Come Friday, Will Travel

Another Shot of the Rainbow at Triund

No, I am not going to the hills, but the mere thought that I would travel over the weekend makes me think about rainbows and not trucks.

More Conversations from the Rainbow Day

The Rainbow at Triund, Himachal Pradesh

After I had seen and clicked the rainbow at Triund (must I add till it had almost vanished), I went for a long walk through the meadows. I came back at dusk, slightly cold.

So the fire near the camp was the most inviting place. As soon as the sun goes down, the temperature suddenly drops. Near the fire there were four of us waiting for the dinner. There was a girl from Switzerland, a young lad from the US and the two of us. The boy from the US had been in India for the last 10 months (exiting after 180 days for a visa run to another nearby country like Sri Lanka or Nepal) and had been traveling extensively.

The amount of places he had been to in India, we have not managed to see even a fraction of it. I am, in fact, wondering that if I add all my holidays together taken till date, they may still not add up to a month. What a depressing thought!

So I asked him, "What made you choose India?" He replied, "I was attracted to the ashrams." I asked him hesitantly, "If you don't mind my asking so, did you discuss it with your family or you don't do such a thing?" He smiled, "My parents were really scared, they thought I may never come back." I was wondering if we may ask this one but then Sesha did, "We really don't hold very high opinion of Ashrams." He agreed, "Yes, many of them are a little more commercialized than I thought they would be. But there are a few serious places too. I anyway discovered that I was not really serious about it."

I then asked him, "So how have your journey across India been?" Without blinking he said, "India has taught me patience! I take a lot more things in my stride now"

What do You Sell to the Tourist?

I remember it was the rainbow day at Triund. We were chatting with a young local lad who was studying in Germany and had a tourism business based out of Germany too.

Rainbow at Triund, Above McLeod Ganj, Himachal Pradesh

We were discussing random things, like the trek, the snow at the Indrahar Pass, the changing weather patterns, the shopkeeper at the Snowline and the tourists visiting India. Both of us expressed a deep desire that one day we want to exchange rupees for a lot of foreign currencies so that we could back pack around the world.

Soon the talk turned to the tourists visiting Triund and McLeod Ganj.

Souvenirs for Sale at McLedo Ganj on the Roadside, Himachal Pradesh

A little while back there was one young girl who gave a piece of her mind to the shopkeeper at our camp because she thought she was asked to pay more for a room. The local lad from Germany told me, "Ma'am yahan haans kar aap dhul bhi bech sakte ho" (Ma'am, in these regions if you know how to talk nicely you should even be able to sell the dust). He was not being derogatory, he said it as a matter of fact, no boasting nothing.

More of the Same Rainbow

A Tourist Looking at my Rainbow at Triund, Himachal Pradesh

Colorful Flowers and a Partial Rainbow from Bangalore!

I have been in Bangalore for past few days (Sesha belongs to Bangalore) and I never thought I would take a break from blogging. In this IT city our home was (actually Sesha's parent's home) without a net connection as soon as we landed. Only today we got it back. So here I am showing you some stuff that I photographed.

Flowers from Streets of Bangalore

I love the colors of the flowers I see on the streets, it is not so colorful in Delhi. On the flip side, CNG has made Delhi a lot more liveable, here it is getting too crowded for the size of the roads it has.

Such a Riot of Colorful Flowers

I requested all the ladies selling flowers to let me take a photograph, and they gladly did but I could not gather the nerve to ask if I could include them in the pictures too.

Shades of Oragne: Flowers from Streetside, Bangalore, India

White Flowers

What striking colors! Don't you agree?

A Partial Rainbow in Bangalore

Finally, there was a rainbow (OK, so what even if it was partial?) and I had a camera. I know the surroundings are bleak but the rainbow does not give a damn and neither do I. There were two occasssions when the rainbow had come out in Gurgaon and once I did not had the camera. The next time I didn't notice it at all. And later people told me that there was a rainbow only after it had vanished.

Finally everything worked. I had the camera, there was a rainbow and we were in the car going somewhere. We stopped for petrol and I immediately came out and took pictures and here they are!

Auli: Beautiful Hillstation in Uttaranchal, India

Auli is a picture postcard kind of a place situated in Uttarancahl, India. I went there in the August of 2002, just after submitting my Ph.D. thesis and just before starting my first job that turned out to be an absolute horror. Rainy season, that is July and August are the worst time to visit a hill station in India but we wanted to take a break at that point anyway, so we went to Auli.

One can reach Auli by going to Haridwar and from there taking a bus to Joshimath. The journey from Haridwar to Joshimath takes roughly 12 hours on twisting and bending roads, full of pot holes. We reached Joshimath at eight in the evening and it was raining lightly. I was dead tired and longing for food and rest. We checked into GMVN (Garhwal Viaks Mandal Nigam, a government run property) guest house where the room cost us Rupees 500 for the night. The next day we took the ropeway to Auli.

The GMVN Guesthouse, Auli

We again stayed at the GMVN guest house at Auli and it is one of the most horrible places I have ever stayed in. Nothing wrong with the surrounding as such, you can see from the picture above. But the rooms in the guest house gave such a terrible stench that it was a nightmare trying to fall asleep. We never stay indoors during the day, but still it was the most gloomy and badly maintained hotel room I ever slept in. There were not much option at Auli in 2002, just the GMVN property and one private resort which we thought to be expensive and never even inquired there.

The Meadow called Gurson Bhagyal near Auli

However, one can never find a fault with the place itself. The most remarkable thing we did was to take a 7 kilometer walk with a guide partially through a trek route. Before the beginning of the journey, I was really tired as I had just toiled to submit my thesis and left to my own I would have skipped the walk altogether. But my sane and sensible husband goes completely berserk in hill stations and no trip is complete without one of these walks. In the picture below you can see the meadows, called Gurson Baghyal, which we walked through. We were told that the real view, the snow clapped mountains, were hidden behind the clouds. It rained for part of the way and we reached back to our hotel soaked and dead tired in the evening. I have to add one thing, the cook at the GMVN guesthouse was excellent and we did all justice to the food that night.

Rainbow at Auli

The next few days were spent in roaming about aimlessly in Auli. One day we saw this perfect rainbow and generally walked through fields and flowers, sat on huge stones, my husband philosophical and I generally jumping around.

Ripe Red Apples at Auli

On another day we saw apple trees laden with ripe fruits and we also met too small girls who chatted with us. They used to go to school and were on their way to gather the cows before the evening fell.