Gang for Gangtok - I

This trip happened around a month back. Urged on by the boredom of the routine work and the rare occurrence of a Monday holiday, I made my plans to rush off to Gangtok. My desire was so keen that I was willing to travel even without a partner( not that partner, am still single :)) , but travel partner. Moreover, the season was not right for a visit to the hills as it was rainy season. But my argument was that holidays are so few and far between , couple that with a demanding work schedule and there go for a toss your chances for stealing a travel. So , I had to go and I did.

Lucky to say, I found company in new joined colleagues only at the 11th hour. But the poor urchins were not release by their master, in time to catch the 3 PM train to Siliguri. So, with a promise that the other 5 will join me later, I set out to the howrah station. After a horrible 45 minutes in the notorious wooden buses which crawl at the speed of an ant, I warily got down to hire a taxi which just dropped me in time.

I found the Bangalore-Guwahati train waiting on the platform but I just reached 2 minutes late to get the current ticket. Anyway, to cut a long story short I bought a
general ticket and boarded the otherwise empty train.

My co-passenger was traveling all the way from Bangalore to Guwahati and his ultimate destination was Silchar. That makes 3.5 days in a train and another 24 hours by bus. Well!!!! North East is fascinating but its excruciatingly far!!

As ever, no pics in early part of the travelogue :)

We see it live!

Day 3 was one of revelations! We were scheduled to return to delhi by the 3.30 bus. We woke up to a light drizzle seen through the large hotel room window. AB and CV had aggravated their "snow glare", Poor AB could only cry and not see. As we still wondered what to do with our plan of revisiting Kothi, our guide Kaku suggested that there was a great possibility of seeing falling snow on the heights. Who on earth would want to miss the opportunity!! Me , AS and NR set out as the rain lashed on our winterwear. As we climbed up the hill, it got increasingly clear that the mountains on the other side of the Beas had rounds of fresh snow, we waited with fingers crossed. Kaku reaffirmed that we were lucky to see a snowfall in the onset of summer. As we drove up, the cold water droplets gradually transformed themselves into snow flakes. Hands stretched out, eyes wide apart, dressed in fur overalls, it was almost a dream come true.

A magnificent Greentop house right up there in Kothi!

It was carnival time up the hill as tourists flocked to see the phenomena. "That's as much of it as you can have" propounded the wise Kaku. Reason, one might get lost in the beauty of falling snow on the heights only to soon realize that he has lost contact with the ground. This happens when the snow quickly covers the track rendering vehicular movement impossible. So , a 15 minute time window at Kothi was all that we had to enjoy the mother nature at its altruist best. The snaps would be part of this blog soon,

Here they are! as I promised!



but you have to be there to feel the magic. It is not convertible to speech! As we descended, we could see the towering hills all partially covered with clouds. and at times, could see the clouds from inside the clouds! That was some fun at 7000 Ft.

we decided to walk some distance on the return as we could not have enough of the paradise that we were in the for the 3 days. It was about 12 in the noon then, we quickly rushed to check out of the hotel. How dearly did AB and CV miss the fall, how lucky were we!!

on lunch we discovered and establish that Chandratal was the best restaurant in town. The future visitors to Manali may please record this in their permanent memories! We still had another 2 hours to observe the sceneries. This time we set out on the opposite side of Kothi, towards Nagar. The road that went all the way to Kullu was decked up on either side by Resorts. We saw the mustard plantations in the valley to the right! Many of the Yash Chopra romantic flicks could have been filmed here, I thought. After half and hour of joyride, we returned back to the Mall from where we went up to the bus stand to catch the bus.

The return to Delhi was one terror ride as the driver was hell bent on shaving a clean 2.5 hrs of the onward travel time. We kept having nightmares in full consciousness all throughout the descent from the hills. But thankfully, there was nothing untoward that could spoil the shear joy that we had for the 2.5 days. We woke up from the "DREAM" at ISBT at 5.05 am sharp.

My first trek!

After the round of skiing, we were quite tired; but the hope that we would manage a trek in the hills was well alive. Our ski guides suggested the 3 hour to-and-from climb to the Temple of Baba Prakashgiri of gurgaon( hey!! That sounds familiar) . The temple was on the snow clad hill that was just adjacent to the ski slope. Very few people dared to go there as the snow there could be as high as 5-6 feet above the ground. Even those who dared, did go on the ponies. But we were determined to make a day out of this one. We were told that the trek was well laid out by footmarks in snow. so we set out at around 3.00 PM with an aim to bow head to the baba, whatever happened.

Your truly was the fittest and as usual, wasted no time in getting ahead of the pack. We didn't have much in lunch so the idea of eating some snow was fun!! I kept nibbling at snow that I picked up from the pristine pathways :) Till the first 10 minutes CV was along with me, but then he fell behind as I dared to walk along the side of the track in 2 feet deep snow that often forayed into my gum boots leaving the tingling sensation that always kept on increasing. I was told by the returning devotees that the temple is way too far and it is unreachable on foot but I somehow trusted my ski guides more and went on. Snow on such high reaches is like a desert, all directions look the same and you dare not enter into uncharted territory or else you will sink into the "snow marsh" the ice cold river flowing beneath the white fur. I kept increasing my separation with the other 4 till the time I could see the red temple flags.

As I reached the home straight, the killing silence of the hills almost had me. The temple was a small dark room beneath a glacier and had two entrances - one a low door and the the resembled a cave. A shiver ran down my spine as I approached the cave - I could see a monstrous head from a distance. "Ho gaya bhaiya Ram Nam Satya" was my reaction as I recalled the hotelier's warning about encounters with wild bears. I could have some breath when the beast stepped up the cave, it was no more than a dog! But who says that dogs don't bite!! In the mass of snow all around , the beast could have torn me to pieces in shear absence of a saviour. So I held on until support arrived in the form of the remaining 4, AB came in first. the two of went inside, sat for 10 minutes , had the tasty "prasad" ( the incorrigible yogi inside me tried padmasana and dhyan there too ).

This view is atop the glacier, just at the side of the cave!


Descent was more dramatic. We soon split into two groups with me and CV leading the pack and AB, NR and AS following suit. and with a coincidence that could only be explained by the fact that all of us spent the prime years or our lives in the jungle called kgp, the idea of a snowman struck to us.

Here is our masterpiece :)




The group of three was more imaginative as they soon upgraded to a snow-woman!!! I only saw the image but their masterpiece looked no less than a "hoor" from heaven. Ours was a more staid snowman with arms made out of coke bottles and eyes of the bottle caps. The two creations were faithfully captured into the camera. By the time we came down, our feet were frozen in the boots and none of us had the wisdom of carrying an extra pair of socks anyway. So, getting out of boots and then socks was a great relief.towards the end, I and CV tried another adventure - free slide along the slope - at the end of that, I managed to carry a lump of snow inside my vest , ain't it skillful ??:P

when we returned, the first room of the hotel was soon buzzing with the idiot box. There was one great thing about the "dabba", every time it was put own, it blared a message " watching TV is the primary cause of stupidity" or something like that. How unique, how true and how contradictory :ha ha ha. Channel surfing upwards and downwards was rampant as we eased under the warmth of the soft quilts, a full two hour rest was desired four our hectic day.

Sliding soles in Solang!

The next day was hectic right from the start. We were set to leave hotel at 7.30 to avoid the rush at the fascinating Solang Valley. I had decided to rise the earliest. Did my bit , but there was a single loo for 5 people and I was thrashed for "procastinating" inside :P. Anyhow, we were all set by 8 and set out for Kothi, the last settlement on the road to Rohtang Pass( A trip to Manali, however great, is not complete without reaching the highest reachable pass in Asia, we realized) All along the route were shops renting out furry coats, gloves and gum boots, absolute necessity for the icy cold winds and snow of the heights. Kothi was as windy as an "aerial Tsunami" and was as freezing as a frost-free refrigerator.


The wind of could have blown NR except for his weight!!

But with passage of time, we got used to it. After our sumptuous breakfast with Dahi and parantha, we saw our first glimpse of snow and the people who ride on them, the skiers!!

We quickly descended to level ground and took the route to the Solang Valley, the queen of the "points" in Manali. Enroute to the destination, we came across the Army camp where The Anil Sharma thriller "Tehelka" was shot. Talking about movies, Hadimba temple also was the spot where the famous Kidnapping scene of Arvind Swamy in Roja was shot! The more informed of the readers, correct me if I am wrong!!

So we reached Solang valley with Kaku telling us stories about the local crops, languages and culture. "Bombay ke fashion aur Manali ke season ka koi bharosa nahin" will take some time to forget this quote and how true it was !!! We reached Solang Valley at around 9.30 and it was pretty deserted at that point of time. We bargained well again and got a "full" day deal for ski equipment and coaching by local boys for just 200 bucks per head. I and NR were all smiles at yet another bargaining triumph !!! We climbed up the narrow foottrack to the ski slope which was wet and laden with horse dung.

The view up there was amazing. Guys and gals, kids and the old, all dressed up in colourful dresses were busy honing their skiing skills. There were plenty of amateur options at the erstwhile venue of Indian winter sports: para-gliding, snow scooter riding, free slide , or for the totally risk averse, chat stalls abounded at the side. Unlike Kothi , at this place , there was no wind and the sun soon made us forget that we were in the snow.

we soon booted up and were taking the initial lessons in skiing. " Bend down on your knees , hold them firm but don't sit, keep the skis at your side and push them back. Lean forward always, that will help you keep balanced...blah blah.. So much for the word, but we only learn when we have had our share of falls. Our tutor took us to the height of around 25 meters up the slope. Then we skied down, one by one, I fell miserably on the half way point on my maiden descent. AS sailed along perfectly, not only did he do that once, he kept doing it all 4 hours. One of his perfect runs!!



How he managed to be so stable and slow, and he could also control his direction. How?? ,no one could including himself could figure out. AB was not too far behind, almost perfect, only falling down when he failed to stop.



I was okay, my performance kept undulating. NR and CV struggled big time. CV was the one who resigned most easily.. ha ha .. the sight of his falling..

in an hour or two, the place became too crowded for a free descent. There was one occasion when i rammed into a sardar kid from behind spoiling what was otherwise a perfect run. The crowd all around as burst out laughing. But with skiing, let me tell you, even falling is fun!! We rose further up the slope and this time it was around 50 odd meters and a different slope.AS was as perfect as ever. Then we had the camera rounds where everyone wanted to be clicked as the next giant slalom champ in the winter Olympics. I nearly had a perfect pic to boast of but CV messed up and clicked when I had finally fallen.



Until I had the perfect picture clicked, finally :)


So we kept climbing up the slopes and reducing our fall rates, when finally fatigue and boredom took the better of us.



We clicked some snaps and then set out to fill our hungry tummies. Litchi juice and chowmein was all that was available there, so no comments on the food..

The blazing sun made sure that I , and everyone else , wore that tan which my Mom always used to warn against when I used to go out to play cricket in the ground in Bhopal. But , I loved it this time, my Mom would pray that it goes of before PN's marriage.

We Land in Manali!

We reached Manali at around 11 AM, and were soon surrounded by locals for hotel booking. I had then taken charge as the primary bargainer for the group, with NR pitching in as the deal closer. So we checked out some hotels, finally settling for Summer Inn. A cool newly constructed hotel on the other side of the Beas. We sank in after the long journey and set out for lunch. Chandratal was our first hangout and I still do relish the taste of the Navrattan Pulaav!!! It turned out that it was THE best eating joint in the picturesque town :) AS , the incorrigible carnivore, picked out the most exotic non-veg dish, supported by the "not_so_characteristic_bong" AB. One reason why I did not have nervous dining moments on this trip was that veggies were in a majority , thanks CV and NR :))

We decided to do the local sight-seeing on foot. ( yo yo! We managed to save a crucial 400 bucks on that). Manali is a typical hill station, with a Mall road that spans the width of the town, which is barely 6 kms long. The Mall road here does not have the charms of the one at Shimla, I was sure about the fact. Manali does not have the magnificent British architecture, the Spic and span roads, the brands on display , the army majors and the giggling college/school girls of Shimla, but where it beats the erstwhile summer capital is its sheer abundant natural beauty.

Here is a glimpse of the same!


Snow clad mountains surround the town on three sides , and our luck, they were still snow clad when we reached there in march end. Deodars and Pine deck up the terrain and the slopes are still bereft of the ugly concrete construction, unlike Shimla. It was holi time in Manali, ppl were generally nice to tourists, except for a gulal case when the jacket of AB was rendered a liberal artist's masterpiece :)

Hadimba Temple, was our first halt. It was a 500 year old structure with beautiful wooden carvings. This depicts the unique architecture and facade of the Hadmiba Temple.



On the way, NR clicked me holding a furry rabbit :P,

jaip 030
Originally uploaded by Nikee.

I for a moment thought it was a baby Yak there , how foolish of me :P. By then we were having great ideas of packing a trek, a rafting expedition along with the skiing plans into our itinerary. so the quest began for "service providers". but we soon realized that the Beas was not bountiful enough for rafting and there were really no laid out treks for amateurs in Manali( unless you were adventurous enough to have a tete-a-tete with wild bears !!!!). So , till evening we were only skiing the next day.

In the afternoon, AS and NR( the dirty duo :P) pushed the case of bath in the Hot water Spring at Vasisth. We traveled about 5 kms on climbing terrain, only to realize that people were busy washing off holi colours in the sacred spring with soaps flowing thick and high, it was not only the curative sulphur...oomph.. all our fervour to take the purifying bath died down and we settled for mango juice, one each. The walking & climbing fitness ability was Me, CV, AB, AS and NR in that order. NR's insistence on taking an auto to hotel was met with little support. So that was our not so fruitful trek. This one we clicked after the disappointment with the Beas in the background :)



We booked the taxi with Kaku, who turned out to be an excellent choice, one of many such cases when our luck turned just the right way on the trip. Dinner ,after a lot of indecision, was at Sa-Ba, the poor cousin of Chandratal. AS was left again with no option , but to eat "anything arbitrary veg". The group liked the Pan-cakes he ordered though!!! We followed up with NR asking for time out to call his GF, an activity that he carried out with increasing frequency and our frustration increased in direct proportion of that:P. AS entered a Kashmiri Shawl shop, and soon we were giving good business to the guy. AS bought a pashmina shawl, so did AB and I bought a Koti for someone, who it was!!! Keep guessing !!!

Holi in Manali!!

Hi all, it has been a long time since I put up a post here.Almost 10 months since I posted my first blog, I am now rediscovering the appeal and might of blogging and this newly found "IT enabled" pastime creates waves around the netizens of the world. This blog of mine is about a much delayed and eagerly desired trip to Manali, a hill station in the Himalayas, Himachal Pradesh in India.

It all started with my PwC mate , AR ( a.k.a druglord) got fascinated by snaps of a friend's Auli visit. What is Auli?? It rhymes with Manali, the setting of the story, but it is a different hill station in a not so different state. Both, Uttaranchal and HP draw most of their revenue from tourism, trivia for the unaware [:D] I desperately wanted that trip to happen , as a means to get out of my drudgery at work and general loneliness. But the druglord suddenly found a paid vacation to Mauritius in his lap and there he goes!!

"abe chalte hain na, kab tak inki ghulami karte rahenge "??! Came the desperate cry from AS, my inseparable pal and fellow sufferer in the "package" deal meted out to him my IIML. Then came along , proud IIT prodigies CV and AB, and the last minute entrant was fellow thok NR! Despite last minute uncertainties where each of us almost pledged to revolt against our bosses, we manage to get the clearance for the trip.

came 24th and we reached Palika Palace on time, only to find that the bus, driver and the conductor were not as punctual. I as usual, carried the biggest of bags among all (phew! but managed to use every bit of it at the end of the trip). After a full hour delay, the bus finally moved. We were 5 , so one guy had to take up the single seat. It is always a high risk, high return business to take the single seat in the bus. AB took up the mantle and was aptly "rewarded" with a firang fem at his side :P Later in the night did we confirmed that he gave good "support" to the sleeping beauty on his side...

The bus had a long stop near DU where the rest of the passengers boarded. There was this very open couple of "the hunk" and "the babe" . Looking at them, yours truly laid out a sigh," wish I had spent my college days in Delhi, it could so easily have been me...:)"The bus set out of the crowded Delhi and was soon on the GT Karnal road. Then the 4 thoks were lost in the favourite pastime, prof bashing and the odd "manu" out AS always hoped for the conversation to take a turn.

Chandigarh never arrived as the driver took a detour which was a ride so bumpy that it sent out a noisy message "jaagte raho" , sleeping in a bus journey was never my cup of tea either. After a night filled with dozes, rises and spasms of neck pain, we woke up in the morning to find ourselves in biting cold, only then realizing that we had risen up to about 4000 Ft on the hills. That was near Mandi . Me and AS had a toast of paranthas :P , others slept peacefully.

Then came the wonderful sights of the climb along the Beas, one of the famous five rivers of Punjab. NR was the lone cameraman among us and he so dreaded the fact that we did not hire a taxi so that we could stop and capture the scenic beauty. We passed Mandi, Pandoh , sundarnagar, Kullu in that order. The circuitous road varied in height above the river level but always stuck along horizontally.
Here is a glimpse of the scene as we just left kullu!!



Himachal is throughout beautiful, with or without the snow, we realized. Kullu was draped with an air of mist and visibility was almost zero, a sure surprise when the summer was climbing in march end. And DS( have u read "Date with a Delhi Babe" ??) was sorely missed for local guidance :( I was the most "alert" of the lot, and was instrumental in making sure the AS did not miss the scenes.)