Gaurav Purwar

After trekking for around 16 km, I remember, we had a wonderful sleep that night. Early in the morning, our guide woke us so that we can climb to the last destination of Kheerganga, the Kund. We pushed ourselves cause we were waiting for it since last evening and we packed a pair of clothes and started to walk. The weather was pretty cold, I guess it was somewhere in between 2°C - 4°C. The place was mostly covered by gray-colored clouds, and the wind was urging them to move ahead. A major factor that was missing on the trip was a clear sky. Yet I could not be focusing on the half-empty part of the story, so I shifted my focus towards the half-filled part. After 10 minutes of climbing on a steep surface, we were in front of the Kund. The Kund is a hot water pool near an ancient shiv temple. And from that place, you have an iconic sight of the valley. After making proper arrangements, we jumped into the Kund. Damn! The moment we entered, time did likely paused and we went idle...

It was the second day of Kasol. We headed to the Kheerganga from our basecamp of Kasol. We took a cab to Barshaini, which is around 16 km from Kasol. Barshaini is an entry point for the Kheerganga trek. We preferred the Kalga trek due to its low steepness. Kalga trek is around 16km long and covered with forest. We took a guide to support take us to Kheerganga. This blog post contains some of the memories and incidents related to this trek. It was 7:00 am, as per expectations MC was the first among us to get up. He announced in Punjabi, “Whoever wants to see the sunrise, get up otherwise I am leaving!”. I remember in the Shimla trip, this guy left us and went alone to see the sunrise. But this time I didn't want to miss, so half-heartedly, I came out of bed. And then we all collected and headed for a suitable place to see the sunrise. We remembered a park near the bridge, but that was closed. Although we tried a few alternatives, nothing worked. After all this, we headed to a br...

Dusk started to cover the Kasol. Stars and the moon were taking their positions. So we decided to return back to our camp from the Jim Morrison Cafe. That day we already spent a lot of time on the streets, so we were familiar with the road and we didn't ask Google aunty to guide us. At night, Kasol was shinning with lights. Although that night, the city was packed with the crowd. While standing there, I was able to feel a different kind of satisfaction. Around me, there were people laughing and hanging with their mates, and the best part everyone was engaged in themselves. A fusion of music with the heavy sound of running water of the Parvati river was breaking the series of silence. Apart from this, a trance music beat was not leaving my head. It was in my head since we left the cafe. I wish, I could gather some courage and asked the cafe staff for the track name, cause I even don't know how to search for music beats on Google. No doubts all cities look amazing at ni...