Himachal Visit - Some tips and musings

- I had my full trip arranged through Banjara Camps and Resorts. They had done an excellent job of planning the trip. Their web site is http://www.banjaracamps.com

- Himachal is hill country. The moment you enter Himachal from Punjab you have started climbing the mountains. I heard there is some place in Himachal where there are plains but that is supposed to be a very short stretch. So be prepared for a mountain journey. In case you have motion sickness, ensure you consult a doctor and carry the necessary medicines.

- Himachal is cold, especially for us from down south. So pack in lot of woolen wear and also jackets to keep the cold away. You should take your kids along if they are 4 or 5 yrs age or above. One person came with a kid who was around 1 1/2 yr old and he was having a tough time protecting the kid from the cold.

- South Indians must be ready to eat North Indian food as you will not get idli sambar here. The food is delicious though. We had great paratas in roadside dhabas when we were going to Chandigarh from Delhi and also in a small dhaba when we were coming from Tanedar to Kalka. Try the paneer dishes and you will never eat panner again in Bangalore !! It is so fresh out there.

- Food at the Banjara Camps was delicious as well. Especially at Shoja and Sangla. Tanedar has a bit of catching up to do to be on par with the other two. The cook at Sangla tried South Indian dishes but with mixed results. The north indian stuff was fabulous though.

- Take lot of music with you, whether you are going with your kids or not. The driving times could range anywhere from 5 to 9 hrs and having music of your choice will surely help during the trip. So ensure the car you hire has a music system

- You can read again my earlier article in this blog about how best to handle children during long drives. I used all those tricks to keep them busy !! They were playing Dhoom 2 tape most of the time and I almost got to liking a song or two !!!

- There will be some zillion photo opportunities available for you so take lot of memory with you. I am assuming that you are still not using the film camera and have changed to digital. In case you still like film camera, take a lot of film with you. Needless to say, pack your batteries and also your battery charger. The number of photos you can take will be proportional to the patience you have and the effort that you can put in

- Beware that most of the villages that you pass on your way in Himachal are small ones and many a times you may not find a restroom around. So ensure you talk to your car driver and tell him that you will need bio breaks along the way. He will then stop at the hotels which have decent restrooms.

- It is better to plan your full trip before you leave. As I said Banjara Camps people are good at it. Rajesh Ojha, who is a co-founder of Banjara, is an extremely pleasant person and he also has great knowledge of Himalayas, having travelled extensively there. So you are interacting with professionals here and they can tell you which plan would work and which wouldnt. I interacted with a person called Kavita and she was very helpful in planning the trip and was also very prompt in her replies.

- Banjara Camps arranged for my car. The driver was a nice chap called Chaman. He had lots of patience, a great virtue while driving in the hills, and he has seen most of the places so he knew which ones were worth visiting and which ones were not.

- As far as tariff goes, Banjara Camps are comparable to Jungle Lodges rates in Karnataka. Their location, service and food definitely made me feel that I got my money's worth. Of their three locations that I visited, Sangla, Shoja and Tanedar, it is Tanedar which has the normal resort feel. The other two give you a totally different experience altogether.

- What you need to keep in mind is that you will be spending lot more on travel than you would spend on stay and food !! Especially if you are from South India. So try and plan your travel early enough so that you can save a lot on flight fares to Delhi.

- In Himachal, people are probably the fittest anywhere in India. Gayathri pointed out to me that there wasnt anyone there who was fat or obese. Everyone was trim. Must be all the walking that they do !!

- In conclusion all I can say is that when you get time, head for these hills. It is an experience you will never forget. I am just waiting to go to Tabo, Kaza and my dream destination of Ladakh soon.

On the banks of Baspa - The Amazing Sangla Valley

We started from Shoja around 10 o clock after a nice breakfast. The kids were not very happy to leave as they had fallen in love with the place and with the dogs there. We drove through the Jalori Pass, got to the other side and proceeded further. The landscape initially is one of coniferous forests, pines, firs etc. After some time the terrain changes and you start seeing mountains with no trees on them. Only grass grows on them. We saw a charming mountain stream running alongside us and we stopped and wet our feet in this stream. It was a nice experience.

Right from Shoja till we came to this place, there was no river or stream around and I was missing that. Then the stream appeared and after some time we were in the Sutlej Valley. Sutlej appears here and it has a muddy color to it. The crystal clear streams of Tirthan or Baspa, which we would encounter later, it wasnt. I told Gayathri that it could be that the river was flowing over a muddy area which gave it this color. The terrain around it also becomes a bit barren with mountains having nothing on them. The whole area has a muddy look to it. There are a few towns on the shores of Sutlej and we stopped in a town called Rampur for our lunch at a HPTDC hotel. Our driver went off to fix some problem which he had discovered in the Scorpio. He said he would be gone for atleast an hour. We told him that we would have lunch and wait for him. We neednt have worried. The hotel guys served us so slowly that the driver fixed the defect, came back after an hour and waited for us !!!

We started around 2:30 from this place and our progress was OK for the next hour or so. After that we hit a dam site where lot of work was going on. The roads were mud roads and with the traffic around it was difficult to keep the window opened here. It was so dusty that it reminded me of the city !! Around this area is where the Baspa river merges with Sutlej and loses its identity. We had to take a right turn from here in order to get to Sangla. The progress till this place was painfully slow and once we turned right our speed picked up a bit but we got into othe problems !!

The road leading to Sangla is narrow and as I had said earlier all roads here are ghat roads. So there were times when a vehicle would come in front of us and depending on the mood of the drivers, one of them would have to back up so that the other can go thru. We thus played 'pehele aap, pehele aap' with a few vehicles !! On the way we saw a bunch of 'chirus'. These animals are a cross between yak and cow. Initially I thought they were yak but the driver said they werent and upon closer inspection could see there werent yak. We also saw some wild horses. They looked like a cross between horse and donkey !!

We crossed the Sangla town and were going in the direction of another town called Racham. On this road, you need to take a deviation, which goes to your right and downhill and this leads to the Banjara Camps tents which are on the banks of the river Baspa. It was around 7:30pm when we reached here. We were shown our tent. It was a spacious one with three beds in there. They also provided me with an additional mattress as we were four of us. These tents have attached restrooms and also have a water heater. It is a bit cold in the tents compared to a normal room but they give hot water packs to keep yourself warm in the night. Added to it you have a razai and a woolen blanket. So if you cover yourself with a razai and keep the hot water pack next to you, you will end up sweating in the night.

The Banjara Camps at Sangla is located at an outstanding place. The tents are on the banks of the river Baspa. (You neednt worry if the river will overflow and enter your tents !! The tents are at an elevation compared to the river) There is a path which leads to the river. One one side you have the mountains with lot of greenery and on the other side you have black mountains with snow covered peaks. Once in a while these mountains are covered with white fluffly clouds which add to their beauty. All through the night you will hear the gentle murmur of the Baspa river as it glides over the smooth pebbles which lie on its path. You can also see a couple of glaciers and a small village at a distance.

The bonfire was started around 8 o clock and I went to join it. People were playing anthakshari and I started singing some songs that I knew. Anthakshari is a good way to make friends. People are united quickly in music that anything else. If you sing a couple of songs which they like, they tend to like you as well. This had happened in Sikkim last year and it happended here on two nights. Another hint: Sing Kishore Kumar + RD Burman songs and you will be a well liked guy almost immediately !!

In Banjara resorts the food is generally served in a central dining hall, which allows people to interact with each other. During dinner, which was very tasty, I spoke to people who had come from far and wide and realised that most of them have come from the same far and wide place, Mumbai !!! This trend continued for the next couple of days, of people arriving from Mumbai. For a second I felt like a Mumbai duck out of water !!! There was one family from Banglore and they, Sunil and his wife, happened to be close friends of my former boss. As can be expected, we wondered what a small world it was !!!Sunil gave a monkey cap for Gayathri and it proved very useful. Thanks Sunil.

The next day would be the wonderful ride to Chitkul.

Trip to the Land of Mountains - Himachal Pradesh

Shoja - A Naturalist Delight

When I tried switching on the A/C in the Scorpio, it wouldnt work. So tried to down the windows electronically. That wouldnt work either. As there was no mechanical option to down the windows, we were now in a car which had literally become a furnace with the Chandigarh sun blazing fiercely. Not a great start to the journey!!! Our driver managed to find a mechanic, who checked the fuse, realised it was blown and replaced it. We started off at around 10:30 from Chandigarh on the way to Shoja.

We had arrived the earlier day at Delhi from Bangalore. We were met by the driver of our vehicle arranged by Banjara Camps people. He first drove us to Chandigarh, where we halted for the night and had food at a South Indian restaurant which was charging sky high rates !! The plan was to leave by 9 o clock the next morning to this place called Shoja but due to the aforementioned troubles, ended up leaving only around 10:30 am.

The drive was along the road to Kullu. We passed the towns of Bilaspur and Mandi. On this road, instead of taking a left and going into a tunnel towards Kullu, you need to go straight to reach Shoja. The scenery till this point isnt really breathtaking and doesnt prepare you for what lies ahead. Only after we cross this place, Himachal started to slowly reveal itself. We went into the Tirthan Valley. The river was crystal clear and lot of pine trees started appearing. The sun was on the last leg of its descent and the air was slowly cooling down. Around 6:30pm we stopped for some tea and it had become real cold. The air was chill and the cup of hot tea was very welcome. The place where we had tea, was surrounded by mountain ranges filled with pine trees and there was a small mountain stream flowing nearby. After the tea, we proceeded to the Banjara Camps resort at Shoja.

The setting of the resort blew us off and the scenery around the area casually brushed aside the tiredness we were feeling till then. The room we stayed was on a ledge of a mountain. From your verandah, which is covered with glass windows, you have the view of a pine covered mountain opposite to you. You also get a great view of the valley beneath and the snaking road which gets you up. You get to see a whole range of mountains, some of them covered with the coniferous forests, some of them on which some agriculture is taking place, some which have meadows on the top and some of which, at a distance, are snow covered. Gayathri and I, after seeing the place, simultaneously exclaimed, "Lets not do anything. Just lets sit and relax". Shoja will have this sort of impact on you. An extremely calm place, with very less of civilization around, no distractions like TV, this is the best place to be if you want to get away from all the urban sounds !! We did exactly that, which is to relax, on the day we landed. They had a bonfire going and we had some nice soup around the bonfire. After this we proceeded for dinner, which was delicious.

We decided to start the next day leisurely and we implemented the plan. After a leisurely breakfast we set off to a place called Jalori Pass. Preetam, who was our host, drove us there. The drive to Jalori pass was a short one but within those 5 to 10 mins, I could see a variety of trees around. I have no clue of their names but the brouchers mention names like Deodar, Pine, Fir, Cedar etc etc. I am sure all of these were around and lots more !! A naturalist would have died of sheer delight here. Added to this, we also were blessed with cloudy and pleasant weather.

The Jalori pass has nothing great around but you can trek from there to the Servalsar lake. We went to the meadows nearby and saw some shepherds coming down from the mountains with their mountain goats. Looks like these guys dont stay at one place and keep moving to lower altitudes in winter and go the other way during summer. Ranjani and Harini loved the goats and kept touching them. The goats were of a different kind and had a covering of wool quite different from what we would see around here. We took snaps of the shepherds and showed them the photo on the digital camera's display.

On the way back from Jalori pass, we stopped at a place were there was some snow, not lots. Ranjani and Harini played with snow for some time while I took photos of the mountains around. Again I was stunned by the range of trees around and was able to get some shots with trees of different colors in the shot. I am sure this area will be superb during autumn when the leaves change color.

A small distance before the resort is a trail through the pine forest which leads to a waterfall. The trek is supposed to take around 45 mins to 1 hr. We started and went around 500 mts when we saw lightning and heard the thunder. It was quite dark and the prospects of rain were bright, while the weather was not !!! So we decided to head back to the camp. As we were coming back, we encountered two dogs, one of which the kids had seen earlier at the resort and had made friends with. Ranjani and Harini were very thrilled to see these dogs and wanted to get the dogs back in our Scorpio so that they didnt get drenched in the rain. We had to explain to them that dogs took much better care of themselves and knew how to protect themselves from the elements. They half heartedly left the dogs behind and got into the car. As soon as we reached the resort, it started pouring. For once we had made the right decision :)

Had a nice lunch, rested for some time and then Preetam took us for a village walk. By this time some more families had come in and all of us went to this walk together. This walk took us to the village which is adjacent to the Banjara property. The trail we were walking threw up some amazing scenes of beauty around that it would have been very easy to exhaust the memory of your camera in a matter of few minutes. The lush green fields, the garlic plants, the various trees, the setting sun lighting up the mountains beautifully and the charming village. It was a small but memorable walk. The kids in the village were playing cricket with a ball made of thick rubber bands and paper !!! I tried my hand at bowling to a kid. I tried my off spin but the ball wouldnt spin !! Most of the people went back but Preetam, I and another gentleman trekked up a small hill nearby. A steep but a nice climb.

At Shoja, there are quite a few activities that you can indulge in. There is a mountain with meadows on the top offering a 360 degree view of the whole place. This takes around hour and half trek from Jalori pass. Looks like there is a steep climb for around 20 mins to reach the summit. The other option is to trek to the Servalsar lake from Jalori pass. Or trek to the waterfall from the resort itself. Ofcourse there is also the village trek that I spoke about.

When we got to Shoja and to the Banjara Resort, we met Rajesh Ojha, who is the co-founder of Banjara. I can only describe him as a very natural person. He is very casual, knows a lot about the area and is extremely friendly. My daughters took an instant liking to him. He can give you a lot of information about the areas there and also about the Himalayas.

The other thing the kids love here are the dogs that keep coming in. Lot of them seem to be some sort of sheep dogs. They belong to someone in the village but they keep coming to this resort and are extremely friendly. The kids love playing with them and feeding them. My kids were constantly asking for the dogs and when we were about to leave they didnt want to leave till they had said their goodbyes to the dogs.

There was a bonfire that night. The kids enjoyed themselves by playing dumb charades and by feeding the dog, named Johny. (The dog that met us during the trek was called Roney). They also played carroms, which was kept outside the dining room. After a nice dinner, we went to sleep, preparing ourselves for the drive to Sangla the next day.