Girlie Road trip Day 2 Simla-Narkhanda-Rampur-Kinnaur- Kalpa
We started our day at an altitude of 7465 feet in Simla. We entered the kitchen by helping our caretaker to make our own tea and coffee at our cute little wooden panelled home stay in Simla.
We even had a cake cutting celebration at 5.30 am for our dear friend Farida on her birthday
By 6 am we were all ready to start in our 2 force traveller vehicles for our adventurous road trip in the Himalayas.
Our driver was a local Buddhist and he played a meditative music with a chant that I had heard for the first time, which went as follows.
Om Mari Padme Huu
It was an amazingly soothing chant and it resonated with positive vibrations. This was followed by another chant that I had heard before called, .
‘Bhuddham Sharanam Ghacchaami’
We then admired the magic of the sun rise in the hills. We saw many structures adorning the hill side with their typical red roof and green roof tiles which I learnt later was the only permissible colours allowed for the roofs.
We drove past the Kumarsim Army outpost,one of the many army barracks that keep us secure, and we don’t realize it inside the confines of city life.
We admired the weather beaten faces of the local sturdy workmen who walked past us with single minded determination to do their daily chores and I gave a silent prayer for their well being.
At one place I even saw the
weeping willow tree , which is common abroad, yet not seen much in many of the Indian cities that I lived in.
The hills seemed to be cut into giant steps and there was ample evidence of the terrace farming cultivation that we had learnt of in school.
Breakfast was at a lovely view point at Hotel Hatu in Narkhanda, it was cold outside, yet we tried to soak in the warmth of the sun rays and went crazy clicking many pictures with nature.
We got our first meeting and guideline briefing with Rameshji our tour coordinator. He said that other than the usual medicines for cold cough vomiting, we must drink lots of water as we were going to very high altitudes, and to take only his local medicines for altitude sickness.
And surprisingly we saw ‘Mountain goat 13’ written on our bus, so we had a new nickname for our group…the translation in Hindi is ‘therah bakra’!!!
We got back in our two vehicles and passed a local bee keeping place and checked out the fresh honey, but the unhygienic old smelly cloth used to cover the hives, stopped us from making any purchases.
As our vehicle driver expertly maneuvered the winding roads with the steep corners, I again said a silent prayer for the safety of all of us for today and for the next week when we would drive into even more treacherous terrain.
And then we had a beautiful journey along the banks of the Sutlej River, and our cameras just did not know which direction to click the pictures, each side view looked better than the other.
We again saw another set of colourful buildings at Rampur, we made friends with a local old lady who actually invited us for tea to her place and even shook a leg and hand to the adulation she got from all of us.
Suddenly we got our first view of a snow peaked mountain and we got all excited, not realising that these snow topped peaks will become our constant companions during the rest of the road trip.
Our next random stop was called the
‘Pine cone pick up point’, we just went crazy picking up the the many pine cones and clicking lovely pictures.
We passed the hydro electric point and saw the huge set up by the JSW company. This was at a place called Tapri where we stopped at a small place to have our first Thali lunch and there was no confusion of ordering different items for different members of the group.
We then drove past Rekong Peo from where the snow capped mountains seemed almost at touching distance.
We finally reached our Kalpa Retreat hotel and settled down with some refreshing tea and snacks.
But all this was over shadowed by the spectacular range of snow peaked mountains just outside our hotel rooms.
In the evening we went to a place called Suicide Point, we were literally on the edge of a sheer drop. It was scary to stand and look down from the edge., so most of us, decoded to lie flat at the edge and take some amazing pictures.
It was by fluke that we saw just the top dome of what looked like a temple. And when we went down the steps with the friendly locals, we were amazed to see the intricately carved walls of a Vishnu Narayan Temple…Like they say.. It felt like a calling from God to see this quaint and beautifully sculpted temple of God.
We tried to find a spot on the mountain, which locals believed to be a Shiva linga that changes colours seven times a day, depending on the rays of the sun.
As we returned after sunset, slowly along the edge of the sheer drop from our roads, we were stunned to see the snowy mountains shining brilliantly again at the moon shine, a black and white night view that we will never forget in our lives.
Tiredness hit us when we returned to our hotel for a hot buffet dinner and well deserved rest after a hectic day of travelling for almost 10 hours.
In fact the weather changed and we suddenly felt too cold to get sleep, at 9708 feet and we literally had to wear our socks and gloves and caps again before going under 2 comforters to finally give some rest to our tired bodies.
So in 2018, do notice these simple smiling moments.Have a smiling year.
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