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.

Trip to Palampur – Day 1 - Dharamshala

The trip began with we planning to meet at Madhuban Chowk at around 10 PM. Manas’s flight got delayed and he reached home after 9PM so he said he couldn’t reach before 11. Vikas had to leave his office by the 8 PM bus but he got stuck with his TL and missed the bus (Vikas had in fact not told his TL that he had to leave early and due to that he got delayed). I and Ashish were the only ones ready to reach on time. I and Vikas had planned to meet at ISBT and go together thereafter but being fed up with his 10 mins I decided to go alone. Manas said he wouldn’t reach before 11:30. Ashish said he would be reaching sooner so that I don’t have to wait alone. I reached at around 10:30 PM. Ashish joined soon. Manas came around 11:20 and finally Vikas reached around 11:30. I was the common point between the 4 of us so I introduced everyone to each other. We were going to a hill-station and Manas and Vikas had come without sweaters. Manas was in a T-shirt and a red lower which I began to call as ‘lal nikkar’. Finally we started our journey with Manas at driver’s seat, Vikas in front while me and Ashish at the back. Vikas was given the front seat as he knew the way and was our designated guide for the entire trip.

I and Vikas hadn’t had our dinner so I suggested we stop at Murthal for dinner. Everyone agreed to it but Manas seemed to have other ideas as he stopped somewhere before Murthal and we had our dinner there. We ordered parathas. The parathas were brought with a good amount of white butter on it. I don’t like the butter so I scrapped the butter as much as I could and gave it to Vikas who ate it happily. While ordering the next paratha I asked the guy not to put butter on my paratha. After finishing the dinner we started towards our destination (the initial destination was Palampur but now it had somehow changed to Dharamshala).

We were to go via Panipat, Chandigarh, Ropad, Una and Chamba. I slept soon after we had started after dinner and kept on alternating being falling asleep and waking up. Manas drove non-stop the entire night while Vikas gave him company.
It was pretty cold and Manas refused to close the window. I asked him numerous times to close it but he refused many a times before finally closing it; but opening it at every toll booth. So I was forced to take out my jacket to keep me warm. I gave the other sweater I had brought to Vikas.

We reached Una at around 6 AM. We had a cup of tea and proceeded further. We reached Dharamshala at around 10 AM. We were to look for a hotel to stay. As we entered the city we took a wrong turn and had to come back the whole narrow hilly road which was around 4-5 kms or more. We started looking for a decent hotel to stay in and reached hotel Pong View. We liked the room and we made the hotel guy put 2 extra beds in the room. We settled in there and did the morning chores. Then we ordered breakfast. I wanted it in the room while Vikas wanted to sit outside in the sun. We went with Vikas and sat outside and had our breakfast. Vikas called up Nitin – his college friend – who lived nearby. We finished our breakfast and started playing cards as we waited for Nitin. We were playing Seep Manas and Vikas were partners while I and Ashish were partners. The game was great fun. Manas & Vikas were leading when Nitin arrived. We postponed the game and got ready to visit some places.

Nitin took us to Macleodganj. There we went to Bhagsunath temple. I and Manas didn’t go inside as we hadn’t bathed while the others went in. Then we proceeded towards a waterfall which was an attraction there. First we went down where the water was flowing. We sat there for sometime enjoying the view and having the snacks and drinks we had brought with us. Then we went to the waterfall. It was a nice view where people were clicking snaps. We too clicked snaps. We were all hungry so we ordered magi. It was the worst magi I have had for a very long time. While other s managed to finish theirs I and Vikas left ours. Then we came down to Macleodganj. There we had some food (mine was lunch while others had some snacks :)) at an Italian restaurant.
Then we went to visit a mela. It was the first time I was visiting such a mela (I have been to Kumbh though). It was so crowded I can’t tell you; it felt like we were in the crowd of something like a house full in an India-Pakistan match. The others had the enthusiasm to take a ride (jhula) while I just stood there thinking of when we would leave. Finally we left the mela in sometime. Nitin had met his other friends and stayed back while the four of us came back.

We decided to have dinner before we went back to the hotel. We chose a place for dinner and ordered our drinks and then the main course. The restaurant looked good but the service was pathetic. It took them close to 2 hours to serve us our dinner that too after we threatened to leave. The food was good though but we had enough of that place. And in between we had an argument with regards to the next day’s plans. I wanted to finalise a tentative plan as to where we would put up in the night. I was in the mood of going to Palampur after we returned from trekking so that we could spend more time in Palampur (which was the place where I wanted to come) but considering that Manas would have to drive after doing the trekking I suggested we might stay in Macleodganj as well. Vikas wanted to stay atop in Triund at night; his plans were to have a drink at night and wake up early to enjoy the sunrise. Manas said he cannot finalize anything and that things would be decided on the spot. Ashish refrained from saying anything. Things were heating up slightly between Manas and me but it was usual between us :).
Finally we came back to our hotel. We decided to continue the card game we had left in the middle. Vikas protested as he wanted to sleep but we forced him to play. He seemed to be sleeping as we played. As we played we saw a wasp flying in the room. There was a tubelight outside; so we decided to open the door and close the light so that the wasp goes out. We managed to get rid of it. We resumed playing. Suddenly we saw that there were 3 wasps flying now and the light outside was switched off. One of the wasps came towards me and I jumped of the bed. As I leaped off the bed my foot got hit to the side of the bed. It pained a little but my focus was on the wasps. We thought of killing them but decided against it as we feared there might be more wasps. So we decided to cover up in blankets, close the lights and sleep as we had to go trekking the next morning. And we fell asleep.

Trip to Palampur - Summary

A couple of weeks back I went to Dharamshala, Macleodgunj and Palampur with Manas, Ashish and Vikas. Before I start saying anything I can't help but praise Manas for his non-stop driving (the total distance covered was well above 1000kms), Vikas for his trekking abilities (he easily trekked down in absolute darkness where I was uncomfortable even with torch) and Ashish for his immense patience (being with guys like me and Manas for 3 days without complaining).

One blog would be quite long - so I will break it and post them separately. This blog would summarise the entire trip and the subsequent ones will give details.

We started on Thursday night. We had decided to go by car and Manas would be driving. We met at around 11:30 PM and started our journey to Dharamshala. Vikas is from Himachal (Bilaspur to be precise) and he was our designated guide. Manas and I had gone out several times but this was my first time with Ashish and Vikas. So we set out on our journey.

Our route included Ambala, Chandigarh, Una, Ropad and Kangra. We stopped for dinner on the way and then drove non-stop to Una where we had a cup of tea and then continued. We reached Dharamshala around 10:30 AM and checked-in a hotel.

We had a little rest and breakfast. Then Vikas's friend Nitin arrived and he took us to Bhagsunath temple. We visited the temple and then went ahead to see a waterfall. We spent quite sometime there enjoying the view and having something to eat. Then we went to a mela. For the first time I had seen a mela and I guess it might be the last time - it was over crowded and the crowd wasn't to my liking. We came back to the hotel from the mela and went out for dinner. Had a good meal but the service was very slow. Came back to the room and rested.

Next morning we checked-out of the hotel and went to Macleodgunj. We parked the car there and strated our trek. We had some 4km to Dharamkot and then some 8 kms to Triund which was our destination. Soon after we started I and Manas took shortcut (read long cut) and got separated from Ashish and Vikas. I had a hard time trekking as I am not used to so much workout while others found it pretty easy. Despite the odds I did manage to reach the top within 4 hours. Manas did get impatient a lot for my being too slow and resting often but he still stayed with me. Finally as we reached the top it was worth the effort. We had our lunch there and stayed there for quite some time. Manas and Vikas went further up while I and Ashish stayed there. We didnot manage to get any accomodation there so we began our trek down just before sunset. By the time we reached midway it had become dark. Luckily I had brought a torch along and Manas's cell (Nokia 1100) had a torch which helped us climb down. When we finally reached Macleodgunj we didnot find a proper place to eat nor could we find a hotel to stay. We decided to go to Palampur which was some 35 kms away. Despite being tired Manas drove all the way to Palampur. There was an IIT exam there so all the hotels were booked and we almost decided to sleep in the car. But we tried our luck one last time and managed to find a room in a hotel. We checked-in at 12 midnight. We had bought juices on our way and that was our dinner. We woke up around 8 AM the next morning, had our breakfast and checked-out of the hotel. We began exploring Palampur. We went to Neugal Cafe and then spent some time in a tea garden. Then we started our journey back to Delhi after having stopped at Nitin's place. We had our lunch at around 5 PM and then drove continuously till we reached Chandigarh at around 11:30 PM. There we had dinner and reached Delhi early morning on Monday.

Three days full of fun (with some arguements/disagreements/fights) away from the routine life - it was a welcome break.

PS: The details of each day would follow soon.

A forgettable weekend

Arsenal lost the FA Cup semis to Chelsea.
KKR lost their IPL match badly. Ganguly was replaced as the captain of the team.
Lost the cricket matches on Saturday morning.
Had more than 1 program cancelled and eneded up spending the whole Sunday at home doing nothing.
Fedex lost yet again.
None of my friends called.
Had minor arguements at home.
Woke up early on both Saturday and Sunday - missed on a lot of sleep.
.............

As I sit in the office

It's 8:40 PM and I am sitting in the office waiting for my manager to finish his work so that we can leave. It has been a busy week this week with me not getting the full quota of weekend sleep that I am quite used to (This weekend I had a few commitments which made me wake up early and denying me the scope of sleeping late - which is my quota of weekend sleep). We had gone to an amusement park (Worlds of Wonder in Noida) yesterday; which was the venue of our team event and we had loads of fun there. But it was pretty tiring. Reached home late and got up today as usual to catch the bus (and I wanted to sleep). I had thought of leaving early but certain clients calls made sure that I couldn't leave early and now I am still at office (which means I will have less time for sleep).
Have to go out with friends tomorrow to Himachal - haven't done the packing yet; have to shave today as I don't shave on Thurdays; have to come to office tomorrow; and leave tomorrow night on some 12 hours drive. And I sit here writing this blog.

Tuesdays with Morrie

‘Tuesdays with Morrie’ by Mitch Albom.

I read this book a couple of months back. The book was given to me by a friend who insisted I would like this book. And I did like it after reading it.

The author happens to be a student of this professor named Morrie during his college days. Morrie was his favourite teacher. After college he lost touch with his favourite teacher and got busy with his life while Morrie continued in his own track. This happens to be the scenario with everyone – no matter who your favourite teacher is you tend to not keep contact with them once you move one in life; although you do remember them always.

Morrie is diagnosed by a disease which has no cure and he would die in sometime. The disease starts from the leg and moves upwards making the body parts dead as it passes through. Morries knows he is going to die but he still wants to enjoy all he can while he is alive. Morrie decides to meet all his friends and spend every moment enjoying the moments.
Mitch on the other hand is busy in his own world trying to achieve all the success, working at breakneck speed. One day he watches Morrie on TV being interviewed in a famous show and comes to know oh Morrie’s disease. The circumstances in his life gives Mitch a forced break from his work and he decides to visit Morrie. It is the meeting that starts a series of meetings and it is the conversations in these meetings that take the form of the book.

The book is beautifully written touching the fine points of life, stressing on the important things in life and the true meaning of life. A person who is dying is trying to live every moment while people who are alive are not living. It talks about how Morrie saw life and how precious life was. He never let his disease stop him from enjoying life. And the conversations changed the life of Mitch and many others.

The book talks about the world, death, regrets, fear of aging, forgiveness, love and much more. The book teaches some very good life lessons and I would suggest one should read the book once.

Traffic jam - is there a solution?

One of these days I was stuck in a traffic jam; the reason being a car was trying to jump the red light but ended up creating a chaos. I was getting frustrated seeing it and giving the driver my piece of mind (in my mind). It is then that I remembered a conversation I had with my dad some months back.

I had returned from a 2 week trip from US and seeing the driving here - in Delhi - I pointed out to him that if people would just follow the rules traffic would be smoother; especially on crossings the cars should wait untill they are sure they would get to the other side and not have to halt in between the road (this is what I had seen in the US). And I had proclaimed that if this starts happening here the traffic situation is going to improve. And I was pretty sure there wasn't anything dad could reply to counter my logic.
Dad's reply was - it's not the not following of traffic rules that creates the chaos but it is the no of vehicles on road that is the culprit. The no of vehicles on road are so high that whatever people do there is bound to be traffic congestion in peak hours if not at other times. River usually flows in its designated path but when there is heavy rain or snow melts the amount of water in the river increases; and when this increase is quite high it results in floods. No matter what arrangement is made the excess water will always lead to flood.