Travel Blog - Journey, Stories and Experiences

 "Mountains are calling", "No Network Just This", "Send It To Someone With Whom You Would Like To Visit This Place" are some of the popular reel captions. And in many ways, they are true. Mountains do call you, and you are attracted to them. A video of a beach might not be as appealing as a video of a majestic white mountain, whose peak is hidden by clouds as if they are saying, "Do you think we'll let you see everything from down there? If you want to see the peak climb it!" It has something to it, which is why, I guess, Pandavas traversed these mountains in the search of their final aim rather than thinking about going down south and thinking, let's see where this ground ends, instead of finalising, let's see where this mountain ends. But even Pandavas and other travellers like Guru Gobin Singh kept on moving. They never thought about building a permanent settlement and dying at that place, like we do in our cities. We build our hom...

When you travel, especially alone, you sometimes meet other people who are in the same space as you. What's exciting for me is to think for a second about how we met at the same place. If you think about it, if they are foreigners like me, they might have decided to come to that country, applied for a visa, and booked tickets while I was also doing the same, sitting in my home. They must have thought about going to the same place that day when I decided to go too. Sometimes, they would have other plans, but they got changed, and they arrived at the same location at the same time where I was, or vice versa. It's something I witnessed long back, an account I wrote in the Butterfly Effect blog.  These people stayed with me even after those meetings. I have often found myself telling these stories to my friends, and they have often appreciated it. Some stories, I have never told anyone. Such encounters rarely end up in exchanging numbers, but I still remember all of them, and I wi...

In the last part , as I mentioned, we hurriedly went to the market to buy wool as the clouds were getting darker, and when I looked over the mountain peaks, they looked straight from an alien movie. Harshil Valley had changed many colours since I had arrived. My main motive for visiting the market was to buy original sheep wool from a local house, and my mother had promised she would knit the sweater for me. When we reached there, all the shopkeepers were running to shut their shops to get to their homes before the rain. I was there in November, and it was not a "touristy" time. People just pass through Harshil in the summer months as it falls on the way to Gangotri Dham. The gates had closed in October, and in addition, it was the start of harsh winters that Harshil faces. Half of the locals had already migrated to Uttarkashi and Pauri for the winters, while a few left who were waiting to prune the Apple trees.  The first shop I went into, the woman was in a hurry. It is wor...

It's 5 am in the morning. My mother opens up the gate and two regular dogs arrive waiting for this time to eat their food. One has golden fur, and one has black fur. We have nurtured them since they were only a few months old. I started giving food to the golden boy, and after a few months, he brought his friend. That's how their connection with my home started. Soon, they started spending a big part of their day inside my home, sunbathing in winter, and making sure all the home flies are eliminated from this territory. Soon they regained their health, and their fur got dense. This transformation must not have gotten hidden in their community, and I am sure some of their friends would have asked them, "Where are you getting all the food from?" and they must have replied, "We eat the same food. It is just our body type!" I say so because no other dog visited us with them from their territory. However, this got changed when the black boy became a young father....

 The day when CP and his wife went to hike to Llama top, I had decided to visit Gartang Gali. A trek used in earlier times to trade between India and Tibet. The highlight of this trek was the end, where golden wooden stairs (around 50) end the Indian side and from where the Tibetan side begins. I started for Gartang Gali at around 11 AM, and CP had already left by then. Ishan's mother said that CP and his wife ate separately in the morning. She was happy to see that, although I did not understand why. Before leaving, I asked Ishan whether I would be able to reach Gartang Gali or not. This was because there are no petrol pumps in Harshil. The last petrol pump one will see is in Uttarkashi, around 60-80 km away. My car showed that it can run 270 km, but these readings are never accurate. I had to calculate the distances beforehand. Additionally, once you are outside Harshil, there are no networks. I had to reach Gartang Gali from Harshil Valley the old-school way, remembering the rou...