“Have you ever been to Paradise?” You might now think, “What sort of question is that?” Oh well, never mind if you have not visited paradise. Because I am going to take you to one such place.
Everyone has his or her own sense and meaning of this word. For me, it’s a place where I can see the mountain top, where I can pick up the snow and play with it, where I can hear the birds chirping, where I can feel the cool breeze touching my face, where I can feel clouds so close to me. Yes, that is my Paradise!
And I have been absolutely lucky to visit this place called CHAKRATA in Uttarakhand which is no less than paradise. You might have heard of it or maybe not (like me).
“Yaar बर्फ पे जाने का mann है” one of my colleagues said. “You know me, I never say NO!”
And we convinced around 10 to 11 of our colleagues, checked at the hotel about the weather of the place and the plan was final. This is how I ended up going to this beautiful hill station. It was 13th Dec’2019; 3 cars, 11 people, some booze, and we were off! We left from Gurgaon around 3 P.M. In the afternoon and were almost halfway around 1 A.M. at midnight. What a night it was! The roads were covered with snow and only our vehicles were moving on these roads. All of us got highly excited after seeing the snow and took a break in between. Parked the cars, played some music, and grooved on the beats. Haha! It was so much fun!
After 30 mins of snow fun, we rushed up to our final destination, Chakrata…Yayyyyy! That night nobody wished to sleep despite being tired. After all, we were on holiday! And who sleeps on holidays?
14th Dec’2019
The next morning was lovely with so much snow everywhere. P.s. I am an over-excited kid by the name of Snow. We freshened up and decided to leave for exploring the place. So, here’s a list of places to visit in Chakrata which we made:
1. The very famous Tiger Falls
2. The historic Budher Caves
3. An unexplored beauty Kimona Falls
4. The picturesque Deoban
5. The highest peak in Chakrata Chilmiri Neck
As we had just a day and a half, we wanted to cover some of the most famous spots. The roads were blocked due to heavy snowfall that led us to cover only The Tiger Falls. We could not touch any other spot. Never mind, at least we witnessed lots and lots of snow!
On our way to Tiger Falls, we stopped somewhere in between just to have some playtime. “कभी बर्फ पर लेटो, गिरो, snowman बनाओ, उसका अलग ही मज़ा होता है ” This is exactly what we did!
And the next destination was Tiger Falls. By the way, if you are thinking that you’ll reach very easily, let me tell you “इतना आसान नहीं है Babu Bhaiya”. We trekked down for around 30 mins and finally “मेहनत का फल मीठा था ”. It was so refreshing. The force of the waterfall was strong. So strong, that all my clothes were wet, LOL. It was lovely, indeed. We chilled for a while and then trekked up for another 30 mins (most tiring thing). Finally, we reached the top. Everyone was so tired that we sipped some Chai and had Pahadi Maggie – This is mandatoryyy! What else did I do? Hmmm, I played with the big man over there, my favorite Doggo hehe..!!
We drove back to our hotel as it was already late. And you know during winters, it gets dark early, especially in the mountains. As we reached our hotel, we all were in a party mood. So, the hotel guy arranged some born fire for us. I love chilly nights, born fire, and doing crazy things around it. Some were chit-chatting, some were dancing, some were singing (oops), some were drinking (thand bht thi, by god), and some were simply enjoying the whole “वातावरण” Post dinner, the group got smaller; I was a part of that small group. We were high on energy, we danced, we talked the whole night and finally in the morning around 4 or 5 went off to sleep.
And it was 15th Dec, time to say bye to this little paradise!
So, if you are ever stuck while searching for a weekend getaway – VISIT CHAKRATA! I would recommend visiting in the month of March when it has neither summers nor winters. At least you can EXPLORE the place.
As I always say, “With every trip, I evolve!” This time also, I learned many things. I learned about time management, about how important it is doing research, never visit a place at its peak (peak of snowfall) because you cannot explore much then. Most importantly, be prepared for anything and everything!
“Let’s wander in the places we have never been to!”
Happy Reading!
