A Journey to Cherish - The Himalayas

I had never been to such long journey for a whole week’s trip… In fact many of us in our traveler gang had never been to such a long tour. Most of us are new to New Delhi. The flight travel had its own exciting experience.. Reminded of the Nala Thamayanthi Movie flight scene of Madhavan when Air-hostess explained about the floaters.  Reminded of Santhanam’s parachute comedy too though they didn’t say a word about parachute.. Our gang took lot of pictures inside the flight with no less excitement and made the onlookers obviously understand that it was our maiden flight experience…

On our arrival to Delhi Airport, we met our driver who don’t speak to us much unless it is really necessary.. Probably due to the language problem..

Each day had its own enthralling experience.. Be it the people in our travel gang or the beautiful places that conjured the ‘WOWs’ and ‘Awesomes’. Our narrow minds will naturally become very generous after the visit of mighty and elegant Himalayan Mountains. 

During our journey on/towards Rohtang pass which is in very altitude, I ‘m able to see the path to heaven from earth. The clouds have formed in such a way that at one point at the top, a glowing lush white mist in the background of sun’s rays, a seeming heaven, that extended to other lower clouds down, which eventually grounded towards earth.. The scene is tough to explain by words. Unless one witness that by their eyes, they cannot understand what I describe. They are all instant formation by the strolling Mist Gods, in the mere backdrop of valleys, Passes and Mountains.

Next comes our life time experience- the trek in the Himalayas, which according to me was a Himalayan task before the trekking expedition. Though I had been to small trekking expeditions before, this seemed to be rather tough, perhaps because of the name it holds (Pera ketala chumma athiruthulla!), or may be because the view of the high altitude mountains.

We had two options. Trek or Horse ride. Formerly I chose the latter. But Later I chose the former which is the Trek.

Somehow I managed to join the alpha team which was advancing towards the altitudes. Hands went numb in the cold. Dusts like snow were visible in the air.  Breathing was absolutely heavy. Taking pics with our hands wrapped with gloves was a real tough thing, as chilling and shivering effect was there. Still we didn’t give up. As and when we spot a nice location we started posing for the photos, as they were life time cherishing events for sure. yes. Absolutely true.. We reached the top, beyond which a deep ridge was seen. So we stood in the end, to witness the amazing show of the mountain facades there.. The mist played hide and seek with us, sometimes reluctant to show the wonderful view of the yellow flower valleys.  (‘Vaamma Minnal’ madhiri cycle gap la pathuka vandiyathuthan!) For few seconds the mist cleared, and allowed us to experience the Marvelous Beauty..

Once while climbing down, we didn’t expect a Huge mountain standing closely beside us. Mist again covered the view totally, suddenly leaving its way for us to feel the bliss and darshan of the mightiness and extraordinaire.

The card games, and dumb charades added to our fun. Our Food menu mostly had Rotis and Parathas and sandwiches with less or no rice. Yet it was a different experience to live with North Indian diet for few days. I should mention about the language. It was fun to hear our own silly Hindi..  It seemed to take a little effort to put on the words and form a meaningful sentence in Hindi, our national language.  It is natural for a French national, whom we interviewed in Manali, to not to know Hindi. And it is natural too, for a south Indian to struggle to speak in Hindi. Unity in Diversity.