It was that time of the year when the Himalayan Expeditions are at full swing and I along with my friends, who had met during my trek to Khaliya Top last year, decided to trek one more Himalayan mountain. And we finalized on the Chandrakhani trek in Himachal Pradesh this time. My friends suggested to roam around nearby places before starting the trek so we planned our itinerary accordingly: Reach Kasol two days in advance and explore Kasol & nearby places and then head towards the base camp i.e. Ramsu village for the trek.
I will organize my trek experience details into two posts i.e. this one describing the Kasol and neighborhood and followed by other one describing the actual trek.
Delhi:
The trip started at Delhi where we all met. 5 friends from Mumbai, couple of them from Vadodara and myself from Bengaluru. We had few hours to spend and I took the group to Paranthe gali, Chandni Chowk for lunch and then followed by a stroll at Red Fort. Metro in Delhi is quite convenient and remember to take the Smart card for easy commutation.
We took a HP tourism bus from Delhi to Manali and got down at Bhuntar to reach Kasol. The bus dropped us at Bhuntar in the early hours and then we took another local bus to Kasol. Kasol is base camp for other treks like Sarpass, so there were many other trekkers in the bus along with school kids and locals. I made my group get down one stop earlier to the actual stop near to our hotel where we had booked our rooms. And I made them walk for extra 2.5 KMs with their bags and I am sure hitting me would have crossed their minds :-p. We stayed at Royal Palace and had a very comfortable and pleasant stay. The hotel is situated right in between Kasol and Manikaran, the two famous tourist places around.
Manikaran:
We headed towards Manikaran immediately after getting ready. There are some nice temples at this place where we spent enough time taking photos. We went near the gurudwara, hot springs spot as well and then passed through the local market. The bridge was also a nice spot to click some snaps.
We walked back and then proceeded toward the Kasol market, a full 5 KMs stretch. The market had similar products as what was seen in Manikaran but costlier. And we were surprised to see so many items being sold related to smoking, the hukkas and mixers. Hope you got what I mean ;-)
Food at local places was great. And then we headed back to the hotel calling it a day.
I got up early the next morning for a run in that pleasant weather. And one of my friend ventured out for early morning clicks in the wild. I ran towards Kasol and reached the other end where Youth Hostel Association of India has set up its Sarpass trek base camp. On the way back, I got down the river side and experienced the joy of standing bare feet in that ice cold water. It was a torture as well, as it's difficult to stand for even a minute in that cold water.
Malana village and Tosh were couple of places to be explored and based on our hotel manager's suggestion, we headed towards Malana village in two taxis. Reached the spot in about two hours’ time and there was still a walk/trek of 90 minutes further to reach the village. It's a small village at a good height. Locals claim it to be one of the oldest democracies and if the legends are to be believed, these are the descendants of army men (Aryan?) who made this place their home. This place is also famous for high purity hash, Malana cream ;-), if you are interested to know.
There is a glacier nearby which we couldn't visit due to time constraints and tiredness. We returned to hotel and ended the day with some great fun playing cards.
The next morning the plan was to visit a place called Parashar Lake, Mandi. This place is famous for its location and landscape. And boy! it was beautiful and peaceful, away from all the crowd and chaos. The temple next to the Parashar Lake is situated at the top of a mountain surrounded by bigger mountains and believe me, it was worth the time and effort.
We reached this place after a strenuous 4 hours’ journey from Kasol through Bhuntar and the road was bumpy if not terrible. Came back to Bhuntar from where we headed straight to the Ramsu village, our base camp hiring one more taxi through Manali.
P.S: Read my trek experience here.
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