The Youth Hostel movement was started by a German school teacher back in 1909. The movement has grown to be a worldwide phenomenon from the time of its formation. Today we have an Indian chapter of Youth Hostel Association supported by Ministry of Youth Affairs. They run trekking programs all over India throughout the year. Some of these treks are tough and some of them manageable. They also organize a 3 day trek from Dalhousie to Chamba in the month of December every year. The trek involves walking in snow and a little bit of climbing.
But for us, it all started during the unforgettable trip to Kahoj and we were hooked to trekking. It was back in September when Mathew brought up the idea of trekking in Dalhousie. He had already discussed in office with his friend, Taj who had decided to go. I guess it was somewhere in October that we finally booked on the YHAI Himalayan Winter Trekking 2008-09. We were ready when we booked the tickets on the Swaraj Express.
The website said 3 days of prodding through snow. I was a little skeptical of walking through snow. The distance per day was minimum 8 Kilometers. I had suffered and enjoyed Kahoj but three days of Kahoj like trek? Was I prepared?
I did try to get some exercise by cycling a month before the trek. Time and more of laziness made me skip some exercise. Here I was on 31 December 2008, panting after a three floor climb to my office getting ready for 1300 feet climb up to a snowy mountain. Looked quite difficult if not impossible.
As the day for departure came near, we got ready with last minute packing. Medicine, warm clothes, camera, camera chargers and we were ready to go. The train was scheduled on the 1st day of the new year and thankfully was from Borivali. The checklist had become bigger and the bag heavier. I was just imagining what it would be like to climb the tall steep mountains with this heavy bag on my back.
The train journey was to take us more than 30 hours to reach Chakki Bank, then 4Km to Pathankot. We would then travel to see Dharamshala and then finally to Dalhousie to report on 3rd January at the base camp.
But the best laid plans can fail and we realized that when the train was more than 6 hours late. Dharamshala was certainly out of question for want of time. There was nothing to see in Pathankot and there were nothing interesting near Pathankot. The only option was to reach Dalhousie and report to the base camp.
We would have started for Dalhousie if I hadn’t heard Marathi in a restaurant of Pathankot. When we were having dinner of tasty Tandoori Chicken in Pathankot, I heard a couple of voice behind us speaking in Marathi and I did what every Indian does when he hears his/her language in a far away land;
I turn around and talked to the person. It turned out that he was working there since last two years. He suggested we visit Amritsar which was one and a half hour from Pathankot. It was already 9:00 PM and we were tired from the 36 hours journey but the idea of not wasting another day in Pathankot made us walk and find a vehicle for hire.
It turned out that Amritsar was almost 3 hours from Pathankot. After searching 2-3 shops we finalized one Tata Sumo which promised us to start the jpurney at at 8:00 AM the next morning. We planned to travel to Amritsar, visit the Golden temple and Jalianwala Baug and then come back to Pathankot and take the same Sumo to Dalhousie.
We did start the journey on time the next day. This was the last day when I actually had a bath. I would have the next bath 5 days later in the same room.
Full2 Faltu 