The abundant mountainous beauty of Himachal Pradesh has always enchanted me. It was no wonder when I decided to go back there for the third time in the past two years. We were a small group consisting of Varun, Gowri, Sneha, Archana and myself, decided to put all our work aside for two peaceful weeks and head for the mountains away from hustle of city-life and enjoy an overdose of fresh air. We chanced to come across Kaushal, a trek organizer of above14000ft and a few phone calls later we were all set to go. We chose to go to the Lug Valley in Kullu district. This was going to be a low altitude trek, reaching a peak altitude of 3000M. Since we chose to go during the last week of November, at the onset of winter, we chose this route because it had minimum chances of snowfall. The route was mostly going to be a walk along the mountain ridge which would offer us spectacular views of the deep valleys.

We reached Delhi on November 19th, from where we were to catch our Volvo bus to Manali. As we waited for our bus to arrive, Archana was excited by all the pot-smoking, pony-tailed hippies, also waiting for the bus and tried to flirt with them, who hardly batted an eyelid at her. By the time the bus arrived, we were beginning to shiver in the cold Delhi-night. At midnight, the bus halted at a hi-fi looking restaurant. Being on a tight budget, since organizing our trek had already cost us a bomb, we decided to ditch the restaurant and head for the shady looking punjabi dhaba nearby where we had our stomach’s fill of parantha and dahi, with truck drivers for company. The next morning, we were greeted by the beautiful sight of snow-capped mountains all around and our bus going through the narrow winding road. We could see deep valley on one side with Beas river flowing deep down in the valley.

First sight of snow

We arrived at Manali to be greeted by a horde of taxi drivers wanting to take us on ‘sight-seeing’. After successfully evading all of them, we drank piping hot tea, which was perfect to get some heat into our bodies, we checked-in to a cozy-looking lodge. We spent the day roaming around Manali, shopping for woolen stuff, eating tasty junk food, visiting Hidimbadevi Temple, hiking up to Kaushal’s home (which is a couple of kilometers from Manali) and clicking a lot of pictures. At Kaushal’s home we were greeted enthusiastically by Maggi (a Bhutia dog) and Bikki (a cross between a fox and a dog). Later we came to know that the reason we got such an excited welcome was because both the dogs were in ‘heat’ The view from Kaushal’s balcony was amazing. Imagine waking up to such a scene everyday! We settled down in his warm room with another round of chai and listened to his stories of past treks. Finally, after making plans for the next day, the first day of our trek, we headed back to the lodge.

View from Kaushal's Balcomy

We got dropped off at Telang near Kullu the next morning. This was the starting point of our trek. We were introduced to Rinku-ji (who would later turn out to be an amazing cook and spoil us all with his culinary skills), Happy-ji, Ratan, and a couple of other helpers who would be accompanying us for the trek and the half-dozen mules which would be carrying all our camping equipment, stoves, backpacks etc. The first day’s destination was a place called Dak Bungalow, which was a short 5km trek from the starting point. We camped on the slopes for the evening. We enjoyed a nice camp fire since it was a chilly night, ate an amazing 3-course meal (which would be a norm during the entire trek!) and retired into our respective tents and sleeping bags early.

Day one campsite - Dak Bungalow

Looking down into the valley of Jhingbhan

The next day, we continued trekking along the same hill to reach the top of this hill in about 3 hours. This was going to be the topmost point in our trek, where we saw what little remained from the previous year’s snowfall. The view on the other side of the peak was breathtaking. After enjoying this scenery for a long time, we started to descend on the other side to reach Jhingbhan, which was going to be our camping site on day two. Night comes early in the mountains, it was pitch dark by 6PM. Post dinner, after warming our hands and backsides by the campfire for a while, all of us laid siege to the girls’ tent where we sat listening to entertaining stories by Varun, which had us in splits the whole time and apparently the girls were screeching so loudly that the next day Rinku-ji complained to us that he could hardly sleep with all that racket.

The next few days of the trek took us through Dentbhial (day three), Mulling (day four), Barot (day five). The campsite at Dentbhial was probably the most scenic, add to the fact that we reached here after a tough 70degree-inclined climb most part of the way. Dentbhial comes very close to the imagination of Switzerland that I have in my mind. At Mulling campsite we could see a small settlement a little distance from our camp. We hiked up to this place in the evening to talk to the locals. People here were shy at first but opened up later and talked to us for a long time. Although it was hard for us to catch their Pahadi-Hindi, Sneha and Archana did a good job ‘interviewing’ them.

The route from Barot through Mute (not sure about the spelling!) and Rulling was very very beautiful. We came across small settlements and it was interesting to interact with local people on our way. One particular old man, who was eating his lunch offered ‘Rotti khaiylo’ in a very sweet way, which really touched us. We kept recalling this moment throughout the trip. That night we camped at a place between Rulling and Rajgunda deep inside a valley.

A village school enroute Rulling

We were in anticipation of the next day for a long time. It had finally arrived. We would be trekking to Billing, where we would be trying our hands at tandem Paragliding. The route to Billing was again, extremely beautiful, walking all along the mountain ridge to reach there. When we reached there, we were introduced to our respective pilots who would be flying with us. We would be jumping off at Billing and landing at Bir. It was an exhilarating experience, jumping off with nothing but a parachute was enough to give me an adrenaline rush. We landed at Bir, shaky but all in one piece.

Billing - Paragliding take off site

Off we go!

Our trek officially ended at Bir. We bid goodbyes to Kaushal, Rinku-ji and others. We spent the day roaming around the lazy town of Bir. We still had a couple of days to spare before returning to Delhi. So the next day, we decided to visit a small remote village close-by. After a lot of inquiring and browsing-the-net, we decided to go to this village called Thathi, which required a hard one hour trek up into the mountains. We realized that our legs were not obeying our orders loyally anymore. This village was a really interesting experience. We first chatted up with an old lady in her eighties who told us stories about her sons, grandsons and great-grandsons! Then we roamed about the village and observed all the ladies preparing for a festival of some kind. When we decided to leave, a big bunch of kids followed us. When we asked them to sing songs for us, though shy at first, they entertained us for a good half hour with their songs and then performed some kind of a dance which lasted more than half an hour!

The cozy village Thathi

Eighty year old lady complaining that her grandson doesn't work in the fields but goes to the city instead!

Shy kids

We came back to Bir for the night and travelled to Dharamsala next day from where we would be boarding our bus to Delhi. The girls had a field day at McLeodganj shopping for ‘precious stones’. We killed a day in Delhi with some more shopping and then watching a movie. Finally back to Bangalore with the heavy feeling that comes along with the end of vacation every time. I had a great trip with an entertaining bunch of people. Cheers!