Travelogues

Could not complete the review in one go...breaking it into two parts...please read both

I woke up took a bath and then saw other people waking up. We all were excited. Our foot prints would be followed by the next 30 groups. Ok, now we were asked to assemble all together so that we could be briefed up for the coming days. Our group leader was trying hard to get us assembled. Meanwhile our group leader, nagaraj and I were deciding that we should shout some slogans and make our departure look “grand”. Dhoni suggested “jala bala jala bala bhoonka laka” which he would say and “hoo ha hoo ha” which we have to say. Also “pass pass Sar Pass” was suggested. These funny slogans became our “punch lines”. We all assembled and the environmental leader was decided. Well we were all briefed up and were ready to go. We had already taken our breakfast and packed lunch. We started walking. A strange coincidence happened with our group. When we started there happened to be a group of some devotees passing by. They were heading towards Manikaran with all pomp and show. They had all their band-baaja which they started playing when we started shouting jala bala…it seemed like we were given a grand treatment at our departure.

Since our base camp was a bit lower that the surface like in a “building like basement” we moved up to catch the bus. We were supposed to go to Shila village by bus and then we had to carry on with our trekking from there. The bus was at 09.00 am. Since it was already half filled we had to either get stuffed in the bus or sit at the roof top. Half of the group sat in the bus and half sat on the bus. I don’t know about the experience about the people sitting in the bus but I very well know how the people sitting at the top must have felt as I experienced it on my own. Firstly we had to literally stuff ourselves even on the roof top. But it was fun. It was as adventurous as any adventure sport. But with any adventure risk of live is always invited. Therefore we had to face the risk of “kissing” a tree, high tension wires, rocks which could bang into our head risk of falling into the valley……but still it was a different experience all together. I decided to entertain the people sitting at the top as it was getting boring. So I started shouting “wire wire electric wire” to warn the people of the danger, “tree tree” again for that same thing. “People people” for fun…there was nothing to warn about.

Finally we reached Shilla Village. We unloaded our luggage and purchases “lathths”(sticks). These lathths turned out to be very helpful. We had to descend from Shila village. This declination was not a problem until we were walking upon a flat surface. I was sure that we will have to climb a steep inclinatioin after this. Finally this ascending started and who so ever was in a group was no more a part of the group because different people were moving with different pace. The sight was beautiful. It was lush green and a person living in a metropolitan could never even think that there would be a way to climb the mountain passing through this valley. The path was tiring enough to make even the fittest person feel tired.We reached at a hault with a “canteen”. I wonder what sort of a canteen was that. I was just a tent where the locals were earning money by selling Maggie, lemon tea, lemonade etc. I was feeling dam sleepy and I decided to take some rest. I took a nap for a while. But it was hard for me to sleep in that noise. So I went outside to enjoy the nature’s beauty. The sight was awesome. The whole area was covered with wheat crop. Go a bit further and you would find a thin zig zag line, the road which we came from. It almost appeared as a snake in the hills. Well a little later we came to know that the canteen was our lunch point. So we took our lunch there. Now it was time to start. Some of the members asked the locals to carry their luggage to the higher camp as it was getting difficult for them to walk with their luggage. So we started for Guna Paani ones again. We crossed mountains and valleys without even knowing. We only came to know about the crossed valleys and mountains after crossing it. It was again a very tiring journey. But we finally reached the first higher camp- Gunna Paani. The cam was based at a beautiful location. Our tent was very good. On one side of the camp there were hills and on the other side, there were apple orchids. We reached at the camp at around 3.00 in the afternoon. There we were served with our welcome drink, Rasna. Then we were briefed up about the time for soup, evening tea, time for taking blankets, time for dinner, time for sleeping. It was quite a funny thing that