Backpacking to Chalal & Kasol-Parvati Valley

 I am damn serious of setting up my travel blog professionally and here comes my scribbles on our recent backpacking trip to Parvati Valley, Himachal Pradesh. Thank God my friend, who was supposed to this trip solo last year, missed it and so we tagged along with him this time. I will give him all the credit for his research and time invested in doing the research. Anyway, he has always been a very serious & studious fellow.So eventually I have determined that I won’t squander money anymore on some weekend getaways near Mumbai when I have more or less explored most of the beaches in Maharashtra (Maharashtra has unclean beaches except Ganpatiphule and Tarkarli), and also I have 2 days off for Diwali so scheduled of going somewhere in Northern India (I have been in a Himalayan hangover ever since we returned from the mind-boggling Kashmir & Ladakh expedition. It was my 1^st visit to any Himalayan region (yes I have never been to Darjeeling or Sikkim despite being a native from Kolkata, West Bengal). Usually the 2 days off for Diwali luckily falls on a Thursday and a Friday every year so if you take 3 days leave you get 9 days off including the previous week Saturday & Sunday.We left on a Friday evening for Delhi on Yuva Express from Bandra Terminus so that we reach Hazrat Nizamuddin (New Delhi) by morning, spend the whole day in Delhi and then leave for Barshaini via Bhuntar, Himachal Pradesh in the evening (at 6.40 pm) from ISBT Kashmere Gate. The programme was more or less this when we departed from Bombay. But after spending the whole night sitting upright on Yuva Express, we were bereft of a sound sleep and our bodies were hungry/thirsty for a good sleep. So I thought of editing the programme a little bit & called up my friend who lives in Kaushambi so that we could get fresh and get ample rest till evening at their place. We reached Hazrat Nizammudin the next morning at approx. 10 am, took a taxi and reached my friend’s place by 11 am. We were dead exhausted, drained off of our enthusiasm and what not. After a good hot bath and sumptuous lunch prepared by the newlywed couple, the irresistibly beguiling & seductive bed was already summoning to me “come to the bed my love, you need this bed, and this bed needs you”. I had a contented sleep; my nerves, my eyes were pacified & ready for the upcoming week of backpacking to Parvati Valley.We left Kaushambi in an Ola (shouldn’t have taken it, Delhi Metro was a far superior option), got stuck in the traffic for nearly half an hour just before ISNT Kashmere Gate (yes, got a glimpse of Delhi traffic too besides Mumbai traffic). We reached ISBT Kashmere Gate pretty much before time. Ours was a semi-deluxe Himachal Pradesh State Transport bus (we were fretting what “semi-deluxe” meant before we actually saw the bus, thanks to our past experience of chair-car seating in the Yuva Express). We didn’t contemplate that we would be in for a pleasant surprise when we boarded the semi-deluxe bus. The seats were quite comfortable and it could be bent backwards during sleeping. The bus was supposed to leave at 6.40 pm but it got late by 10 mins. Finally we hit the road but the bus got gridlocked in another nasty Delhi traffic for about another half an hour. The conductor switched off the lights inside the bus and everybody fell asleep (the seats were super comfy). At about 11.30 pm -12 midnight, the lights were switched on and the bus had halted for dinner. We had a simple Punjabi dinner (chhole bature and lassi) as we didn’t want to upset our bellies so soon. The dinner halt was for a good 40 mins, hence we didn’t have to hurry. After the dinner, the bus driver started his NFS tactics and we shut our eyes trusting our lives with him. My sleep got interrupted due to a steep bend, opened my eyes to see the silhouettes of the Pir-Panjal Himalayan range in the darkness with the Beas River flowing in the gorge along the road. It was quite cold inside the bus in spite of all the windows and the door being closed. I covered myself fully with my newly bought Pashmina shawl (from Kashmir) and fell asleep again only to wake up at about 8.20 am, when we reached Kullu Bus Stand/Depot. Now we could have got down at Bhuntar and boarded the bus for Barshaini from there but we went to Kullu as we wanted to make our return journey a bit more comfortable & also reach Delhi a bit earlier (instead of traveling the whole day on a Saturday and also our train was scheduled to leave on the same day in the evening so it would be an extremely hectic journey all the way from Kullu to Delhi and back to Mumbai). Since it was a Diwali week, online portal was closed for booking tickets on the day of Diwali (Friday) so the conductor suggested to get tickets directly from the Bus Stand, Kullu. But the person sitting at the ticket counter informed one cannot buy tickets in advance, hence we need to buy the ticket on the same day. We were disheartened a bit, nonetheless we boarded a bus till Bhuntar (it’s just half an hour bus journey from Kullu) and reached just in time to get a bus leaving for Barshaini.

Barshaini-Manikaran-Kullu bus route

The bus journey was quite exhilarating while we crossed an iron bridge over the confluence of Beas & Parvati river, took some stimulating sharp bends, waved to the ever-smiling and fulfilled village folks, halted while a flock of slow-moving goats waltzed by giving a damn to their surroundings while the Parvati River is flowing incessantly in the deep ravine on one side of the road. Finally we reached Kasol (mini Israel as many travelers have named this place) at about 11.10-11.30 am (forgot the exact time)

Pahalgam, J & K, India

Here comes my scribbles on our 3rd day of the itinerary. So early morning we were all fresh and ready for our Pahalgam sojourn. We had a pretty good breakfast, Kashmiri Kahwa/Green Tea and asked them to prepare authentic Mutton Pulao for our dinner the next day we return back to Srinagar. I had planned a night stay at Pahalgam as it would have been tiring & hectic to return on the same day from there after sight-seeing there. Our hotel name was Green Height at Pahalgam. Now here let me give you a piece of advice- we did not check beforehand the location of the hotel at Pahalgam and that was, well, I won't say a “drawback" sort of but yes, owing to the existing situation there at that time, we should have checked the location of the hotel beforehand. I’ll elaborate on this later in this post.

Lidder River

Now we left pretty early as Pahalgam is approx. 3 hours journey from Srinagar via Awantipora and Anantnag and reached our hotel by 11.30-12-ish. We were mesmerised by the view from the hotel and the silence all around and immediately fell in love with the location. 

Hotel Green Height, Pahalgam

But the hotel was not “inside” Pahalgam but 10 km before “main” Pahalagam. Anyway, we were not aware of this. We took the best rooms in the hotel, dumped our luggage and left immediately for sight-seeing at Pahalgam.

On our way to Pahalgam from Hotel Green Height

There was stringent security check at the entrance of Pahalgam as it was the season of Amarnath Temple Yatra and just 5 days before, there was a terrorist attack on a yatri bus hurting some pilgrims. We reached the Pahalgam Club Garden, opposite Pahalgam Police Department and our driver had his acquaintances who owned horses (this time they had beautiful, majestic horses unlike the mules in Gulmarg). Now here, we were duped again as we did not see the riding charges as determined by Jammu & Kashmir Tourism board (INR 350 approx for the 1^st 2 hours and then INR 250/300 per subsequent hour for the horse ride). Those fellows charged us INR 2200/person upfront and they didn’t even give us any place for bargaining as it was more or less monopolised. Nonetheless, we really were excited for Pahalgam hence we acceded to their demands and off we went to Baisaran and Kashmir Valley (here we committed another mistake when they said that due to Yatra season Chandanwari, Aru Valley & Betaab Valley are closed. We should have confirmed this from the local police station- will describe later why I said this).

Top 5 Things to Do in and around Agra

It was Mark Twain who rightly said, “There are two kinds of people in this, one who have seen the Taj Mahal and the other who haven't.” But Agra is not just famous for the Taj, the magnificent marble monument which is very aptly one of the seventh wonders of the world.

Gulmarg, Jammu and Kashmir, India

The following spot in our itinerary was Gulmarg, located in a western direction from Srinagar and takes approximately 2 hours to reach. Now again we drove across certain locales where we could see the open hostility of the denizens and defiance to the Indian army and Indian administration- spray paintings, slogans like "India Go Back", "Azadi", "We Want Freedom" and so much more along these lines. We tried scrutinizing why there is such unrest amongst the people here, why are they hell bent in destroying such a beautiful place- a place which God indeed has moulded with all the time in his hands. Anyway after driving on Srinagar Baramulla road for nearly 1 hour we reached the bifurcation where going left would take us to Gulmarg while the right goes to Baramulla (another disturbed region which came into limelight again a few months back when the army of our respected neighboring country Pakistan attacked the villagers at Uri and killed many). We continued on the Srinagar Gulmarg road for another 1 hour approx. and finally reached the foothills of Gulmarg- a place named Tangmarg where our Kashmiri guide Ghulam made a deal with one his known people (who owns horses) to give all of us a ride to the end of the cable car stoppage and back to the base. We were unfortunate enough to miss the cable car ride as a few weeks earlier there had been an ill-fated mishap where a whole family from Delhi lost their lives when their cable car crashed into the deep valleys in Gulmarg. Hence the cable car services had been stopped.

On Srinagar Gulmarg Road

Gulmarg from Tangmarg

On the way to Gulmarg

We reached Gulmarg by our Innova but during winter, travelers need to climb up on horses only as the road from Tangmarg till Gulmarg is heavily covered with snow. There, mules (NOT horses) were waiting for us to take us to the top point where the cable car too goes.

Srinagar, J & K, India

So eventually my most coveted itinerary in the list of travel plans have been effectuated and we arrived at Srinagar via Delhi on 15th July 2017. We boarded the Jet Airways flight from CSIA Terminal 2 and was to have a halt of 40 minutes at Delhi which nightmarish-ly turned into a 2 hour halt as some flight of Jet Airways was delayed at Delhi airport and the blokes in that flight were supposed to get onto our flight (Delhi to Srinagar). There were a few heated discussions with the flight captain, the crew and some other passengers regarding compensation blah blah blah. I won't deny that I was equally annoyed but my % of happiness was more as I would be cut off from my office, corporate politics and their nagging Whatsapp messages. :)

So we were supposed to reach Srinagar at around 12 noon and then our agenda was to have a quick lunch and go for local Srinagar sight seeing. Our guide and driver were there to receive us with a brand new Toyota Innova at Srinagar International Airport and off we went through the narrow yet clean streets of Srinagar manned heavily with army personnel every few meters. Many of all our relatives, acquaintances were skeptical and alarmed when they became of our travel destination owing to the continuous disruptions and brawls. We could sense and see the intensity of animosity and revulsion in the region- wall posters, spray paintings etc. The Kashmiris were looking at us as if we were Jovians. We faced an awful traffic on Abdullah Bridge on the Jhelum River as it is quite narrow. Finally we reached the famed restaurant & had a sumptuous lunch including Kashmiri Wazwan- Tabak Maaz, Gushtaba, Rogan Josh, Sheekh, Korma, Pulao at Mughal Darbar Bakery and Restaurant.

Kashmiri Wazwan

On our way to Nishat Bagh along the Dal Lake, Srinagar, J  K, India

Moti

It was quite late on that night when we returned from Viviana Mall Thane after my birthday celebration. I cannot overfeed myself and hence we had to parcel our dinner leftovers from the restaurant (honey garlic chicken probably). When I alighted from our car, he was standing there, looking at me wagging his tail. I have seen him many times near our cluster with the other stray dogs, playing and enjoying. At that moment (and from my past experiences), I knew we would never have the packed honey garlic chicken and it would occupy a small, discarded corner of the fridge & then after a week or so it would find its rightful place in the garbage bin. So I opened the lid of the parcelled food and offered it to him. He glanced at the food and then at me and proceeded to satiate his hunger.