A visit to Mcleodganj and Dharamshala - Day One

Last month during Holi holidays , my friend and I visited these 2 awesome places. We took a bus from Delhi to Mcleodganj which was before time and there we were at 5.45am in the darkness.

Add to it, the trip was unplanned hence we didn't book any hotels. Silly decision as we will come to know. So we went to Dharamshala by a cab and hence started a hunt for hotels.Needless to say, every good hotel was booked. We did find a decent enough place and decided to stay there.We got freshened up and were all excited to go for the Mt Triund Trek.

It started from a temple nearby Dharamshala where we started to climb. The path was well made,rocky and a bit steep. It was actually a pretty easy climb. This below was our goal  :




I was overwhelmed by the beauty of this from the distance.This picture is from a huge distance. My Nikon P-600 with 60x (paparazzi) zoom helps me take such beauties. Climbing uphill was really fun as the view was really beautiful with lush green trees and a valley.

My friend and I stopped a lot of times in between not because we were tired, but because of the photo-loving souls that we were.The climb was interesting as there were many people we met on the way. We saw many foreigners too on the way, and on talking with them, came to know about their love of trekking and how they had left their home country and were now residing in Delhi.The climb was going on fine till we saw snow. That really made us go crazy. With all the playing in ice, clicking pictures with it, to eating it,and then realizing it was not so edible. I have a weird thing with ice/snow, I eat it whenever I see some. I know,weird me! This is us hanging out and getting our butts wet in the ice :

Right after this image, I ate some snow and realized it was funny tasting!

Walking in ice was fun but also slippery. Wearing Nike shoes didn't help the cause. Well, I was far better off than my friend here who spent more time on the ground slipping than walking. Okay sorry, that was extreme Nancy. Soon enough,we encountered a cafe up there where apparently all the fun was happening. There were too many people sitting there enjoying the view,sipping hot chai and eating spicy maggie playing music on their portable speakers. We decided to join the fun.

This was a good spicy upgrade from the muddy snow, I would say. But I still was carving for more snow , aaah!

Going ahead,we saw people coming back in the way. We were halfway to our goal which was the top of Triund and it was pretty surprising to us why people were coming back. We were about to find out.
As we went ahead we saw an entire peak covered of snow,where no rocks or land is visible, just plain old white snow all around. It all looked very exciting and I couldn't wait to eat some snow over there.
My friends and I went along the path. I was standing ahead in a queue of people supporting myself through the huge rock besides, when my friends slipped and fell on her face. While I laughed monstrously, I also helped her up and made sure she was okay. So, we saw the problem, the snow was pretty slippery and her shoes weren't cut out to take the snow. Mine were just a bit better in that account. So, I decided to go ahead and climb the hill which I managed by slipping multiple times,walking like a monkey, digging my hands in the snow, climbing like a spiderman even. I just reached a bit far when I realized it really wasn't possible to go ahead to the top with my shoes. My friend was supposed to stay put at her place,but being the daredevil that she is , she followed me. And of course, again fell on her face, no butt , this time. But this time, it wasn't funny as , if I hadn't caught her hand in a heroic way (yes, really!) she would have slipped down the snow and hit a rock. Wow, I felt like such a hero.
My hands were literally burning with all the snow they had encountered and now that I realize,I forgot to taste the snow up there (damn!) I took some selfies of the place and we started our journey back.

This was the view from the highest point I climbed!

Stay tuned for the second part of the trip.Here are some fun photos from the trek :

Yes, the fallen queen.

Where we compare biceps,but Nancy does "dola re dola"

Memoirs of a trip to the mountains!

This is from my trip to the mountains in May 2014.

Originally,our travel itinerary was to go from Bir to Dharamshala and end it with Dalhousie. The four of us,my mom,dad and my little sister Kavya went all excited and took a bus from Delhi To Baijpur which is near Bir.We reached Bir amidst heavy rains and an awesome climate. I love rains. And being surrounded by mountains and greenery all around you was feeling pretty good.The hotel we stayed at Bir was pretty homely with a place for the family to play carom and a mini library with really nice songs playing in the background.

See what I mean about the lovely rains.They make everything look green and blue. Oh and in this particular picture, colourful as a rainbow because of my umbrella and the flags.The have an interesting story to tell.The five colour represents the five elements of earth and have prayers written on them.And the locales believe that when the winds come and blow them,they are blessed.