be a main square with wooden temples in it. There were wooden stilt houses all over the village, some of which had villagers sitting outside drying locally grown weed. A rare sight, I have to admit. They were carrying some of the freshly picked weed on their backs, we would get a strong whiff of it every time they passed us. We had cheese maggi, nutella pancakes and some tea to gather some energy for our way back.  

We had to walk an additional four kilometers to the bus as the driver refused to bring it back up all the way. Although the others were complaining, I was secretly glad as I didn't have the heart to sit through that hair raising journey again. Towards the end, the conductor who was waiting for us closer to the bus, suggested a short cut. It was a steep downhill trail, we had to sit on rocks, hold any vegetation we could get our hands on and make our way down carefully. That, according to me, was the highlight of the trek. While the others slowly made their way down, we waited by the riverside, watching the ripples in the water.

The next day we relaxed at our hotel, sitting by the riverside, eating and chatting; enjoying the peace and quiet of the mountains before returning back to the city madness.