My Travelogues - Day 4

27 Dec, 2009

4:00 AM – Full night bakar session left us all with very little time to sleep. I switched off all lights at 4:00 AM in the morning only to be woken up by an alarm exactly three and a half hours later.

7:30 AM – Woke up to a very cold morning and it was extremely difficult to leave the blanket. We kept pushing each other to get out of the bed first and get ready. As therefore it became clear, it took us two hours to be ready and reach the breakfast table. Just as we were getting into our car, my stomach gave a tweaking sensation. Not sure on what it was, I decided to ignore the same.

10:00 AM – We are heading towards Manikaran, some 70 KMs or a 3 hour card drive away from Manali. The journey was expected to be a steep downhill journey with very narrow roads.

10:45 AM – We stop at a Hill Shawl factory. Perfect time to do some shopping and make best use of it to impress your mother and if you are lucky enough your girlfriend as well. One guy is married and the rest of us have never had any luck in the later department, so we just decided to impress our mothers so that she chooses the best one for us.

When it comes to shopping, I usually end up deciding on the items within few minutes of entering the shop and very much the same pattern repeated today as well. Since, others were taking far too much time to complete their shopping; I took a walk across the road to be near the river. My stomach was beginning to give me lot more problems than I had imagined. I rested myself against a rock and prayed to God to keep me fit n fine as it was a long day ahead.

Nature has its own set of paradoxes and one such was right there in front of my eyes. The river water was gushing down the stream in full flow making loud noise and yet it was calm all around, so serene, so peaceful. I wonder how the nature manages to create it. And as I was sitting in such surrounding, a thought struck my mind. Why do we drink or consume alcohol? Because all that we remember are things which have made us cry/sad at some point of time in our life. There was another afterthought however. Was this one of my serious reflections or my stomach hangover which was giving me such thoughts?

12:00 PM – We reach a temple site called Vaishnavi temple, still some distance away from Manikaran. I could not figure out much about the significance of this temple but it had some really beautiful wooden carvings. We finished the darshan in quick time; I drank a bottle of Fanta followed by a bottle of Limca and we started again.

1:45 PM – We still have not reached Manikaran and have halted at some point in between. The driver is having lunch, Shweta is munching peanuts and everyone else is busy clicking photographs and I am sitting inside the car (blame my upset/hangover suffering stomach)

2:15 PM – The driver is still having his lunch, the gang is still clicking the picture and I am still sitting inside the car. The status quo has been maintained except Shweta who within the past half n hour has graduated from munching peanuts to munching chocolates.

We had planned that we would return back to our hotel from Manikaran by 4PM that however now looks a far distant possibility.

3:15 PM – We reach Manikaran and what a nature’s site this place is. Manikaran is famous for a hot water spring in between the icy cold waters of river Beas and some wonderful landscapes. It is a famous pilgrimage centre for both Hindus and Sikhs.

According to a Hindu belief, Lord Shiva and Parvati spend 11,00 years here and once when Parvati lost her mani into the river, Lord Shiva instructed his attendants to retrieve the same. Their failure to do so led Lord Shiva to open his third eye and Sheshnag was requested to pacify the lord. It is believed that he hissed so strongly that the water spread over the entire area resulting in the appearance of the mani. However, the hiss gave rise to the boiling water.

According to a Sikh belief, Guru Nanak Dev visited the place and once it happened that he and his disciples had no fire to cook the food. Guru Nanak Dev then lifted a rock and a hot water spring appeared. This is also a reason why one can find a number of devotees cooking rice in the hot water spring as it is considered pious.

to be contd................

My Travelogues - Day 3 contd

1:00 PM: Amidst a heavy traffic, we manage to reach Solan valley just before the lunch time. Since all of us were full with our last dose of maggi, we decided to head straight towards the Shiv temple. It was a long 3 KM stretch up the hill. There was also a strong temptation to do some horse riding up the strenuous slope but the enthusiasm in all of us refused to die down and we all geared ourselves for some adventurous trekking. However, just before we began the journey, everyone suddenly decided to do away with the astronaut type suits which we were wearing. A logical reason being the difficult trek ahead and the suits along with the boots might make the journey difficult. I am yet to figure out but some devil in Shikha and me stopped us from doing what the others did. Our logic, it might just be too cold and windy up there. But I guess sometimes it is better to be a bit dillogical as Shikha and I found out by being the slowest to cover the entire journey and also ending up with few rashes and very tired legs.

2:00 PM: The trek was simply amazing. There was some sunshine during the early parts of the journey. The mountains at the back were full of snow and with sun throwing its yellow light on them; it formed a perfect picturesque moment. We could see helicopters at regular intervals ferrying the visitors up till the Rohtang Pass. At the front were another set of mountains, much darker than the ones behind us. In between them, was the free flowing Beas River with crystal clear water. We were trekking along the river, stopped at many a places and posed for some wonderful set of pictures.

By 2PM we had reached the point from where we could clearly see the shiv temple. It was nothing short of another testimony of God’s existence. The water was flowing down continuously from the waterfall above and it formed a shivling like formation at the site where the temple was located. It was freezing cold here and barefoot darshan of the temple was a spine chilling experience.

On our way back, we settle down for a lunch at a small restaurant located right in the middle of the valley. Mountains all around, river by your side, hot maggi and 6 friends. Ah! What a life.

5:00PM: As soon as we came down from the Shiv temple, we were once again trekking to do some paragliding. Thankfully, this time Shikha and I had got some sense into us and we got ourselves free from the extra and unnecessary baggage at the very first opportunity. Low wind and low visibility could have proved to be a dampener to our paragliding experience. And as we were moving up to the spot, there were people who were coming back disappointed, regular phone calls were exchanged between us to confirm whether the show is still on or not. In the middle of all the confusion, poor Shikha refused to go up any further and she went back along with Chetan. The rest of us somehow managed to reach the top and got ready for the next airy adventure. By the time I reached the spot (yes, I was late again. Blame my astronaut suit which made me really tired), Nitin and Shweta had already descended down.

When my turn came, I was given a heavy dose of instructions of Dos and Donts. The two incidents before me where people fell down and hurt themselves as they could not lift their machine up made me wonder if this is the first and the last time I am going to fly. I prayed to God, “I don’t want to die a bachelor”. All I heard from the instructor was RUN. As soon as I heard the word, I obeyed the same in a true army style and just started running. People were shouting “Well Done! Well Done!”, I could see one on my right clapping as well. I ran with even more power and as the next few seconds unfolded, I realized that there was no ground below me. I was still making the run like movements with my legs, but nothing below me. It took another few seconds before I felt like I was really flying. With mild wind blowing past me, brushing through my hairs and sun setting far off in the mountains, it was a ride through the heaven. And just as I was beginning to enjoy it, I received another set of instructions from the pilot to make some adjustments to my leg position. We were sailing down. It sent down another set of shivers through my spine. One moment, I felt we were going to crash into the hut and another moment we were heading straight towards a tree. But I guess the pilot behind me was an expert and he manoeuvred the machine perfectly for a safe and a sound landing.

7:00PM: It was really dark by now and we headed our journey back to the hotel. In between Shweta’s challenge to run down to the hotel (which eventually none of us accepted), we had our dinner, explored the option of a night out but eventually decided to spend the night in cheating Shweta to the game of Monopoly.