To Heaven And Back

Got some free time on a long weekend. Was thinking what the wife and I could do. Anyways, I met Ashit (my childhood best friend) in the evening and he told me that he and his friends from office were going to a place called the Himalayan Trout House (HTH), in Tirthan Valley, Himachal Pradesh, near Kullu. It is a little over 500 Km from Delhi. So it was decided that the we would drive down there on Saturday early in the morning.

There was one little snag though, we can't leave Ginnie, our one year old Labrador behind. So I talked to Christopher, the person running the HTH, and asked if I could bring her along. Thankfully he said OK, though he warned me of his three dogs (much needed). So the deal was sealed and we left Delhi at about 5 in the morning. Definitely a good decision as we crossed the Delhi border in just half an hour.

This was my first 200+ Km drive in my Aveo Uva and it proved to be worth every penny I spent on the car. Our first stop was just outside Chandigarh (which we reached in less than 3 hours). We stopped at a Dhaba for tea and Ginnie enjoyed running around and getting herself dirty. The dhaba owner was friendly towards her, so we just let her be.

With a couple of more stops (mainly for Ginnie) we continued. We made the mistake of taking NH 21A instead of NH 21 to Bilaspur. Even though it is a National Highway, it is in a very bad state. Plus, it adds at least 50 Km of extra hill way. Anyways, we continued and finally reached our destination comfortably, thanks to the guidance of MapmyIndia website :), and a little help from Ashit once we were on the state highway.

We were greeted by Thumki (an eight year old Lhasa) and Ready (a two year old mountain dog) pouncing on Ginnie. Thankfully Krishwa (the four year old alpha male) was tied up. However, the two later became good friends with Ginnie.

The first day we just lazed around, and yeah, had the most delicious trouts ever! In spite of my wife being a Bengali, I have not been able to get myself to appreciate fish. The heavenly trout changed everything (I even had Macher-Jhol-Bhat with Aloo and all a couple of days back)! The next day we went trekking to a waterfall. Nice short trek and a beautiful waterfall. We were the only ones there, along with Thumki and our guide, Deepak. Ginnie had a blast jumping into the water and splashing around, and of course getting dirtier in the mud :).

After getting back, we went trout fishing. Christopher arranged for the licenses and fishing rods. We didn't go for angling as we were short on time, though I'd like to try it out some time soon.

Oh! I forgot to mention Kabir, Chirstopher's son, who is one of the cutest kids I've seen. Full of life and energy. When we were leaving the next morning, he refused to come and see us :).

After clearing up the last remains of trout from the Himalayan Trout House (of course Ashit was a big contributor to this) we were ready to leave. We had to wait till about 2 for the pouring rain to stop, for no good. Finally we decided to move or else we won't make it to office the next morning. And battling the pouring rain, the countless trucks and the dimming light, we managed to get back to Delhi at about 2 at night. A lovely weekend to a place I'd like to go again sometime.