Having stayed in Chennai for over 8 long months, I was determined to go on a Himalayan winter trekking expedition conducted by Youth Hostel of India. For more about Youth Hostel see the link at the bottom and for now please continue to read this blog !
I must tell you the difficulties that I had to face before I got to be part of this expidetion. I had booked my tickets to Delhi from Chennai three months ago, but I had to cancel my tickets in the wee hour of my travel, for I was asked to stay back on my job else I was subtly suggested to go on a holiday forever ! On the flip side one should be happy for the importance the company gives you ! However I requested the organizers to post pone my trekking date by two days, to my good fortune they obliged.
I am not going to write about the crushes that I keep having with the air hostesses all the time I travel and about my dilemma that I never been able to over come !
Soon after I disembarked the flight in Dehli, I headed to CP (Canaught Place) and I bought excessive and expensive grear for the winter trekking, for I had heard that temperature would drop to minus three sometimes and I thought it was ok to splurge than to suffer in the sub zero temperature. I took a bus in the evening to Pathankot after having spent a day in Delhi. It was 5.00AM when I reached Pathankot, and I was waiting for two hours in the Pathankot bus stand for the bus to Delhousie. Fortunately a news paper seller, an old man told me that on that peritcular day two buses to Delhouse were cancelled and the ironry was that, this news paper seller knew about the cencelled buses and the Sardarji's who ever sitting in the warm counter had no idea about it as I had approached them several times to enquire. After plenty of enquires I took a bus to Baniketh and from there another bus to Delhousie. There is this interesting incident that happened when I was travelling from Phankot to Baniketh. I guess the men who got into the bus at one of the stops were goatherds (similar to shepherds) as they were carrying milk cans, and they let their goats occupy the seats at the back of the bus ! One of these guy who I guess was a Pathan from Pathalkot sat beside me, the supposedly white kurta pyjam that he wore was of ash color and I as only about to faint by the smell that he spread! The smell from him came from all directions as though the bus was passing through the garbage land. Thankfully he got down the bus after few stops and I was relieved !
As the bus was ascending the hills of Himachal Predesh, I was lots of boards along the roadway that said, drive slow and carefully, etc... There were hardly any vehicles on the road and all the vehicals were at their nominal speeds. Then came a board that said "Dead Slow", meaning as very slow like a snail. As I was thinking about the road signs and their relavence, I felt the bus slowing down and to my right I saw the sight of a bus and the lorry lip locked ! They had freshly met with an accident and looking at the damage they had done to each other, I thought both the drivers were saved, nevertheless it was gruesome lip locking accident. And thus I understood the importance of the plenty of sing boards along the roadway !
Needless to say the mountains in the HP (Himachal Pradesh) are huge and spectacular some of them are very steep and hence deep valleys.
More to come....
Dont know when !
http://www.yhaindia.org/
Monday, December 29, 2008
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