Pre paid taxis are available outside the Dharamshala airport.
'the cottage' is the name of our hotel. The balcony has a lovely view. 1500/- charges.
It is a steep walk anywhere..up and down. One can always take a break to absorb the sight and sounds.
4th Oct. Morning walk and breakfast at alt cafe. We placed our order almost 45 min ago..no sight of it 😊
Put me in my right surroundings and you wont hear a peep from me.
4th oct we travelled from dharamkot up to gallu temple on a very rough Rocky car drive..by a handsome guy manu. From there we had to walk for an hour to reach the training venue.
I was not part of the training.I just tagged along for a break. We hired porters to carry luggage. Felt bad. They charge 300 rs. The car drive was 400 rs.
Me and srikanth had a cute cottage to our selves while the rest of the trainees stayed in Bear cottage at the training venue. Separate accomodation for men and women.All together we were 9 of us. Our hosts were Felicitaz a german and her partner,Jacob Urban +a viennese.
Trainers Kimbereley Moyle, Rafiq and his two assistants Zubair and Dilshad. Since i am not part of the training i clicked photos of them and fetched tea, snacks, lunch and dinner from top to bottom and vice versa. I lost considerable weight trudging up and down. But slept really well all the days.
no
Today is the second last day and i woke up early at 4 to click pics of the full moon.
On the the penultimate day it rained heavily all night. It was really a show of thunder and lightning through the glass ceiling. But the morning was clear and we had a clear view of snow capped mountain from Jacob's (pronounced yakoob) cottage. Oh so happy to have experienced mist, sunshine, thunderstorm and clear skies all in one day.
On the last day after walking from the cottage to gallu temple and then an exhilarating drive down to Mc leod ganj in the open jeep belonging to and driven by Jacob.
We visited H H Dalai Lama's temple, tibet museum the parliament house,and did a bit of shopping. All the trainees were like family members. 3 of them left in the night. Smitha Maiyya - namma bengaluru, Suresh Nair, a keralite settled in -benares, Madhuri Maheshwari - pune, Graziela and Eva from France , but currently based in Pune
This morning i.e. 13th Oct we said good bye to Lomesh Pathak- Vadodara. And the kid of the training Ovia- a 22 year old from Hosur, Tamil Nadu.
Most of them are architects. Eva from france is a teacher, Suresh Nair an artist, Srikanth into Sustainable living and Lomesh into restoration and reconstructiom of old heritage structures. Felt good to hear them talk. All are well versed and knowledgeable in their respective fields. Felt glad that they included and tolerated me 😀❤️
The viral fever last month had sapped me of energy and was quite unsure of my mountain travel. It was on Srikanth's encouragement i undertook this trip. I found i could walk an elevation of 2250 mtrs with ease and that is indeed a feat and i am mighty proud of myself.
I enjoyed this trip Immensely..
though we had to be very careful in usage of water and not much civilization around us except our hosts, ourselves, three dogs (Kia, Ayesha & Timur), 3 horses (whom i befriended feeding them over-ripe dates), 3 household help Sudarshana who cooked with the assistance of Bicky and Kulwant) 1 cow 1 calf (urmila)..😀. They are almost self sufficient. Essential household items are ordered below at Naddi village and brought up on the horse. We went twice to this village. Climbing down is easy. 😀
I am fully charged now. I needed this break very much
