meanwhile....a beautiful lady with curly dark brown hair straight out of a loreal paris advert occupied the seat next to me. she saw me fidgeting in my seat looking at those guys and she asked "hey. do you want to sit with your friend there? (referring to dh) ". i stared at her for a moment before realising how transparent i must have been. i laughed....i was like "no umm.....i mean yeah we had different tickets so...anyway..." she smiled. and we talked ....she was Leena...from Morocco....had a great conversation with her. the significance of this conversation was....that i found out she was travelling through India and the world. ALONE. thats the keyword. i mean here i was, feeling like some great heroic person setting out on my own...and i met her, she's been doing that since long....that too, i consider it brave, for her to be travelling alone in India like that! unfortunately my country doesnt have the best image for foriegn tourists especially single ladies. but she calmly shared her experiences with me and told me what to do when and how to behave.....
she and i laughed and talked for about an hour or more....and then the bus stopped for dinner. some local small place....and i introduced the guys to Leena and we all became a bus-freinds-group for dinner. we ordered 3 different vegetables but they all tasted the same. so the basic gravy remained unchanged and gravy+paneer became a paneer veggie, gravy+tomatoes and peas became another veggie. etc. YUCKY....and the bread they gave with that. i would have needed wolverine's steel claws to break that.
so after the not-so-good dinner i watched again as Leena pulled out a cigarette and calmly smoked. erm. not used to the sight of a girl smoking. thats when i .....felt like. the kinda person you are at heart, your character etc is totally unrelated to whether you smoke/drink or not.....i dont judge people by that....its just that its a matter of choice.....i dont want to smoke/drink, so i wont. but the people who do....are not "bad" in any way....:)
well then as we were sleeping....Leena moved to dh's seat and i asked him to sit with me! awesome fun, talking all night...and the bus ride was CRAZY, we were climbing the "ghats" with hairpin turns and loops, with thunder, lightening and stormy weather outside. at one point i thought we wouldnt make it and the bus would topple off the cliff. dh sat calmly besides me and again, ordered not to look out of the window atall...
and we talked away into the night....finally sleeping for some time before the bus came to a halt at Bhuntar...a town near Kasol where our base camp was supposedly situated.
we got off the bus on a rain-washed sloping road....and the small town of Bhuntar which was still sleeping at such an early hour. a lone tea-stall was open, with the man there arranging chairs outside and putting a dirty kettle to boil...looking at the four of us. another man came up to us and tried making a deal for a taxi to take us to kasol base camp. i guess he must be used to seeing people with huge rucksacs coming to Bhuntar for trekking....smart guy, offering a taxi option. okay well Hari could not speak hindi...so dh negotiated with the man....telling him off about the preposterous amout of money he was asking for.
finally the deal was done, we huddled up inside the vehicle with our bags and we were off....to Kasol. the mountain road seemed dangerous, but the driver played some good trance music and drove calmly....while i clutched at my seat, again with images of the vehicle swerving off the cliff and all of us dying. and yeah listening to these people conversing in Tamil! ....i couldnt understand anything..and each time they were sweet enough to translate all back in English...( hahahha except when they didnt want to"boys talk" they said, and just gave me a cheesy smile and said " oh, he just said you are very very beautiful nishma" and i rolled my eyes ) this was to be the routine sentence for the next few days. when they had some unspeakable talk in tamil they didnt want me to know it was always about "you are very beautiful, nish" ...hahhahahahha crazy guys....love them all.
wait. we're still in the vehicle to Kasol. and Hari amused me with his meticulous planning. i mean that guy had read everything about everything through google and more people's ratings...done so much groundwork and ALSO....(drumrolls please) had a GPS equipment with him!! i mean! he was the male version of monica-geller (F.R.I.E.N.D.S) only crazier, and more caring! :)
finally we reached Kasol....there was a chill in the air. i have read a bit about Kasol. its famous for weed....actually. the maximum marijuana plantations in India are found in the Parvati valley....headquarters Kasol.....i could see so many foriegners moving around, thin and pimp-like. so many of them on Royal Enfield bikes....tattoos and peircings on them....babes looking unnaturally beautiful....but with cigarettes in hand..
so many people with dreadlocks and wig-like punk hairstyles thronged the streets in sharp contrast from the local people who looked greasy, mountainy (is that a word?) and simple. people of himachal pradesh are really simple, never cheat you and always ready to help.
i saw small time shops..wine shops, bakeries, shops for non vegetarian food, momo shops, isolated shops for internet and travel and tourism.
then the banner "Youth Hostels Association of India welcomes you to base camp Kasol"...and i caught the first view of the beautiful campsite....between mountains on a plain, cozy and full of tents and a small building for washplaces and water....amazing. so this was where it was all to begin really. the last place where we would have proper washrooms and running water. the camp at least height. the camp which would feel like a luxury home after we would ascend further to higher camps.
okay so i couldnt share a tent with guys, ofcourse, so my first thought was i would have to find some girls on my group. we went to the makeshift reception tent and submitted out identity and forms. filled forms and got i.d cards....which would be stamped at every successive campsite.
got allotted tent numbers and i left the guys to proceed towards my tent hoping to find some like-minded girls and avoid cat-fights. i laughed at that kind of thinking....cat fights? hahahahaha....well so a 30 something lady was in the tent! she was going to trek with us too....manju ! and surekha...and pravina...and teju and rasika....pooja, harshal, ramya, chetna and maneesha...all so vibrant, different and fun.... introductions and all...and then i missed my guys already.
we fell into a sort of routine....i was mostly with my gang. we went to have a look around Kasol market...ate at this amazing restaurant ANYONE GOING THERE SHOULD TRY --- "EVERGREEN restaurant" its highly recommended by me. GREAT food....great ambience...we had fun there four of us. kidding around as usual....and then back to base camp. the first day was for rest and relaxation.....and getting used to the climate there....
we parted after the night time bournvita drink---a routine for all campsites. and then campfire (without real fire) ....where we met previous groups that had returned after completing the SAR PASS expedition.
and met some of our group people that had reported.
xoxo
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