From Chennai to Dalhousie via Delhi!

I had been visiting the Youth Hostel website and the Dalhousie winter trek brochure since quite a few days. I badly needed a break and was wondering if I could somehow make it to the trek amidst my college schedule. I was delighted to see the holiday notification email and began planning and thinking of the trip while people around me were studying hard for the exams. I invited all my friends; Krishna a.k.a. Pabba and Abhishek a.k.a. Abs decided to join me. We did all the bookings (including the trek booking) in tatkal or just in time.

Krishna and I departed from Chennai on the New Year’s Eve just in time for the tamilnadu express. While Krishna survived the train journey eating bread jam, I tried different unhygienic stuff on most of the railway stations! The fog played spoil sport and our train got delayed by 7 hrs. It was moving like a road-roller after Mathura, stopping at every other station where tens and hundreds and thousands of people poured in. Even a 24/7 sleeping kumbhakarna like Krishna couldn’t sleep in the commotion and chaos.


We reached Delhi on 2nd Jan afternoon, where abs was waiting for us. In Delhi, we could never figure out what time of the day it was. It was foggy all over and seemed to be 6 am while it was actually 2 pm. We quickly headed to the Interstate bus terminus and booked our tickets to Dalhousie. Then, we did some woolen-wear shopping from a Tibetan monastery market nearby where I and abs taught Krishna the art of bargaining. Krishna tried his level best but was tricked by the cute little chinki lady salesperson. He also had his dream come true as we satiated our taste buds with a few rounds of Aloo-tikki and chat near the Kashmiri Gate bus terminus before getting into the bus. It was not among the best chats in Delhi, but we had to manage…


My observation about Delhi: It’s the best city in the country when you sit in the underground metro. It is the dirtiest city when you come out of the metro!



True to our reputation, we reached Dalhousie late. Although I had put on all the warm clothing I had, I was shivering like never before. We searched for a while and found the Youth Hostel Building at last.

The first thing we did here was to rush to the restrooms to relieve the pressure accumulated during the overnight bus journey. We missed the early morning warm-up session which I was anyway not interested in. The lady who was our campus leader yelled at Krishna for inadvertently kicking a box full of coal in the tent and dirtying the whole place. Krishna had no regrets as he felt she was very sweet. I and Abs couldn’t agree more!


It was a bit disappointing to see a lot of good looking females in the previous group but none in ours. It was not new to me though. I have always had such experiences. Nevertheless, ours was a diverse  and fun-loving group of 42 from different states of India including Maharashtra, Andhra, Karnataka, Delhi, Jammu, Gujarat etc.


At around 9 am, we started our acclimatization walk in the hills. It was up, down and again up with stunning landscapes, gigantic mountains, dense forests and cunning monkeys.

We took a chai and Maggie halt at Panchpula (meaning five bridges). A monument/Samadhi was built in the memory of freedom fighter and rebel Sardar Ajit Singh, who breathed his last on the Independence Day and in Panchpula. It was quite a long walk for the first day and reached the hostel exactly at lunch time.



What I saw after lunch was something I had never seen.. I'll update about it very soon! Stay tuned...