Sunday, June 9, 2019

Day 3 : Diaries from Summer Vacation 2019

We took an awesome and memorable 10 day road trip (17th May 2019 - 27th May 2019) from Chandigarh to Amritsar via Himachal Pradesh. These are the notes taken every night from that vacation. I will publish them one day at a time for the next 10 days. 

19th May 2019 Day 3 :



We got up a bit late and hungry . So after finishing 3 parathas and a sandwich, we started for Kullu via Prashar lake.


However, Reyansh had a thorn in his feet, and we wanted to buy a forcep to get rid of the thorn. However today was Loksabha voting day in this region so most medical stores were closed. as we drove past a few closed stores, we saw a hospital and decided to visit the emergency room. The doctor and the staff were very helpful and removed the thorn. Jury is still out on if the doctor managed to remove the thorn or not. I believe he did and Richa says that she can still see the thorn. Reyansh is not complaining of pain. So we need to recheck tomorrow. 



We started our drive towards Prashar lake. As we were driving, the fact that Himalaya is a range of mountains dawned upon me, once gain after 11 years. For Richa and Reyansh it was a first experience, where you climb a mountain ... Get down and then climb the next one. Or just when you thought that we are on the peak of a tall mountain...the taller one emerges on the next turn. Himalayas are beautiful and one needs to be focus to avoid any mishaps while driving. 


As we closed in towards the peak of the mountain which hosts Prashar lake, Reyansh had symptoms of motion sickness. Our trip to Yercaud had surfaced this for the first time and we were thankfully better prepared. We gave him medicine and stopped for a quick break which turned out to be lunch break. We had some jeera rice and dal. All 3 of us were full in one portion.   


Finally we were at Prashar lake. It's really a beautiful lake with a temple of Prashar muni and is frequented by the locals who use it as a picnic spot. 


We had a stroll around the lake and then started our drive to Kullu at 2.30 pm. Reyansh fell asleep immediately and we drove in mountains. It was a narrow and curvy road. So we were slow and steady. 


Finally we reached near Kullu by 5.30 PM. we decided to have snacks which turned out to be dinner for me. Richa spoke to the kind lady on  reception who told us that there isn't much to do in Kullu except shopping, rafting and visiting sarabai monastery. We immediately went to Sarabai monastery. We reached there around 6.45 and closing prayers for the day were going on. I spoke to a kid monk, who told us that he is studying in class 5. He wasn't participating in the prayers as it was his year of service. He is supposed to serve all the monks who are praying with tea, snacks etc. for the whole year. He came from Manali to study there. The monastery teaches them sanskrit, english, Hindi and Tibetan . They teach students till class 8th post which he wasn't sure what they do. But be wants to become a big man once he grows up. He visits his parents on his own...whenever he wished ..though he needed to apply leave for it. 


After visiting the monastery we decided to drive to Manali as we felt we still had energy. The road to Manali from Kullu is as good as you get in the plains, you don't feel that you are driving in Himalayas (though you are) and engineers have done a good job on design. However, 10km before Manali we were stuck in a huge Jam. It was adding at least 40 mins of delay. After waiting for 20 mins We decided to make a U turn. Having no plan turned a blessing. We found a hotel 1.5 km behind us. Richa negotiated a 25% discount and we checked in to crash for the night.  




Signing off Day 3

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