I had been long wanting to write about this memorable trip, which I had with seven of my classmates (Amit, Anurag, Divyanshu, Kunal, Manish, Navanidhi and Prabin), in the month of August 2009. But due to my laziness and reasons unknown I was not able to start. Finally the zeal in me has got better of the laziness in me and here I am writing about this trip. Chandratal has been of the better trips of my life. And it was mainly due to the journeymen, the landscapes, the events and the destination. I am about to take you to this wonderful journey of ours.
The eight of us embarked on this journey on 13th Aug’09 in a Quails (I know you would be wondering how nine of us including driver got fit into a single Qualis, but we somehow managed). Each one of us had some personal/official problems behind us and we knew that if we go ahead with the journey then our life may not remain the same. One of us was busy managing the finances of the college; one of us just had his conclave postponed; three of them were fighting hard to save off their relationships; a soul searching was being done by one of the most gifted person to have joined FMS; a wannabe Shakespeare who was bit incongruous at the place. The journeymen couldn’t have been more diverse.
The idea was to reach Manali late in the night, take a break and then start a long journey towards the destination Chandratal Lake. But then they say when you have people so diverse then be ready for any eventualities. The journey got started on a very bad note; first it was the delay from our side (getting all eight people ready is one hell of a task) and then our tire got punctured within the first 5 KM of the journey. This delay plus the opinion of majority to stop at some Dhaba in Muthal for a special parantha threw us way behind our schedule. During the journey all my friends got beer bottles for their enjoyment (1 coke bottle for me). We had a great time pulling each other’s leg, bringing out skeleton from the closet and cracking lots of PJs (some on a country’s GDP and Olympics like stadium). During this time one of my friend was busy fighting to save off his relationship, another was busy building one; one of them giving suggestions on how to allocate funds for the coming events and then there was one thinking ways of getting alternate dates to his conclave. Due to late start and other difficulties we reached Manali only in the morning 6 AM on 14th Aug’09. We didn’t have time but we knew we had to take rest so found a hotel to take break of 2-3 hours. But the required break just got extended a bit; first due to the difficulty in waking up everyone (I have told its one hell of a task), waiting for everyone to get ready and then the sudden disappearance of the driver. While two of us decided to search for the driver, couple of us decided to check on the tents and other items needed for the journey, while the rest as usual decided to take this as an opportunity to extend their nap. During the enquiry we were told that there is no need for tents and we will get the same later. Finally everything fell into place, driver was located, people woken up from their sleep and left for the rest of the journey.
It was around 11 AM, when we started the 2nd leg of the journey. The first half of the journey was to go uphill till Rohtang pass and then go downhill to a place called Chhatru and from there a long narrow stretch of 18-20 KM in a single lane to Chandratal. On paper everything looked perfectly fine but then what is the fun everything goes as per plan. The entire journey from Manali to Chandratal was simply fabulous. But throughout the uphill journey we were accompanied by rainfall and the rain reached its peak while we were atop Rohtang Paas. And boy we had to brave the chill wind and a sudden drop in temperature courtesy the rainfall. We knew we are heading to a region which won’t have people, any sign of vegetation leave alone mobile signal so we had to finish our businesses fast. Made couple of calls to sponsors, one of us tried to save off his relationship, while some were busy eating chips. But just before we entered the no signal range, we got one bad news – one of us had his break-up. As usual others told him that there is nothing to worry upon while the person knew it’s easier said than done because if he was at others place him would have said the same thing. I must tell you something here; the best time for receiving any bad news is just before a memorable trip with your friends because it gives you a chance to forget all your worries by the end of the trip.
The downhill was all narrow and the rain had made the journey more difficult. On the way to Chhatru, we witnessed one of the most unbelievable sights of rainbow. Later one of my friend described the scene as “mesmerizing natural splendour”. Due to rain our journey had been slowed because travelling becomes much more difficult on a mountaineering terrain. Throughout downhill, we were accompanied by a stream of river flowing between the mountains. On the way we witnessed of the better lessons of marketing (selling to be precise) as one old lady asked for a lift to a certain distance. With a long stretch to follow and no vehicle in site we agreed to give lift only to realise that by the time we agreed she had pushed one more old lady into the front seat. And we had to manage with one of us lying on three sitting at the back seat. It stayed on like that till we reached a small house where they got down. We continued our journey and reached Chhatru by dusk. We had to take a decision whether to continue our journey through that difficult terrain towards Chandratal Lake in darkness. By vote of majority we decided against it and we were lucky to have done so as one of the trucks met with an accident and had fallen into the river. The stay at Chhatru was a blessing in disguise for us as we witnessed one of nature’s splendour. Chhatru is a small place with hardly any population (they say it’s 100 but we thought it should be including the travellers who stay there for the night). We got to stay in a place next to the stream of river (which was getting violent in the night) flowing between mountains. The feeling was awesome and the icing on the cake was the bonfire we decided to have in the night. There are always some memories which stay in your life and this was definitely one of them. We decided to stay at one of a very small like place with 10 beds in it. We decided we will continue our journey the next day at 5 AM (which means the task was given to me to wake everyone up).
15th Aug’09 – It was early morning at 4.00 AM I put my alarm so that i could wake everyone up to start our journey. But when you have a bunch of hostellers travelling with you then the task becomes next to impossible. Finally after a repeated trying, they got up to a frustrated, annoyed and shouting me. We started the journey at around 6 AM to celebrate our independence (day) from the rest of the world. And while on the journey we realised how difficult and impossible the journey would have been if we had decided to continue in the night. The whole stretch of 18-20 KM was a so narrow that two vehicles could not pass each other and for doing so, more often than not, one of the vehicles had to go back till it reached a place at the edge of the cliff to let the other vehicle pass through. But the route was just like out of the ‘travel and living’ channel. We braved the difficult terrain sometime overcoming dangerous turns we survived and reached Chandratal Lake. Though I am not a big follower of lakes and I like travelling to mountains and hills but I fell in love with the lake the moment I saw it. We could see the clear reflection of surrounding snow covered mountains. We were so overjoyed seeing the place that we all jumped into the waters and took a dip in an almost near zero freezing water. We took a walk around the whole lake and it took us more than an hour to just complete the round. The mesmerising beauty meant we all posed and took lots of photographs that we lost track of the time. And yes the best part of the journey was that the person who had a break-up was overjoyed with the place he sung ‘I want to break free’ to overcome the emotional atyachar he had faced over the past couple of days. And as I said, the best time for break-ups is when you are leaving for a trip. It was so good to see each one of us happy. We had a true Independence Day celebration because we all were free and were not having any contact with the outside world. We decided to continue our journey back and reach Manali by night because we knew if we are late this time we wouldn’t get a place in the middle of hills.
The journey back was again through those terrains with again fresh round of rains. It was difficult but we knew if could make it once then we will surely make it twice. But due to sudden climate change, drop in temperature meant that couple of us had a fever by the time we reached Rohtang pass. Two of my friend replied to natures call at the top of Rohtang pass. We decided to continue the journey as we didn’t have any option but to reach Manali. To add to the woes, driver had a sudden bout of headache and it was very severe. Inspite of asking him to take rest, he was all charged up and he told he will take rest once he reaches Manali. We reached Manali by 10.00 PM in the night with our mobile signal coming back to haunt our life. We took a hotel for the night stay and decided to go for a late night view of the place. Much to our delight, we met bunch of our classmates eating by the next restaurant. We exchanged our experiences and it was no surprise we had a better time.
16th Aug’09 – Inspite of having an amazing tour, on the way back we decided to extend it further and decided to pursue River rafting in Rishikesh. But then to our bad luck there had been a death reported a day earlier while rafting so all the places were shut down. So we decided to head back to Delhi with just stoppage for dinner and snacks. But during this journey we came to know that another person amongst us also had break-up with his girl friend. One of us got the news that conclave date has been decided for some later day in the next month. There was news that society review has been put for next day and loads of work was pending. And we knew that we are back to this fast paced world where even though we have all the facilities but there is no peace.
