Narrated by Saurav

 

In 2012, 2 travellers decided to do something which they hadn’t attempted before. This is where it all began. The plan was to do a 3 day alpine style trekking across Hampta pass near Manali (Himachal Pradesh). After a year of planning, re-planning and planning again, the itinerary was all set and the journey was attempted in 2013. The story of that unsuccessful but fun journey, you can read at leh-2013.

The 2 travellers who planed this journey were Akshay and I. However, we both didn’t get to complete the journey as we had planned in 2012. The 2013 attempt was unsuccessful. In 2014 I attempted once again and completed this trek with other friend and sadly Akshay couldn’t attend. In 2015 we had no plans for a trek at all. But the universe had other plans.

So one day in the cafeteria, Akshay tells me that he has taken leave the coming week and has no plans whatsoever. I just blurted jokingly that we could go to Hampta. And lo-behold, the next week we were actually attempting the trek. The trip was planned in the cafeteria in 5 mins on a Monday, leaves applied, tickets booked by Thursday, reached Chandigarh on Monday and trek started on Tuesday.

We started on the most unexpected trek, shared rum in exchange of hot food with shepherds, porters, learned something about their lives, learned something about our mind and bodies, walked through mud, rocks, ice, streams and the most scariest bridge made up of 3 pipes with width of less than a feet, we were finally able to complete the trek the way it was planned originally 3 years ago.