It is always inspiring for me to travel a lot mostly in plains and i hate travelling in the hills. in the hills i always feel a kind of guidiness which i get used to dislike.
It was a sudden plan which united seven persons for a tour to manali, himachal pradesh. I was so surprised that it took just two to plan and execute the whole programme. Friends include gopi sir, prakash, sanmugasundaram, dharmarajan, karunakaran and berliner.
it was saturday (31-1-2009), the date next to my ars interview we, the seven, were starting to manali in chevrolet tavera. we started from Delhi at 7 o clock in the evening, stopped in four places for refreshments(plus in one place for me to prevent vomiting) and reached there at 10 o clock in the morning next day (1-2-2009). On the way it was really exciting to see the marvellous landscape which the nature made at its best, after 2 hours travel from the punjab border. most of the one hour travel before we reach our destination Katrain, where one of the research centres of IARI is located, the road runs parallel to the river Beas which adds further beauty in the backdrop of high himalayas. After we reached katrain, took some time to fresh up and visited naggar, south of Manali, at 4 o clock in the evening , . At Naggar we found structures made of rocks, stones and wood carvings. It brought in front of eyes the culture of HP. We visited first the Roerich Russian Art Gallery with beautiful and mskillfully made paintings with attractive colours. Modern painters must salute the work as these were made mainly by the natural colours Roerich had collected from the plants and trees found around this area.
Then we headed towards the wooden castle. There some of us ignored the importance of the structure as it was not marvellous except it was made purely of wood. Still we had 2 hr time to complete that day and when asked about the place to be completed on that day one pointed to go southwards to view the dense forest. I was much interested in this for trekking. The forest was much dense with the pine and deadar trees.All started trekking. Here and there, few slipped because of soil wetness at that time and balanced well with our own and with the help of the gigantic trees. These made a good banquet for the cameras we took. After continuing for more than one hour our legs tried to spoke to us hard. And we returned to the starting point through the same way.
It was a splendid moment for all of us. Downside of the hill few ss,kk,ber and me tasted the river Beas water. It tasted so sweet than the so called purified water available in the world market. With lots of snaps on the way we reached to our resting place exactly at 8.10 pm. As we were tired, we went to bed to welcome the next day earlier.
Initially we had planned for Rohtang pass and the way didnt allow us as it was blocked because of heavy snow. the contingency plan made us to divert to solang valley, 13 km north west of Manali. en route, top of mountains totally covered with a silvery patch gives the aesthetic look. In solang valley we hired a trainer for iceskating. though it was costly its worth it. All for us except gopi and prakash this was the first war with snow and the war ended in happiness.
on the advice of we made the travel more comfortable with sweetful discussions than otherwise.
