Beautiful little Kasol. Review on Kasol

Anand and I leave Delhi at 5 am on Friday morning and head for Chandigarh, 250 km from Delhi. Our steed is a Hyundai Santro - a 1100 cc, 63 ps machine. The roads in Punjab are narrow but well maintained, and we breeze across at a steady 110 kph. We stop at a dhaba for a filling breakfast made up of paneer and alu paranthas, lassi and chai (Rs. 90). We meet Devinder and Megha in Mohali, guzzle down some tea, grab and ipod with a radio reciever so it plays in the car stereo. Devinder (who else) gets us to Kasol, 300 km into the hills.

The journey uphill is interesting at times- ask for beer at the booze shops in the hills and you are offered hakke bakke, which is the same as Hacke Beck beer. We reach at 7 pm. Total driving time from Delhi to Kasol can take around 12 hours. Manikaran is 3 km from Kasol. Ideally one can take a room in Kasol, drive up to Manikaran and get back. We stay at Sandhya Kasol inn - 400 per day. It's quite a job looking for rooms here since most of the hotels give them out to Isreali tourists who stay for a good 2-3 months, which means better business, compared to Indians who would stay for no more than 2-3 days.

Kasol is mainly a tourist location, with hotels, shops and bakeries. There are just a few 'homes' in sight! In the morning, we walk downside of town, across the Kasol bridge and back, where we find a cove along the river. Here we cool our beers in the cold river; holding it with stones. I give Anand some mud therapy since he needs it the most. We spend the day as wandering connoisseurs from one restaurant to another, sampling the pastas, mashed patatoes, apple juice, bruschettas and popping in olives all day long. A filling, wholesome meal- Breakfast or dinner, for 4 people averages at Rs. 450.

Our appetites do overtime in Kasol so this is surely an upper limit! The next day we walk uphill into the forest, where we trek for a good 2 km till we are far away from any sights or sounds of civilization. The river is more narrow here with rapids. Here we cool our beers and cross the side which is quite a workout since the current is strong enough to carry one off.

We doze off for a while in the beautiful forest and then head back.We make it a point to carry back all our junk- empty beer bottles and plastic bags to the hotel. The common mode of transportation here is the Royal Enfield Bullet. I have a field day clicking pictures of modified bikes. The drive from Aut to Pandoh is breath-taking. The eight kilometre stretch is an awesome setting of cool breeze, a beautiful landscape and a well maintained road. We reach back home on Monday night. It's Wednesday and the God-crafted landscape is still in my head.