Trip to Palampur – Day 2 & 3 - Triund & Palampur

Its been a long time since I wrote the last post. I got pretty busy and didn’t want to write on anything else till I finished this post :).

We woke up next morning everyone covered from head to toe in the blanket for the fear of the wasps. Ashish woke up the earliest followed by me and Manas. Vikas was the last to wake up. When he removed his blanket we found a wasp sleeping inside his blanket (they would have had good fun the whole night). We packed our bags, had our breakfast and got ready to go. We checked-out from the hotel and reached Macleodgunj. We decided to park the car there and start out trek. We would decide where and how to spend the night once we are back. We just took one bag which Vikas carried. We reached Dharamkot which was about 4 kms from Macleodgunj and the base for the trek to Triund.
The four of us started together. We had walked some distance before I wanted to rest for a while. We rested for sometime. Soon we started again. There was a normal path and then there were supposed short cuts (these were the steep climbs in the mountain ). I and Manas decided to take one such shortcut while Ashish and Vikas decided against it. It turned out to be a mistake on our part. We ended up going backwards rather than forward while Ashish and Vikas had moved ahead. We got separated – I and Manas the two relatively inexperienced people together while Vikas and Ashish the experienced people together. Having taken the so called shortcut I and Manas thought that we were way ahead of the others but soon we realized that we were in fact way behind. The network was also not clear and we couldn’t get in touch with the others. So we kept walking assuming the others would do the same and we would meet at the top.
After walking for sometime I realized that trekking is not my cup of tea but still I kept going. We managed to reach a place where there were a few shops. That seemed to be the last point till which one could drive as stationed there were a few cars and two wheelers. We moved ahead from there and soon met a few foreigners. There was a German among them with whom Manas began talking. He even clicked a photograph of me and Manas. Soon we moved ahead leaving them behind. And we got tired sooner so we decided to rest. The foreigners soon overtook us. We kept meeting each other quite a no of times in the route. We found a large rock and lied there for some time. We proceeded again and soon came across another set of shops. We had Litchi juice and biscuits there. Then Manas said we should cover the rest of the distance non-stop. I said ok. We resumed our trip ad were going at a good pace. But then I got tired and after that started moving with small breaks every few minutes. Manas started getting frustrated.
I said “I can walk this way only. You may go ahead if you wish to”.
Manas replied “If we had to trek alone why did we come in a group”
We had begun one of our usual fights until we both sat down. I was resting while Manas was eating a chocolate. Of course he did offer me but I didn’t want to eat anything till we reached the top. Manas though finished the chocolate. We were almost at the top – about 10-15 minutes were left. But we kept sitting there each wanting the other to start first. We spent some 20 mins there sitting and doing nothing. Finally Manas stood up started walking. (I had won the small battle but knew well that had Manas decided to go ahead alone it would have taken much longer for me to reach the top; and I never told this to Manas). So we reached the top finally.

It was a breathtaking view – the snow clad Himalayas seemed inches away, valley on all sides, everything looked small; everything around seemed as beautiful as anything I had seen only in movies. The climb was worth all the trouble. We had completed the around 9 km trek in about 4 hours (not bad for a novice I guess :)).
Vikas wanted to spend the night there but we hadn’t made any arrangement for that. There was a guest house but they said all bookings are done at Macleodgunj and he couldn’t do anything. But he asked us to wait till 5PM after which no one would be coming and so if any room was vacant we could get that. That was a risk which I and Ashish didn’t want to take as we wanted to get down before dark; while Vikas and Manas wanted the risk. But there was one thing for which we all agreed – food. We ordered daal chawal (Manas & Ashish), Bread Omlete and Maggi (I and Vikas) and tea. I really liked the tea especially the quantity – a full glass. Once done with the food we decided to go a little further to see some snow. We found some soon – my first experience with snow. Soon we started snow fight and it was fun. Vikas and Manas wanted to go further up while I and Ashish wanted to take some rest. So they went further up while we rested there. We had a great time recalling the good old days and old friends.
It was more than 2 hours since Manas and Vikas had gone and it would soon get dark. We decided to begin our trek down in 15 mins even the two of them didn’t return. As we decided to begin our climb down we saw the two of them coming down. They had no respect for time and took there time getting down clicking pictures all the way down. As soon as they reached us I said “We are going down” to which Manas replied “I thought you would have already left”. While Vikas said “Let me speak again to someone regarding staying there”. I and Ashish said firmly “We are going down; you do whatever you want”. And that was the start of our descent.
It was getting dark and so we were moving quickly. But we were late – by the time we reached halfway it was completely dark. There we found someone who was waiting for his group. He was alone and didn’t have a cell phone. We convinced him to come down with us and wait instead of waiting alone there in the dark. We were 5 now and it was totally dark. I had brought my torch along and that came in to help us. I and Ashish used it to climb down slowly while Manas’s phone had a torch; so he and the guy walked together. Vikas seemed like an owl and was walking alone leading the way with no light at all. That’s what is called being brought up in the mountains and he gets all my respect for that. We somehow managed to reach Dharamkot in the dark – Ashish got hurt twice on the way. It was another 4 kms to Macleodgunj and it meant further torture. We somehow managed to reach Macleodgunj.
But alas! The misery didn’t seem to end. There was no place available to stay and it was past 10 PM at night. We didn’t even get anything proper to eat (mainly because of me as I wanted good non-veg food but everything seemed over everywhere). We bought some chocolates and biscuit/namkeens from a store a couple of bottles of juice just in case we couldn’t anything else. We had to decide on our next steps. We could go back to Dharamshala but we didn’t want to. Another option was to go to Palampur but it was 30kms and only Manas knew how to drive. And he was hurt as well (in his and Vikas’s near death experience when they had gone high up at Triund). Manas being Manas decided to drive all the way to Palampur. We were going towards Palampur – driving in the hilly roads and complete darkness at a speed of 60+ kms/hr, all totally exhausted from the day’s trekking. And we were on a fun trip – well it looks fun now as I look back.
We reached Palampur at about 11:30 PM and we found the entire city sleeping. The hotels were all closed – some had even closed all there lights as if to indicate they don’t exist. The reason for this was that all hotels were completely occupied as the city was to host the IIT exam the next morning. We were loosing all hopes of finding a place to sleep. Everything suggested by Vikas’s friends were even coming to nothing. We almost ended up sleeping in our cars as we parked our car in the Bus Terminus. But we came to know about one more hotel which was our last hope and this time we weren’t disappointed. We got a room – finally. We ate whatever we had bought at the grocery store and that was our dinner. We played card for a couple of hours before we fell asleep.
We were finally in Palampur – the original destination of our trip. I was pretty happy at being there but it looked like just another city until we went visiting the city the next morning. We went to Neugal café – it was an exquisite place. I could spend the whole day there doing nothing. We spent some time there and decided to head back to Delhi. On the way we stopped at a tea garden and enjoyed the tea garden. I wanted to buy Kangra tea but didn’t manage to find a single shop selling it. We headed back to Delhi stopping on the way at Nitin’s house.

On our way back I told Manas to stop at a place where we could have great non-veg food. It was past 4 and we hadn’t had our lunch because we couldn’t find a decent restaurant. Manas stopped at a restaurant finally. Whatever I ordered wasn’t there and I got frustrated. Others also didn’t eat there as I couldn’t find anything of my liking. I shouted at Manas “What kind of place have you stopped. You know my tastes and still you can’t find a proper place”. Manas shouted back “Next time you tell me where to stop” We sat back in the car and he started driving back. Everything was quiet for quite some time – no one spoke anything. Then Manas stopped at a dhaba and said “Whosoever wants to eat eat here as we won’t be stopping after this” Everyone got down as everyone was hungry. We ate rice, roti with paneer, daal, rajma and curry. This is where everyone began speaking again and the atmosphere was back to normal. (For those who don’t know I and Manas have this regular habit of arguing but at the end of the day we are back to normal :P). We drove from there to Chandigarh stopping only for a cup of tea. We reached Chandigarh around 11 PM. We stopped there for a break and to eat our dinner.
There we went to Moti Mahal restaurant and we had wonderful food though a bit expensive. Manas had finally taken us to a wonderful restaurant something he couldn’t do in the afternoon :). We had a wonderful dinner and were the last ones to leave the restaurant. Then we had ice-cream on our way home. The three wonderful days of fun away from the routine life were over but the memories remain.