BURAN GHATI PASS – OCTOBER 2019

After a midlife crisis and a big, long break, my soulmate Kritika and I decided to take on a trek after almost a year and a half, but this time we wanted it to be in Himachal Pradesh. After a lot of back and forth, we decided on the beautiful – Buran Ghati Trek. It seemed like the perfect plan – go to Shimla – chill – trek – come back. Oh, there was way more that happened on this trek than that! 😃

After 6 months of moving to London, Kritika landed in her Mumbai apartment and 3 days later, she was on her way to Borivali station. I left my place, almost on time, but of course in a hurry, just like most Mumbaikars – like another very close friend Niveditha says – everyone in Mumbai is running to some place, and always late! 😄 Of course I got caught up in a really bad traffic jam, the train was going to depart at 4:35 p.m., and there I was stuck at every red light possible! It’s a very funny, scary and exhilarating experience to be RIGHT on time before you miss the train, isn’t it? I got into the train at Bandra Terminus, Kritika joined me at Borivali. My heart melted as soon as I saw her! All we did was hugged for a good 3-4 minutes and it was the biggest relief and the best hug I got in the last couple of months for sure! ❤️ Here began our next adventure…

It’s unbelievable how much two friends can chitter chatter, two girls to be precise! We talked NON STOP for at least 6 hours, and I’m not exaggerating! We have proof. A young boy who was sitting right across who eventually joined our conversation for a bit, told us to ‘shut up’ for just sometime, very sweetly and indirectly though! 😂 No, that didn’t stop us from talking more! We can talk rubbish for HOURS together, it’s magical!

Chit chatting, laughing, chilling and finally sleeping, we reached Delhi and visited Kritika’s ever welcoming sister, had lunch and rested there for a bit. By now my life had changed a LOT, my life choices, my lifestyle, everything! And everything happened just on time for me to be fit enough for this trek. I had started my low waste and plastic free journey and I was documenting a few things that we were doing here and there. We carried our cutlery, homemade snacks, homemade energy laddoos and everything we possibly could to save up on creating trash. We left from Delhi in a chair car to reach Kalka which was about 5-6 hours away. It was just about 10 p.m. when we reached Kalka, but it seemed like it was already around 2 a.m. there – the absolutely dark and silent streets creeped us out a little! We had booked a hotel right next to the station so it would be easier to get back there in the morning. We reached our hotel, which was decent enough for the night, BUT – we had to change rooms because the first one had bed bugs! The second room was also kind of special – it was DAMP! The bed was slightly damp, the carpets and even the blankets! It was a very funny experience and we weren’t going to change this room because it was very clean! We had dinner and quickly decided to call it a night – we had to catch the Shivalik Express Toy Train at 5:45 a.m.

Day 0 – A long longg longgg train ride… Kalka to Shimla

The next morning we were out and very much on time to get to the station. There it was -the cute little toy train! The journey began and it went on and on. And on and on. And on and on….for SIX HOURS!!! The journey was extremely exciting, at first, but by the end of 2 hours of beautiful scenic views, you tend to start wanting to zoom off to your final destination! The journey of course had its funny experiences, we met a couple of very funny people, but by the end of the journey it felt like we’ve been on that train forever!

Actually, the best time to take the toy train is in winters when the place is covered in snow, but nevertheless, it was a beautiful scenic journey that kept changing at every turn. After a LOT of pictures and of course, talks, we reached Shimla at 12 p.m.! It was the end of September – 28th to be precise, so the weather was really good – not too hot, not too cold and definitely no showers. Shimla is a very cool place – the streets are beautiful, filled with some very weirdly but sensibly connected streets, the streets were also connected by elevators, which was new to me.

We reached our hotel, rested, showered and finally left to have some lunch. We decided to take a walk around Shimla that day. We went to the famous Shimla Mall street which took us to the church street. Before we could reach church street, it started raining! We quickly ran and took shelter with a bunch of other people. You know, when you’re with your best friend, you can just talk with your eyes? That’s what we were doing and all hell broke loose when we burst into laughs amidst a crowd! We couldn’t stop laughing, we had no idea why we were even laughing that much! 😂 It was like we had to laugh because we hadn’t laughed like that in the whole of last year that we weren’t together! We had to get out of there and escape all the weird looks we were getting! We somehow managed to wander around a bit and decided to go back to our room and rest, we had our pick up in the morning at 6:30 a.m.

Day 1 – The adventure had almost begun!

As we left our hotel at 6 in the morning to reach the bus stop which was a good 20 minute walk, we realized that we were actually at the wrong end of the road. Some shit had to go down, right? We were lucky enough to get a cab that took us to the meeting point, which of course, was 5 minutes from our hotel! As soon as we reached, we threw our bags in the first jeep we saw, which didn’t belong to us, so that was embarrassing as well! Finally we met a couple of our trek mates and we met our equivalent of CRAZY – Monica! It was amazing how the three of us almost instantly connected so well, it felt like we’ve known her for a long time! We became the best of friends, and we were the only three girls in the group! We met our 4th traveler – Mr. Ashwani, a young 57 year old boy! The 4 of us took off in our jeep and we waved goodbye to who we thought were hopefully the rest of our group. It was, thankfully! 😋

Till we reached our first stop for breakfast, I thought I was going to throw the hell up! The roads were way too curvy from Shimla. After having some hot and delicious aloo paranthas and introducing ourselves to the other trekkers, we slept like babies in the car, or at least everyone else did! I usually can’t sleep much on drives. I was listening to some of my songs and humming along as usual. We reached our dingy lunch place which served some of the best food ever! I can still taste the mushroom masala on my tongue! *Slurp!* 

I don’t know what it was, I don’t know whether it was the air, the company or just a feeling – as soon as the jeep turned left, the scene emerged to my right and instantly my eyes filled up, I had goosebumps. There they were – the mountains with clouds hugging them from all ends. The peaks could barely be seen, but that was the beauty of it all. I took it all in, the moment was too special. Then of course everything changed because that was THE BUMPIEST RIDE EVER! 😵 We saw so so so many apple orchids! Farms and farms one after the other, covered with green colored clothes in some parts to protect them from the birds and direct sunlight. We saw bags of apples being zip lined from one end of the mountain to the other, it was so much fun to watch! We were also offered some big, red juicy apples which we washed in the rain water through the car window and started chomping off! 

The “broken bridge!”

After a 10 hour drive, we were finally there – to the “broken bridge” that was supposed to take us to our basecamp village! Our trek had already begun. We had to start descending across this extremely steep, metal bridge that had collapsed in a landslide. One by one, we started climbing down with tiny little baby steps. We did not expect it to rain at all, but of course when you’re in the mountains, you always have to be prepared. It was drizzling just enough for us to know what’s coming for us on this adventure! We met the rest of our gang – Sanketh, Harish, Lakshman (a.k.a Krishna post this trek), Deepak and Prasoon (who was the superman of our group and would always reach first every single time!)

On our way to the village, we broke the ice with the Bangalore guys. It was supposed to be an innocent and genuine question, which turned into a dirty and hilarious joke and we just burst out laughing! We trekked through the beautiful forest that finally led us to this cute and green little village – Janglik (9,200 feet). We must have trekked for about an hour to get to our guesthouse and all of us were already exhausted. It got us thinking about the days to come! We reached a gorgeous green and white coloured house, which was made of wood. It had the coziest rooms and a beautiful mountain view right across the window. 

Our room was on the first floor and to get to the first floor, we had to climb up a small rock like structure and walk across a thin wooden plank – like I said, our adventures had already begun and were getting better at every step!

After somehow managing to cross the plank, we got to our rooms! We girls had a better room than the boys! 😁 It was TOO CUTE! We entered and saw 3 sleeping bags lined up for us. We freshened up a little bit and were called to the dining room next door. It had started to get really cold now! We were already shivering and layering up! The only thing that kept bumming us out was that it had started to really rain by now. Since it was just the 9 of us, we introduced ourselves very quickly and a delicious dinner was served along with the next day’s briefing! We slept quite early that night, praying to all the Gods that it stops raining the next day! 

Day 2 – The big, huge and beautiful meadows! Janglik to Dayara Thatch (9,200 feet to 11,075 feet)

We started our journey with an early cup of black tea with some yummy breakfast. We had to wear our raincoats and covers because the weather didn’t look very clear that morning. As we started walking through the village, we passed all the small houses made of mud, some made of wood, some even with bamboo. We had a beautiful brown dog accompany us the entire way as usual!

Very quickly we left the village behind and entered the most GORGEOUS meadows I had ever seen in my life! They were just huge open fields on the mountain, all green, covered in so many trees and everything looked even better because of the rain! It looked like everything was getting cleaner and clearer with every step we took. The meadows looked like they’re never going to end, they were humongous!

Half way through, we came across a cute little hut that was serving hot tea and maggi! And there it was – our first pee break! 😂 The three of us found a big big rock and in the forest and the wilderness, we relieved our souls! I’m telling you, you get closer with every pee break together, it is true! (I’m laughing so much while writing these pee stories, I’m going to go have to go pee!) 

After about 4 hours we reached our campsite, which wasn’t set up because the rains had made everything slower than ever. We huddled up and sat in the dining tent that was already put up. As soon as we sat down, our bodies started cooling down and in no time it was SO DAMN COLD! Our fingertips felt almost numb! We were hungry, tired and super cold! As soon as the tents were ready, we took our bags and ran into the tents. The best thing about these treks are the cozy tents that keep you warm and snug. We just didn’t want to leave our tents, but then of course – we had to pee! 😂

We all were called for lunch in our favorite dining tent, I absolutely loved the dining tent because it was such a pretty color – a nice light ice blue. Something about that color was very very peaceful.

Along with Trek The Himalayas, we also had the India Hikes group which was moving almost with us on most of our campsites.  We went over to say hi to them as well! The weather definitely got a bit better and we were just wandering around the place a little bit. We got back to our dining tent to start playing games!!! UNO is always the ice breaker, isn’t it? Especially if you have extremely competitive people playing and then there is cheating and way too much fun!!! UNO, Buzz!, Dumb Charades and 21 Questions, these were our saviors! We would play for hours at a stretch without knowing or caring about the time, without overthinking about things, without having to look at our phones – THAT is what I absolutely LOVED! 

Slippity – slip – slip! :’D

As we went into our tents, we had arranged ourselves such that I was in the center, Kritika was on my right and Monica on my left. We got into our sleeping bags and as usual, a little bit of chitter chatter had to happen. We slowly drifted off to sleep. When I woke up very early in the morning, around 4:30 – 5 a.m, I could feel my rucksack at my feet, which was very weird because it was placed between Kritika and the tent, I thought maybe it fell over Kritika, or something, I couldn’t join the dots! So I woke up, put my red torch on, only to find Kritika sleeping horizontally under Monica and me. This little girl had slipped below us in her sleep because our tents were on a slope! I couldn’t stop laughing! 😂 This happened EVERY single night after this because all our campsites were slightly slopey! Kritika had another story to tell, she freaked out in the middle of the night because she couldn’t feel me on her left and thought we probably left her and went off, only to realize she had actually just slipped under us!

Day 3 – “Mehhh” – The pleasant surprise! – Dayara Thatch to Litham Campsite (11,075 feet – 11,737 feet)

Our morning began with us peeping out to a very dull sky, cloudy and no sunshine whatsoever. We got ready and got out of our tents, ready for breakfast and still hoping it doesn’t start raining too much! No sooner did we finish our breakfast, than the sunlight started cracking through the clouds and in no time, the entire bugyal LIT UP! We were so happy! We had to go back and finish packing so we could start on time. Kritika and I were sitting inside the tent, just chit chatting, tying up our shoelaces when ALL of a sudden, this girl dove into the tent, grabbed her camera and RAN out like the tent was about to explode! I was sitting there in a state of confusion and looked at her, she said, “get the hell out – LOOK!” I lifted the tent cover up – THOUSANDS of sheep were hoping and trotting over the entire bugyal in front of us! My jaw dropped and I rushed out too! Black, blue, grey, white, black and white – it looked like small cotton puffs had fallen from the sky covering the entire place up! It was the PERFECT start to the day! We went and greeted the sheep, although they didn’t want to come too close, we tried our luck. 😁

A walk through the LOTR and GoT feel forests:

We were finally set to start our trek for the day, we were so happy now that the sun was out, we didn’t have to wear our raincoats and covers. Nope, we were very very wrong! We were just about 200-300 metres away and the sun was gone. Instantly, it started to drizzle! It was very funny, but also it was going to be another damp day! 😋

This was by far THE MOST BEAUTIFUL trail EVER!!! The forest could literally have been used by the production of Game of Thrones or Lord of The Rings for a shoot – it’s exactly what you imagine it is! Trees and roots of trees creeping in from all the directions, green and mossy, dark and magical. I wish I had clicked a few photos, but my phone had died.

We had to climb and walk through the roots of these trees, with rain water passing underneath them. Creepers hugging the trees, dark moss all over really fat trunks of trees, it was gorgeous! The rain only made it more and more beautiful! We had to cross this beautiful river too, a very narrow and shallow stream though, we just had to be careful not to slip, Just a few metres before we could reach our campsite, there was this patch which was very prone to landslides. Once we reached the starting point of that patch, all of us gathered and were briefed to walk really quickly and look for ‘rocks that would fall!’We had to take a deep breath and just START, we just walked through that patch so quickly and didn’t dare to look behind! It was a very exhilarating experience!

The Litham campsite was just about 3 hours away, it wasn’t a very tiring walk that day. We reached the campsite and was it mind blowing or what! We were put up right next to a beautiful river that was gushing its way down from Chandranahan Lake. We were surrounded by huge mountains which were decorated by small icings of snow. When we reached, the toilet tents weren’t up yet and it didn’t even look like they’d be up very soon. The campsite was pretty flattish with barely any stones to cover us up, so we took an umbrella along with us this time and that’s about it! 😂

As soon as we reached the campsite, it started to rain a little more, so we had to be packed in our tents for a while which was great because we got all warmed up! After resting for a bit, we decided, we should carry a small bag in which we can keep all the things we may require the entire day! This was to avoid getting out of the common dining tent at all, it was too damn cold outside! We started playing games after games, of course that day there was a LOT of dumb charades and so many funny movies, we also included some series to make it funnier! Buzz! was our thing, we could play Buzz! non stop! Around 4 p.m., one of us must have just opened the cover of the tent and there it was – BRIGHT sunlight and a clear sky, clearer that ever! All of us got out of the tent to wander around a bit, also we started drying all of our stuff – the shoes, the covers, the bags, the socks, it looked like a ‘dhobi ghat!’ The sun was so bright and shiny we had to actually start layering down a bit! It was the best we had felt in the last couple of days and it was such a good break from all the rain and the soaking wet feeling all the time. We played a LOT of dumb charades out in the sun! We were also accompanied by a beautiful, gorgeous black mountain dog who I of course was in LOVE with! ❤️ After we saw the sun go down, we knew it was time to run back inside because the weather would go from 0-100 in seconds! 😋

After some warm and yummy dinner, it was time to step out again. Now, when I write ‘jaw dropping beautiful’ – I MEAN EVERY WORD! I have never ever seen a sky so wide, dark and FULL of stars! Can you imagine looking at the Milky Way with your naked eyes? Well, we didn’t have to imagine, because there it was. It was so damn cold that we all huddled up like goats and sheep and all we did was shiver and stare at the dazzling sky! The stars were so bright that we could actually see the light shining on the snow capped mountains around us, we could see silhouettes of the mountains in front of us. Lakshman and Kritika were busy trying to figure out how they could capture the sky in the most perfect way, and they did! It was the most amazing night on the trek till now! Oh, and not to forget, the temperatures were definitely going to drop below zero degrees that night, it must have already been 1-2°C when we were star gazing! ❤️

Day 4 – The toughie! – Chandranahan Lake (13,900 feet) and back to Lithum (11,737 feet)

We woke up, of course with Kritika at our feet again, but our tents were FROZEN! Yes, our tents were actually frozen, the temperatures dropped below zero that night and all of the things that we had kept in the balcony of our tents froze too! From our shoes to socks to scarves, everything. It was extremely exciting to be very honest! We were at this trek in the beginning of October. Which meant rappelling was definitely not happening, forget snow, we weren’t really expecting it to be as cold as it was getting as well. 

Today was our acclimatisation day. We had to trek all the way from 11,737 feet to Chandranahan Lake at 13,900 feet and back to our Litham campsite. It was going to be a tough day, so we had to start early! Fortunately for us, the sun was up and about that day! All our things were laid outside in the sun again till we finished our tea and breakfast. We quickly got dressed and started our ascend. By this time Kritika was slightly uneasy and unwell from the previous night for some odd reason. Maybe it was just a little bit of stress, the altitude as well as the slightly sleepless nights. We started climbing up with our guide Bhisham Ji. He was ONE jolly person! We had such good conversations, from training dogs to how things worked in his village. He was telling me how they train their dogs to herd sheep, it was absolutely amazing! As we kept climbing up, the trail got tougher and tougher. 

Like I always wonder, how people just connect and become so close in just a couple of days on a trek. The boys were really sweet to have waited for us so much and always looking out for everyone, especially Sanketh and Lakshman. It’s beautiful to watch how everyone starts caring so much for one another. 

Now came the really tough part of this climb – there was an extremely steep area which was almost just rocks that we had to climb, it wasn’t really a slope as such, but more like straight climbs. That’s where we all started to really lose all our energy. Somehow with a few breaks here and there, we managed to get to the top of that peak, we were welcomed with a beautiful work of art – just some round pebbles on top of each other which looked absolutely amazing! On the other side we saw SNOW capped mountains! We didn’t expect to see snow at all on this trek, but we could already see so many peaks covered in snow! The river that we saw gushing at our campsite was River Pabbar which was flowing from Chandranahan Lake. We were just a couple of minutes away from the lake. The lake was very shallow, but it was so clear that we could see the pebbles and stones even at the bottom of the lake. We sat there and rested for a while, ate our energy laddoos and had a lot of water! Once we were a bit better, the photo shoot started! We could see the river flowing on our right and beautiful snow peaks in front of us, it was just perfect!

We had to leave early because the weather had started to change a bit, we could see a few clouds gathering and we hoped with all our heart that the sun stays put! We started descending, which was also quite a task because the first part was really really steep!

We managed to get back to our campsite by around 1:30 – 2 p.m., which was very impressive according to me! As soon as we got into our tents, the sun was out and there the clouds were back. We had just one or two umbrellas that actually belonged to the TTH staff, they were really sweet to share them with us! We were back in our favorite dining tent and the games went on and on and on…

Day 5 – Up we go, to somewhere we really don’t know! – Litham Campsite to Dhunda Campsite (11,737 feet to 13,373 feet)

We woke up to a nice bright and shiny day! This trail was very different though, it had way too many rocks!  The rocks were like a maze which just went on and on for quite some time. But as we walked ahead and looked behind us, we saw the beautiful valley that looked absolutely stunning! We crossed over a river again, but this time, we had to be careful enough not to slip or get our shoes wet, or it would be very difficult for the next day’s summit! As we were walking, out of nowhere we saw 3 majestically beautiful horses grazing and running about. I felt like we were in some Disney movie at that particular moment! I mean, wild horses?! Who on earth expected that!

As we climbed, and climbed…. And kept climbing… we would reach a spot and think – ‘this may just be it!’, we would see people just going on and on!  Every time we would reach a point, we would see Monica, Prasoon and Ashwani going further up! It felt like we’re on a never ending climb that day! It was a very steep and exhausting climb, very similar to the Chandranahan Lake. Fortunately, Lakshman, Sanket, Harish and Deepak were accompanying us throughout! In just a little time, we started seeing those snow capped mountains getting closer, the winds were getting chillier and the views – better! When we finally got to the last bit of the climb, we could see the tents pitched in, we could see SNOW in the mountains above! There it was – the summit point! We could see the Buran Pass from our campsite – it was just too damn exciting! 

You think we would be extremely exhausted right? We literally settled in for 10 minutes, went in for lunch and were fresh as daisies! While the extremely enthusiastic Monica, Sanketh and Lakshman went for a slightly further trek, the rest of us just wanted to stay at the campsite and hang out. Harish, Kritika and me went and sat on these rocks at the edge of our campsite – the beautiful sugar coated mountains were right in front of us. We sat there for a long long time, till the time the cold really started to get to us.

Deepak, Harish, Kritika and me went and sat in our tent and as usual, continued our game of UNO. We also started a new game of 21 Questions and it was absolutely FANTASTIC! When the trio returned from their little adventure, it was photo session time again! We had so much fun clicking so many funny photos and again, it was only the tiny little hailstones that sent us back into the dining tent where we continued playing a couple of more games of 21 Questions! 

The next day was summit day! We had to have dinner by about 6:30 p.m. and get into our sleeping bags by 8. The plan was to wake up around 3 in the morning and make a move by 4:30 am. We didn’t waste too much time, finished dinner and went back into our tents. Of course we were talking through our tents to each other, which was so much fun too!

It’s so quiet in the mountains that you can hear your neighbours even if they’re just whispering! After trying for about 1-1.5 hours, we finally drifted off to sleep, only to wake up to a LOUD thunder at around 2 am which literally shook me out of my sleeping bag! I opened my eyes and saw the tent lighting up for a split second and then the sky rumbled! This went on for a while, till I forced myself to go back to sleep.

Day 6 – WHAT JUST HAPPENED!? 

With the alarms buzzing in our tents, we instantly woke up because the excitement and adrenaline was too damn high. We could hear the rain droplets on our tents, but that’s okay right, we had been trekking in the rain since the beginning. We opened the tent cover and there it was – SNOW! At least a foot and a half of it right outside our tent! Turns out we had been hit with a crazy snow storm all night long, and those weren’t raindrops, it was snow! We were excited and disappointed at the same time! Such a rush of mixed emotions, so much confusion, we didn’t know what was happening. Just then our trek leader – Joshlin, came by with hot cups of tea to our tent to tell us that we might have to wait till the weather clears out a bit and he asked us to go back to sleep and rest for some more time. 

It was snowing outside, it was freezing inside and all of us were up! We were just chit chatting for some more time, but finally decided to get some more sleep, might as well, we didn’t know what the journey was going to be like that day. We woke up again at around 6 a.m., it was still a little dark outside, there was absolutely no trace of the sun. We finally got out of our tents. We had been in the tents for almost 10 hours now!

Every spot that was visible last evening was covered in snow, literally EVERY thing! The light slowly started creeping in and we started looking at the trail we were supposed to take to get to Buran Pass – we couldn’t see a thing! There was a complete white out! We couldn’t even locate a single mountain up there, forget locating just the pass. Our tents were covered in snow, it looked beautiful though. We had to wait for things to clear out just a little bit more, so we did the best that we could – SNOW FIGHT!!! There was so much snow everywhere that we couldn’t not have a snow fight! Then there was also the snowman that Lakshman started working on. The snow just didn’t seem to stop, it kept on snowing and it only got worse. Finally it was decided that we wouldn’t be going ahead with the summit, It was absolutely heartbreaking and disappointing, but I guess it might have been the right call to take. 💔

The never ending journey began….! Dhunda Campsite to Janglik Basecamp (13,737 feet to 9,200 feet)

Now, since we weren’t going to go up, we had to descend all the way down, not just to the Litham campsite, but all the way down to our basecamp village – Janglik! That’s descending from 13,737 feet to 9,200 feet – it was going to be a LONG LONG day! 

We started descending at around 8 a.m. The snow kept coming at us, fortunately it wasn’t windy, but it got extremely slippery! Since there was fresh snow everywhere, we were all just tripping and slipping into the ground, it was hilarious to watch! Somehow we came all the way down from the first mountain to cross the river and get to the other side, only this time, the rocks on the river were also extremely slippery. One of our trekkers tried to go past and instantly slipped and fell into the river! It’s the worst feeling in the world to have wet clothes while trekking in such cold weather conditions, especially wet socks and shoes. 😣 There was no way we would be taking that chance, so it was decided that everyone is going to take their socks and shoes OFF, make a chain and walk THROUGH the river! We quickly had to start taking out shoes and socks off and was it cold or what! We started, one by one, dipping our feet in the ICE COLD water, I kid you not, it felt like my feet were on FIRE! One by one we started moving quickly through knee deep water and somehow managed to reach the other side. We sat there for about 5 minutes just so that our feet would come back to normal, they were whiter than ever! What an ‘electrifying’ experience it was! 🥶

We proceeded and got to the rocky part of our trek, remember I had mentioned the rock maze? It looked like someone had roasted giant marshmallows and arranged them all over the place! The entire valley looked like a scene out of a ‘Disney Frozen’ movie. The river was very much by our side all the way till we reached Litham. We walked past our Litham campsite as well and it was still snowing, although the snowflakes were getting a bit smaller in size. As we walked, I could see that the water that was still on the ground had frozen into very thin layers of ice on the ground while the snowflakes were still landing on them and melting off almost instantly.❄️Every path that we previously took to get to the Dhunda campsite looked very different now! It felt like we had never been here before, everything looked new, the trails, the paths, the views – everything!

Slowly as we descended, the snowflakes turned into tiny little hailstones. We were trying to collect them in our hands to see them better, they were so tiny and cute! By the time we reached back to the mysterious GoT and LOTR looking forest, the hailstones had turned to raindrops. We walked non stop from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and finally took a lunch break. It was exhausting, but I guess the adrenaline just kept us going. The forest was so magical, the streams of water had become slightly heavier too after so much snow and rain. We could hear tiny little waterfalls everywhere. The air was so clean, I could feel it! The rain does clean everything out! We sat in the middle of this beautiful forest, under a big tree which was protecting us from the rain. We had vegetable pulao, it just felt so good to eat in that damn cold. The only thing I didn’t like was that we had to remove our gloves, which made my fingers freeze!

After fueling ourselves with food, we took off, but this time we had another plan in mind! Monica, Kritika and me started humming songs at first which then turned out to be a full fledged concert! 🤩 We sang and walked all the way and if not for the singing and a bit of shimmy, the descent wouldn’t have been half as good as it was! We were getting song requests from everyone as well, it was so funny! We sang everything from retro bollywood to the 90’s pops and of course, there were a few punjabi hits as well! 🎶 We stopped at the same little hut for some hot tea on our way back, rested there for about 10 minutes and left. We were told to walk as fast as we could because once the sun went down and the light was out, it would be extremely difficult and risky to trek. We went as fast as we could, but of course we weren’t fast enough to beat the light. All of us took our head torches on. The last few hours were slightly difficult, not because of the trail, but because we had been walking for over 9 hours now! The fun bit was that everyone was still happy, chirpy and motivating and the singing didn’t stop! We moved to some phone music too. Now my knees and thighs had begun to hurt a little too, but we couldn’t stop, we could see the village lit up from a distance which motivated us to move faster. There were points which were very steep, valley on the left and mountain on the right, every time we would reach difficult spots, we would shout out to one another warning the people walking behind to be careful. Trekking in a group really brings people together, its amazing to watch your empathetic side come out like that!

We finally entered the village, but still had at least 25 – 30 more minutes to reach our guesthouse. Those last 30 minute felt like hours! We were just walking, fast and mechanically now. The guesthouse was also located at a small height, so to get to the guesthouse we had to climb up a little, that was tough!!! As soon as we reached the guesthouse, all of us just sat down on the floor and didn’t move for at least the next 15 minutes! We had trekked for about 12-12.5 hours!!! That’s the maximum amount of time I’ve been on my feet. We went to our rooms, freshened up a little and met back in the dining room. Dinner never felt better, especially when we had gulab jamuns for dessert!

Everyone was so damn tired, but we still wanted to be together for some more time. We decided to meet in the girls’ room because it was cozier and a couple of guys wanted to rest. Another game was introduced – ELLEN’S HEADS UP! We must have laughed our bottoms off, rolling all around the room! There is a category in Head Up! where you have to act the words out and we had words like – Sunbathing, where Lakshman just lied down and expected us to guess what it was! Can you imagine what the other funny words must have been like! We laughed way too much that night and finally our bodies started begging us to go to sleep!

Day 7 – It’s not over, yet – Janglik to Shimla:

We woke up all sore the next morning, of course. We had to change back into our damp clothes because hey, did you forget, we had to descend all the way down to the pick up point which was another 1 – 1.5 hours away? After breakfast and tea, we started our journey towards the broken bridge. It wasn’t as bad as we expected it to be, maybe because it was a descent or our bodies were just getting used to the extra activity! We met a few people who stayed in the village too, really old grandmothers bringing their grandkids back from school. They were so charming and sweet, they looked happy and content with everything! It was nice to encounter such happy people, it just brought a big smile to my face! We finally reached the broken bridge which we were dreading, but fortunately for us, they had built a road joining the two sides! We crossed the river and this time the car arrangements had been altered, Kritika, Monica and I sat with Sanket, Lakshman and Harish. 

The toughest bit for me in these journeys is leaving the mountains. I was staring out of the window till I could see the last glimpse of the peaks, it always breaks my heart, but motivates me to come back very soon. I already had plans ready in my head!

We were the crazy six now! We had a blast on our drive, we played Buzz! (of course), listened to all kinds of music from Hindi to English, to Kanada, Tamil and Telugu too and danced on our seats! The driver of our jeep was as enthusiastic as us, we definitely kept him entertained as well. We saw the apple orchids again, only this time, our driver got us a BUNCH of apples for the way – at least a dozen of them! We kept munching on the apples and dancing and singing the entire way, till we reached Shimla. It was about a 9 hour drive, but the weekend made it very difficult to enter Shimla, we were stuck in traffic for about an hour or two, but we finally reached our drop point. We were back to civilization, but Shimla is in the mountains too, it was shining like the stars had fallen down on the ground. We took our bags and made a move to the same hotel we had booked for another night. We all stayed together that night as well, we hung out on the streets of Shimla, which were so beautiful and peaceful late at night. We couldn’t have asked for a better group of friends – like I always think, I’ve made the nicest friends on my journeys and I hope I continue to do so. 💛

I was slightly disappointed of course, that we couldn’t summit Buran Pass, but everything happens for a reason, maybe I will come back, you never know, I might just come rappelling down this time too!

Until next time …❤️