Malvika's Ramblings

Kasol ~ Himalayas

Just back from Kasol..

Israeli hippie Hangout..in northern India.

Imagine a town along one straight road. If you look down the road you can see the winding path leading to the town. If you see up the road, you always see snowy mountain peaks like a fixed view. It’s like a calendar in your room that was never flipped. A frozen frozen pretty view.

If you are looking for mountains and not much to do, Kasol is the place to go to. It falls on the Kullu Manali route with a mini detour at Bhunter.

 

I went by car for a change. It was a comfortable 13 hour journey from Delhi. Kasol is majorly an Israeli adda. I was told that all Israeli youngsters get fucked up with army life and just crash at Kasol to reclaim life. The restaurants, very Indian by name – “Bhoj Restaurant” are exotic places with Israeli cuisine – Lafa, Bureka and Ziva. Yummylicious new grub for me. I am seriously tired of the dal makhni, shahi paneer, mixed veg, jeera pulao and tandoori roti/nan and a variety of murky koftas in Dilli menus. Neither am I won over by sweet lil ventures like Mrs.Kaur’s cookies.

 

Back from a moonlight walk, we crossed a shop called ‘Cookie Wala’. Unfortunately, the place was closed. We didn’t realize how audible our groans of disappointment were until a short fellow in large boots pushed up the shutter of the shop with a flourish (the shop stood above eye level) and proclaimed loudly “Hello Friends! Want a cookie?” So that’s how we got to know the cookie wala, or Dinesh. He sold only one kind of a cookie.

We went on a long trek with CookieWala who offered to be a guide. Finally, the route we took – an unbeaten and untrodden track (or so we thought) was not known to him and together, we were soon discovering unstable bridges, hot water springs, trees and rocks in weird shapes like the face of a man screaming or gnarled fingers reaching out.

White water rafting was a dream. Nothing very rough and exhilarating like the Rishikesh rafting, which I did when Ganga was in full spate, but quite a nice experience with a dreamboat of a rafting instructor.

There is a smattering of places to stay at in Kasol - Yerpa, Alpine, Krishna, Sandhya hotels. You can safely reach there at night and book a room for Rs 300 to 600.

On a trip to Kasol, you may like to add a few other places to your plan; such as –

• Manikaran (walking distance; maniacally beautiful with religious hoopla; bright colours and flags; bridges and wind; hot sulphur springs)
• Rafting from Pirdi (short distance away from Kasol. Its a 14 km rafting trip covered in 1 hour)
• National Park in the area
• Kullu (scenic beauty)
• Manali (scenic beauty; it also leads to the snowy Rohtang pass - a ski-ing destination. Rohtang means 'a pile of dead bodies'. The name comes from the explorers and adventurers, ppl like you and me, who get lost in the snow, die and freeze all winter, only to be discovered, in piles, when the snow thaws in summer)
• Visit to Russian painter Roerich’s house (quaint cottage, paintings of the mountains in different moods; an other-world feeling in a cottage once inhabited by generations of Russians with stuffy clothes and long beards; one of them married the Indian actress Devika Rani.)

I spent short of Rs 6K on everything (shopping included) in a trip from Saturday 4:00 a.m to Tuesday 4:00 a.m.

Chill- um!