Chitkul (Himachal Pradesh)

This one I wanted to pen down from a very long time and finally I did it !!

This visit was of second time because in first time only, I was so conncetd that when I got a opportunity to go back there... It was an impromptu YES !!

It's was a little rough but one of my best trip because going this far and managing everything by own was one hell great experience.

It was not my solo trip though, a friend was there for accompany. So now I will start without any further jabbering ????????????

It was 5.00 am in the morning when we reached @Tapri (bus stop in Himachal) and it was pleasant and not like usual harsh weather of Himachal, I am saying pleasant because basically I am from Mumbai and being brought up in such humid weather if I could feel the weather as pleasant so I believe anyone, specially from North part of India may enjoy the weather, we took a seat as we had to wait for another hour for next bus to reach Chitkul. (There is no direct bus for chitkul from Delhi)

For my surprise bus was on time though it's a hilly area. We board the bus and it took 4 hours for us to reach Chitkul bus stand (it took little longer than estimated because the road was block due to a huge rock had fell from mountain - the conduct I admired, there were people gathered and just did the needful to clear the road rather than waiting for BRO(Boarder Road Officers) to come and clear it.

There were pre booking in Zostel Chitkul. For the record we didn't do much today as we were too exhausted from a rigorous travelling of more than 26-28 hours (those who have any sort of back problem or no time constraining issue, prefer to take a halt and then resume the trip) so today we just roamed around river side and with the melodious sound of flowing river we slept for a while there, for the rest of the day explored the village area.

(best part about chitkul, you will not find mobile network except BSNL, which is like icing on the cake for us atleast. From sangla district itself you loose the mobile network and you are absolutely disconnected from the social media and other part of world).

Being a very small village which is in complete isolation, there was not much to do by your own but for our luck (as usual, Zostel had planned our whole day activity - It was including glacier view then a trek of 3-4 hours and in the night star gazing).We chose deliberately for trek and when they were doing their stone painting we took an escape to river side and just sat there for whatever time we had)

Our trek started at around 12.00 in the afternoon and it was a one great experience. It was a group of around 8-9 people. We reached to the summit and had a great conversation with our zostel manager who had so many experienceo to share with us. Here more than assending, descending was challenging as the mountain was very stip and it was all mud rather than rocks). We came back around @4.00 pm, had our lunch and went to our dorms and rested for a while. I was just tired and didn't wanted to exhaust my self, so I decided not to go for star gazing and the temperature went to -2°, for which my mind was not ready (when you are in mountains, you should be knowing your body capacity and mental level because just for the sake of doing you can't do things as every activity has its own repercussions). But I heard from my friend, the view and experience was breath taking ????????

We had left nothing much to do, so we had decided to leave but before leaving we went with the group to glacier side - it was at other side of the river. People were enjoying the sliding in the snow. So we just sat there, enjoyed our favorite songs for a while.

Before leaving I wanted to have my last tea @हिन्दुस्तान का आखरी ढाबा ????❤️????❤️. We had a plan to go to kinnaur, kalpa. It's usual in Himachal that many a times buses don't come due to some road blockage. The same thing happened that day as well and we could hear the rumour that bus will not even come next day.

This was an extra ordinary experience for me as I have never did any of such things before - we took a lift from a tempo and it was a task but worth doing it (we were standing in the behind, fighting with the freezy winds), tempo driver dropped us @ local market ahead of chitkul village.

With high hopes we were waiting for a bus there but after enquiry we got to know that no bus has come there as well. So we took another lift and this time we had a really good conversation with those people about how these technologies and modern world is ruining their life and culture.

At sangla bus stop we had really high hopes that we will get bus but no such luck (felt like God was really bored while he was making our itinerary, hence he just added some adventure), so with a struggle of more than an hour we got a lift and he dropped us @karcham bridge. And finally from there we got a bus for kinnaur which took around 2 hours for us to reach kinnaur bus stop. The journey wasn't over yet, we had to took another bus from kinnaur to kalpa.

By the time we reached to kalpa, it was almost dark and we didn't had any energy left to do anything. We checked in to our friend's hotel @Hotel Apple Pie had our dinner and went to bed straight ????????

We got up and went for local breakfast. Later we left for a small hiking till ROGHI village and suicide point. Came back and from there around 4 and left for Shimla by roadways bus ( frequency of buses from kinnaur was there)

Reached Shimla around 8.30-9 pm., Had light dinner and took our bus from Shimla to Delhi.

Cost

Bus - Delhi/Shimla - 2000 approx

Other transport in Himachal - 1500 approx

Food - 1500 approx

Stay - 2200 approx