Road trip to ‘Chamba’

After a long planning to go ‘Dharamsala’ this weekend to witness two IPL matches, the plan was screwed by a small system error while making the payment for tickets through ICICI gateway. After a long period, fortunately, IPL management returned the amount deducted honestly. With our screwed up plan, we (me and Tarun) decided to visit Chamba. And we started our journey early in the morning Yesterday. After a ride of six hours through one of the most dangerous roads I have ever seen, we reached the dreamland called ‘Chamba’. The first thing we did there was sleeping. We slept like dogs (though dogs never sleep like that) all the day.

The morning (today morning) was windy and pleasant with some clouds hovering around the hills. Despite the weather, we enjoyed a bath on one of the silent and shallow banks of Ravi for about an hour and again started our journey back with two of our friends (Sandy and Baikunth). But this time via a different route. We went to the famous Khajjiar Lake. Fortunately, we were able to view the great Kailash Range from a view-point, even with the cloudy sky. The beauty of the place is beyond words, so I will not try to use dead words from my dictionary to describe it. Only thing I must say about it is “Shimle ni basna, Kasauli ni basna; Chambe jana Zaroooooooooor”.

The place and surroundings were so tranquilizing that we forgot about the journey we had ahead of us and ignored the weather, which was now turning into rain. As the drops started showering, it reminded me of our state of affairs. We had no jackets, no sweatshirts, no woolen clothes and no time to stay there either. Therefore, we had to come back so we said bye to Sandy and baikunth and started the ride. The road went through the wild life sanctuary, so there was no shelter where we could wait for the rain to stop and keep ourselves dry in the cold weather. After a few minutes of heavy rain, it became chilling cold. I felt the numbness in my hands and feet. I wished that if we could find a fireplace there in Lakkadmandi, which was about fifteen kilometers away. For our fortune, just a few hundred meters behind Lakkadmandi I saw some PWD workers sitting around a fire. I smiled and pulled the disk brake with my shivering hands. Thanks to Himachal Government, for paying these people for clearing roads and helping people like us. We dried our wet clothes and charged ourselves up for the long journey ahead. After smoking a cigarette, I got back to the bike and we started again; by then the rain was also stopped.

Lakkadmandi was the topmost point our journey (about 2500mts above sea level). As we crossed the place, a down slope of about eighty kilometers followed. The route went through beautiful Dalhousie. It is worth mentioning that it is a point that showcases the bird eye view of the enormous Ranjit Sagar Lake.

Though we did not have the time to stay there, we enjoyed the views from roads only. I am now thankful to the system error that ruined our plan to watch IPL and made a platform for this road trip. The trip went adventurous and happening with so many good and bad things, I am not able to mention all of those. However, the worst part of it was that we did not have camera. The second worst thing is its aftermath (our paining butts).