Youth Hostels Association organizes Himalayan winter trek expedition every year…and this year, I was lucky to be part of it and spend my new year in Himalayan mountains :) The trek though was a short one, was definitely fun…!! It was a 6 day programme with 3 days of trek. One of the bestest thing that happened was that I went all alone from here but came back making lots of friends….. :)
Reached Dalhousie on 28th Dec with lots of excitement. On the way happened to experience Volvo bus journey to the airport, chilly weather in Delhi, 3 wheel bicycle ride in Delhi & Pathankot and Dakota bus ride to Dalhousie from Pathankot… :)
Our batch (DW-10) consisted of interesting folks from all over India – from Blore, Maharashtra, Andra and Tamil Nadu….majority of them were from Blore. :)
The next day was orientation day; we were given a wakeup call at 5am and were taken to Subhash Chowk for morning exercise. Then were given an hour’s time to have our breakfast and get back to the ground for an acclimatization walk of about 4.5kms to Punch Pula and back, total of about 9kms on the orientation day itself….!!! Evening was our orientation about what to do, what not to do, how to be during the trek, bla bla….Stirct instructions and schedules…(kinda over discipline.. :):)) Hmmm, YHA food…!!! Hmmm, awesome healthy food…!! Night was cultural event where we kannadiga folks from Bangalore sang couple of kannada songs….Huhhhh, don’t ask us how it was....pathetic….!!!!
30th Dec, the D-day, that’s 1st day of our trek….We the enthusiastic DW10 wale got ready and were all set to start the trek. First day trek was to kalatop about 13kms…!! Kalatop is the same place where ‘1942 a love story’ was shot….Awesome place…!!! Nirmal sir was our camp leader at kalatop who made us dream about snow fall….We were not that fortunate to experience it L One sickest part for all of us was cleaning our plates, mugs and luck boxes in that chillllll weather and ice cold water…..
The night was fun with anthyakshari, dumb charades, etc but only till 9pm as we were forced to go to sleep at 9pm..… Lights off!!
Day 2: on 31st Dec bidding bye to our Nirmal Sir, we headed to Kajjiar (Switzerland of HP), trek of around 15kms. The toughest day! We had to go through thick jungle and pass many hills to reach the destination. Dhiraj Sir was all set to welcome us at Kajjiar camp site…!! The rollercoaster ride there was so much fun, we had to get into a huge balloon and then the balloon was rolled over manually….it was superb…!! By the 2nd day, we had already started getting bored of YHA food….same old jamoon, same old roti, same old curry….hmmm, anyways there was no other go but to have it. 31st night, we all had fun with loads of games and music. As we all were damn tired, we cut the cake at 12am, wished each other and slept early. Couldn’t stay awake for long. 12.30am – Lights off….!!!!!
1st Jan: 3rd and the last day of our trek was to Chamba – 12kms. It was also fun but tiring and we all were desperate to reach the final destination. There was our Deepak Sir, our camp leader from Mysore :) the funniest thing about him was asking everybody whether we are married or not…..if not married, then had to follow his instructions….:) As it was our last day, we were allowed to roam around the city for about 4 hours. As we all were exhausted, had no strength to walk to the town so took a taxi to visit some places there and did some shopping….At the last minute, we decided to have our dinner outside instead of having the same old boring YHA dinner. On return to the camp, we got proper scoldings from Deepak Sir for coming so late at 10pm, but he was really sweet….Last day u see, so chaltha hain ;)
The next day, we were sent a bus to get back to Dalhousie from Chamba…..the bus journey of about 3hours was so much fun; singing, dancing and enjoying the view outside the window…!! River Ravi was a major attraction….It’s just awesome….!! We reached YHA, Dalhousie at around 11am. The base camp leaders and the warden welcomed us and distributed us the trek completion certificates….After all we have trekked around 50kms in 4 days….isn’t it a great achievement??!! :)
It was time to say good bye to all of our batch mates after a short and sweet time spent together… :)
Few of us got together in a taxi and left to Pathankot. As usual Jammu mail was again late by 3hours. So, to kill the time, myself, sunil and ashu went to Rab ne banadi Jodi movie in a local theatre – balcony seat where in there were hardly 10 people :):) Managed to reach Delhi by 1pm (7hours delay in reaching the destination). We all were so damn hungry that we just rushed to Saravana Bhavan in Delhi to have yummy food…we hogged as if we had not seen food since many days….
Overall an excellent experience – of interesting and then boring food, training in washing vessels, 5am wakeup calls, 9pm lights off, the locales who start dancing wherever they are when the music is switched on, the place, the people, the beautiful sight, chilled weather, hmmmm what not….Everything was just tooooo gooood…..last but not the least DW10 wale!!! Got to meet up so many new friends – Ashu, sunil, Vamsi, sanju, Shravan, ramya, Abhi, harsha, vinay, Kiran, bala, DP, Jimmy, MJ, VJ, etc…Was such a wonderful experience.
YHA definitely does organize awesome programs….One should definitely enroll for atleast one of their programs…its fun…!!
Here are few of the pics….do have a look when you are absolutely free…:) http://picasaweb.google.com/mjai14/HimalayanWinterTrekExpeditionDec08
Chao, Jay :)
