Tirthan, Trout and Trekking - Part 4

Click here to read this travelogue from start...

I had planned the day to be a relaxed one, doing very little or nothing. Even doing nothing at such a place is an experience in itself. We had planned to not have breakfast in the guest house and trek till Gushaini, find some local dhaba and eat something local (if we could find something). 

After we took our showers, we got ready and started our stroll to Gushaini at a very relaxed pace, with no specific agenda in mind (and we carried a water bottle this time!). Right about 50-100 meters from Trishla Homestay, there is a local temple built inside a beautiful green property, walled and having a small iron gate. A couple of rooms in a corner of the plot served home to the priest who stayed there. We thought to pay a visit to the temple casually. We took our shoes out and entered the temple. It was a cool and fresh morning and the atmosphere inside the temple was manifesting the divinity aptly.

We had just casually prayed at the Shiva-Parivaar (family of Lord Shiva) and turned to look around, an old man wearing light woollens, sitting on a cotton-mattress with a couple of blankets around caught our eyes. He appeared to be the chief-priest. We went up to him and greeted him touching his feet. He muttered some blessings and asked us to sit there with him, on the mattress. He started talking to us by first asking where we had come from. We told him how we had casually stopped on our way to Gushaini to look around this place and he told us to go ahead and visit the other deities and roam around. 

The local priest, much younger to the baba we talked to, appeared to be preparing morning tea for all in a small kitchen. We paid our due visit to all the gods and went to baba to thank, and then leave for Gushaini.

"Arey, baitho abhi. Chai pi ke jaana." (Wait, have some tea first), baba said.

We said "Arey nahi baba, hum log Gushaini naashta karne hi ja rahe hain, wahin pi lenge. Aap log pi lijiye" (Oh its OK, we are anyways heading to Gushaini for breakfast. You carry on, please).

But baba insisted that we had tea with them, and the junior baba immediately poured us some steaming hot tea in steel tumblers. We had no option but to sit there, humbled, and drink the sugary, creamy and energizing concoction, the way I like it. Quickly finish the tea, we asked for leave and headed out. Baba's cordial treatment and serene aura topped up with the calm and spiritual air around, which left us smiling for a couple of minutes even after we were out, walking towards Gushaini.

"This is going to be a lovely day ahead!", I told myself.

We moved on to find some breakfast in Gushaini, but got confused when a bridge appeared on our left. Lay ahead on and beyond the bridge was a neatly paved road on the other side of the river, while the trail further on our side went rough and steeply sloped upwards. Quickly figuring out that the right way was the left one (you know what I mean), we took the bridge.

Bridge to Gushaini

About 10-15 minutes walk along the river brought us to this small, quaint village that is Gushaini. There is nothing quintessential about the place, but I was glad to be here to finally have paid my long overdue visit. Along the river, you can find number of guest houses and home-stays, all offering the same set of facilities - the activities, the trout etc. One of them is Raju Bharti's Home Stay, which as a matter of fact was the sole reason why I was there. It wouldn't be exaggeration if I said that he is the man who made this place this known among enthusiasts like me. I'm not going to write much about his home-stay here, as one can find a thousand articles on the internet specifically about that.

Rope-way to Raju Bharti's

We walked a little further and reached the village. Half the shops were still closed and we could not find any shop that we could say was restaurant or a dhaba for sure. Most of them were chai-shops serving hot tea, some breakfast items and local sweets. We finally came across a small restaurant that was still empty. We could only get momos and parathas there, so we both settled for paratha and chai. Strange as it is, the very basic things like an aaloo-pyaaz paratha and chai, which we can get everywhere in north-India, can satisfy your hungry soul when you are at such a beautiful place where you least expect anything better.

We filled ourselves, thanked the cook and headed back. I had one resolve though, I just had to visit Raju Bharti's guest house even though I knew we'd not really be welcome there without a booking. We still tried our luck. Standing at this end of the rope-way and waving blankly to the other side hoping that someone spotted us and pulled us there, we spent about 5 minutes. I did not really know at that time that the mechanism they used in making the rope-way did not require anybody to pull you to the other side, you can pull yourself.

So, we jumped in the basket and crossed the river one by one. A guy standing there was looking confused, figuring out who we were and what we were trying to do, till I told him that we just wanted to have a look at the place and that I had been wanting to see this for more than 5 years. He allowed us to take a stroll inside the property and told us not to enter any room (obviously!). It is a huge and beautifully mended place, with wooden cottages, a bon-fire area surrounded by benches to sit, a lot of rose shrubs and other trees. We thanked the guy for letting us check the place out and he guided us on how to sit properly inside the basket and pull ourselves while crossing the river. 

Aahhh! That was another item checked in my checklist. I had nothing more to accomplish out of this trip now. On our way back to the hotel, we bought a couple of bananas, hoping to find another sweet miracle in it, but they were just like "normal" bananas...what was I thinking? Anyway, we came back to the hotel and talked to Aman if we could get a ride to Aut in the evening, we had a bus to catch. He said he'd take us there in his car and Deepu would also come to see us off. 

We spent the rest of the day sitting in the sun, beside the river and talking to Aman. He told us a lot of stories about his childhood in the village, the growing-up years he spent in a college in Sundar Nagar and other things. He talked us about general philosophies of his people, his desires to gain experience doing what he does and also that he wanted to write a book to keep a record of everything he has to say. I found him very genuine, grounded and mature for his age.

In the evening, we thought it would be best to keep an hour of buffer with us and leave a little early. We got stuck in a bad traffic jam in Banjar, but still reached Aut before time. Now, we only had to wait for the bus, so I asked Aman and Deepu to leave. They said they'd stay in Aut till late, meeting up with a few friends, but they would see us off first. The bus was late, which was making me uncomfortable. The bus had to start from Manali, so I called up the Manali number mentioned in the ticket. Aman talked to the guy at the other end and was told that the bus had already left Manali. He gave us the bus-conductor's number which was continuously out of the coverage area. While Aman and his friends were speculating the current location of the bus, me and Aman kept on trying calling the bus-conductor. 

Finally, my call got answered and I was relieved to hear that it was on its way to Aut and would be another 10 minutes. I had also confirmed that our names were on the list of passengers. The wait had ended and the bus had arrived. The conductor stepped out of it and looked at us. 

"Ohooo!!! Aap ho?" (Oh, so it's you guys!), he said smiling broadly. 

It was the same bus we took from Delhi to Aut, he was the same guy. We greeted each other cordially.

"Itni jaldi chal diye waapis?" (Going back so soon?), he asked.''

I said sadly, "It's been three days, have to be back in office tomorrow".

"It's OK, you can come again and spend more time then". We smiled.

We took our seats in the bus, looked outside the window where Aman and Deepu were standing, waiting for the bus to pull-off. We waved at them, said our 'Thank-You's and sat back.

The journey back home was more annoying, somebody in the bus had the most smelly feet ever and wasn't ready to put his shoes back on despite a lot of complains by people in the bus. Soon, our noses got adapted to the smell and we fell asleep.

The returning-home part is the most exciting part of each one of my trips - mainly because I love to be home with my family and also because that's the time I can close my eyes and look back at my experience of the whole trip beginning-to-end, checking-out all the pictures we'd clicked and talking about things we liked most and things we could've done better...and also promising ourselves that we'd come again for sure.

I haven't really kept such promises (apart from McLeod Ganj), but will try hard to keep true to this one. How can one resist?

Tirthan,Trout and Trekking - Part 3

Read part 1 and part 2...

I am usually an early riser. Even on weekends, I cannot sleep after 8:00, though I am all awake at 7:00. An when I am on a vacation to a place where getting up early is a reward in itself, I try not to miss the morning glory and soaking up every bit of the freshness it has to offer you. I had a very comfortable and cozy place on the bed, and I woke up really fresh next morning. I quickly switched the geyser ON and went out on the terrace, it was amazing to feel crisp cool breeze against my cheeks, so far from the cacophony of busy cities and with the only sound of beautiful Tirthan river flowing by our side.

Yogesh was also up by then, so we quickly got ready and came out for our breakfast. Ganu was busy cleaning the terrace and asked what we would like to have. We both wanted to have something routine, which meant aloo-paratha :)

We asked Aman if he had arranged for a taxi to take us to Jalori Pass, we wanted to leave as early as possible. He told us that it had already arrived and was just waiting for us to be ready. From the very bottom of the valley to the peak of a mountain, it seemed a very exciting journey. We filled a bottle of water, took an umbrella (just in case) and started for Jalori. Deepu, Aman's younger brother, accompanied us for the trek till Serolsar Lake. While we were crossing Banjar, my phone showed a little sign of life and I immediately made a few calls to family and friends. The road from Banjar till Jalori, as Lalit the driver told us, is one of the deadliest roads in India, which we felt it was indeed. 

Throughout the way till Jalori, we kept getting surprised by the beauty of the valley, steep slopes, the villages and their step-farms and the Jibhi Nallah. At some places along the Jibhi stream, the local people have setup Gharat (water-mills) which is an ancient method to utilize the force of flowing water stream for grinding grains.

Some village houses on the way

Jalori Pass and beyond -from a distance

I really did not expect any snow on the way or even on the top. But we did get a couple of frozen streams, which kind of excited me as I hadn't seen that much snow ever, though it was an old deposit and had got dirty in time. 

We reached Jalori and parked the car. Jalori is a mountain pass to cross to the other side for Rampur and then Shimla. There are buses plying between this side and that, they stop at the pass too. There are a few tea shops, a sweet shop and a temple at the pass. Standing at the parking area, facing towards the Jibhi valley, one can see as far as Mani-Mahesh on a clear day. 

From here, stick to the road to cross to the other side, take the left trail to trek till Serolsar lake (5 kms from Jalori pass) or take the right trail to trek till Raghupur Fort (3 kms from Jalori pass).

Road to Jalori pass

Yogesh posing at Jalori

Temple at Jalori Pass

The view from Jalori - Raghupur Fort's ridge is visible from here

The road winding its way down to the other side

Thach at Jalori pass

On the Serolsar Lake trail

And that's me...

You could get a wonderful, more than 180 degrees view of the verdant green mountains from here.The Raghupur Fort ridge looked intimidating to me even though we hadn't even started our trek to the lake and weren't tired at all. We did not take our water bottle with us thinking that it was anyway cold and I had read on some blog that it was a short trek of about 45 minutes. But this turned out to be a big mistake. Firstly, because it wasn't a 45 minutes trek for people like us. Secondly, cool weather does not really lessen your body's need for water and you need to keep yourself properly hydrated.

Deepu asked us to carry on and said he'd join us in a while. So we started. Initially for quite a distance, it was a pleasant walk with almost zero slope, through dense fragrant forests. We could not see or otherwise sense anybody else's presence on the trail and the quiet was creepy in a way, but really exciting. We carried further on, stopping to wait for Deepu time and again hoping that he joined us before we lost our way. I had read that there is a sort of 'Y' point on the trail - one way goes to the lake and other to a village down the hill (for the reader's reference, the left trail from here goes to the lake).

Some camping site on the way to Serolsar Lake 

The trail was more or less smooth till the 'Y' point. We waited there for Deepu and spotted a couple of local womenfolk doing their usual chore of gathering the firewood for cooking. We called out for them and asked how far the lake was. "Twenty minutes to half-an-hour" came the reply. It was already more than 30 minutes that we had walked till then, so the math sounded almost correct. Deepu had also arrived by now, much to my relief. The trail started getting a little rocky from here on. I had already done Triund twice before, and I found this trek almost like Triund's.

Yogesh following me

This was what Yogesh was clicking from up there

I still cannot figure out if it was due to my reduced stamina or because I was thirsty and we had no water, I had started finding the trek more difficult than Triund's though it was not really so. I had to take a break every five minutes to catch my breath. The monotony of the endless forest was getting broken by many meadows - small and big, thatch as they call it.

A small thatch on the way

Seemed like a royal entry for The Flintstones

The largest thatch just before the lake

This hut here was home for a local hermit for quite some time. Now nobody knows what became of him.

These clearings kept me boosted and, though I was exhausted beyond imagination for reasons unfathomable, I kept on walking behind Deepu who walked like a mountain goat. After a couple of minutes' walk more, we spotted another smaller clearing beyond which was the trail to the lake. The trail was completely covered by fallen leaves, and the earth beneath had formed a mud slush with water coming out of snow deposits nearby. And the steep slope made it all the more scary to walk on, but I just had to follow Deepu instead of doing all the where-to-step-next analysis.

Snow deposit right before the downward trail to the lake 

Deepu guiding us on the trail

This was when we had our first look of the beautiful Serolsar Lake. The uncomfortable and eerie silence of the woods and an even more secluded and mysterious looking lake in the middle of it, I couldn't have imagined it to be any better. I feel it is better not to try explaining how it felt by listing "classy" GRE words and diluting it, so I'll let the pictures do all that...

First look of the lake

The lake is nearly circular in shape, with a tiled walkway circumscribing it.

There is a temple - Buddhi Nagin, at the lake. It was closed when we were there, so there was nobody around apart from three of us.

Buddhi Nagin temple at the lake

Its a small lake, surrounded with trees. It is believed, as per a folktale, that no matter how many trees surround the lake and how littered is the area with fallen leaves during fall, one wouldn't find a single leaf floating on the lake water. This task of keeping the lake litter free is managed by a couple of birds (sparrows, as far as I remember...Aman told me this story) and they do it diligently since ages. Though, we could find leaves floating on the water. But I won't call that litter, it only added to the beauty of this pristine, natural lake. 

 We walked around the lake till we were stopped by the still melting deposits of snow, took a stroll above the lake to a point which overlooks the Jibhi valley and spotted a Monal bird, but could not click any pictures.

View of the Jibhi Valley

It had started getting darker because of clouds slowly covering the area. Deepu suggested that we quickly started our trek back to the pass because the weather was pretty unpredictable and it could start raining. Though I wanted to trek further to check out the valley and thatch on the other side, we decided to head back to the pass. The return was more exhausting and took a toll on my stamina. I had to stop every 5 minutes to catch some breath. Once back to the pass, we stopped at a local tea-shop and I asked the shop owner if they had anything to eat. It was about 3 pm and they still had some Rajma-Rice left, what else could I ask for! 

Sitting on a bench in that small shop with 4-5 people and a kettle of tea boiling on an old mud-stove with an even older iron-chimney on it, I was feeling so relaxed and cozy, I could have slept right then and there.

We quickly had to finish and rush back to the hotel because the ceremony Aman invited us to was about to start in about an hour. I felt a strong urge to take a nap right after getting back in the car and I think I did take a short one. On the way from Banjar to our home-stay, we spotted the ceremonial procession - the Paalki, of Rishi Shringi and a lot of people for that village and others too. I wasn't just in the condition to stay awake and all I wanted was to be back to my room, take a pill of paracetamol so I don't get fatigued and sleep it off, so we skipped the ceremony, hoping Aman would understand.

When I woke up at about 6 pm, after a good 1 hour nap, I felt surprisingly fresh and not at all tired (I guess it was just the air). I could now walk up to Serolsar Lake again, and happily. But given my hyperbole, I even refused to accompany Gannu (the cook, the cleaner and the general caretaker) to the Trout Farm when he asked if we wanted to come with him to the farm. Yogesh had asked Gannu that morning if he could try catching some trout that day for dinner, but he couldnot catch any. So he had to buy a kilo of the fish (which is considered a delicacy, with a single bone and no-smell) from the government farm. He fried some trout for Yogesh and got me some hot and crispy pakoras (fritters).

Now, there is nothing much to do in such places. But if you have a young, lively and lovely mountain river flowing right beside you, you don't really feel the need for anything else. 

I found the place so soulful that even after dark, I went to the river, sat on a rock and kept sitting there, sometimes thinking something, sometimes not thinking anything at all, singing my favorite songs, noticing my breaths. More than an hour passed and Yogesh suddenly realized my absence in the room, so he came out looking for me in the terrace. I could see him from where I was, but he could not,because I was sitting in total darkness. It was funny watching him looking for me here and there, he almost encircled our room in his search and I was laughing by now. I called out for him. He heard my voice and looked in my direction, but his expressions told me that he still could not spot me, it really cracked me up. Finally, he came to where I was standing.

"Dude, what are you doing here in the dark?", he asked.

"Nothing, just standing and listening to the sound of the river", I replied, still smiling at him.

"Are you not scared?"

"Scared of what? Nobody is here, I'm alone", I said.

"Exactly! Does the roaring river in this total darkness not scare you?"

I laughed. I remembered how darkness used to scare the hell out of me when I was little. I did not even go to any room in our house unless the lights are switched on. This used to be my thing, and others' point to make fun of me. But the times have changed now. Now, there are times when I love to be out on the roads late at night, sit idle in my room with darkness embracing me, and nothing scares me.

"No, I'm not scared as long as I know I'm not going to fall in the river", I replied.

We started talking for what Yogesh must have felt like ages. Correction - I talked and he mostly listened to me talking endlessly and without focusing on a single point for more than 2 minutes. I felt supremely high without having had even a drop of alcohol or a drag, and now Yogesh was highly amused of my capability of blabbering.

I talked about music, Ragas (I remember talking about Rag Des), Urdu poetry, Ghalib and some of his ghazals, random jokes and I don't remember what else. And now it was time for dinner and then sleep.

A laborious day, a relaxing afternoon and an exciting, charged up evening slowly faded away in a calm and cozy night. We had no plans for the next day, our last day in the valley. So we thought of just relaxing there and taking a short walk till Gushaini for breakfast. We had already asked Aman for a ride to Aut in the evening for our bus to Delhi. 

Continued in the next and final part here...