A Snap Decision
I have not been able to come up with a rational explanation as to why I refused to explore the beauty of mountains of North India for almost five years (since I moved to Delhi). But one afternoon, I decided it was time because my mom was in Delhi and I had told her I could drive her to Jaipur.
But for some reason I was lazy and did not find the motivation to drive to a place I had already explored twice.
This reminded me of a travel invite I had received from a friend who had started a side hustle around travel. I gave him a call to check if there was something on offer. He said that his group was going on a bike ride to Kanatal and Tehri Dam during the weekend. Though it was a kind of an out of the box idea he said I could come along in my car.
It was supposed to be a 8 hour drive. My mind froze at the prospect of driving that long and it didn’t make sense as the distance was almost 310 kilometres. But I made a snap decision after seeing some pics of the destination.
3 AM Drive to Ghaziabad
I thought I could get a haircut on Friday evening as my hair had turned quite messy. But then my restless mom couldn’t stay at home. To make things worse, she had washed my running shoes, which I had planned to carry to the mountains (and maybe go for a run there).
Now that I had agreed to wake up at 3 AM, I wanted to sleep early. But my mom decided to visit the NGMA on a rainy day with heavy traffic. Again, the thought of driving an hour from Saket to India Gate to pick her up on the eve of a long trip froze my mind again. I decided to stop near a cafe in Panchsheel and ordered a cab for her.
In spite of this innovation, I could sleep only at 11 am. The four hour sleep and the foggy roads of a winter morning should’ve scared me. But I knew that I had signed up for something and the deed had to be done.
That morning, I received a call from my friend. He said that he would be dropping out due to a family emergency. Now, I was travelling with a group I didn’t know to a destination that was completely obscure. Amazing.
Climbing the Top
It made metaphorical sense. You can quickly cover a flat terrain with wide and almost decent roads even if the visibility is kinda low. But going to the top is a curvy path ridden with a host of twists and turns. I can say this only with a gap of two weeks between the trip and the writing.
I was sleep deprived and nicotine deprived. My system was running on Redbull and caffeine. On top of this, the step in biker leader misled me on a flyover and I had to drive the wrong way for 500 metres on a flyover near Haridwar.
He promised some scenic route, but I missed the group as they were driving in 80 kmph range while I was in the 70 kmph range, thanks to unexpected potholes on the highway.
Eventually we parted ways near Haridwar when the climb began. I must say the drive up to Kanatal was scenic nevertheless. There is a strangely deceptive phenomenon after an hour of driving. Though you’re effectively gaining altitude, sometimes you feel that you’re losing altitude. I made some chai stops on the way. Eventually around 11 am I finally reached the hotel.
The bikers too met me around the same time after whatever scenic detour they had taken. After 8 and half hours on the road, I had finally gained confidence as a mountain region driver. The toughest part was parking. The last kilometre was the narrowest and scariest.
A couple of times I thought I would make some stupid mistake and fall off. But I didn’t. If the bikers didn’t keep pushing me inwards, I would probably not have entered that narrow stretch.
A View to Remember
When I finally entered the room, I felt — wow, this is the kind of a room I’d bring my hot girlfriend on a winter morning. But unfortunately, I didn’t have one (as of two weeks ago) and I was with my travel-paglu mom.
TBH, I had very little expectations from the accommodation or the whole trip. I had signed up to just divert my mom’s attention from a Jaipur road trip.
After this I had to drive two more hours to Tehri Jheel and back. The water sport activities there were kinda OK but not mind-blowing. I asked my mom if the whole water sport thing was underwhelming.
She said “It’s fine, I still like the views around here”. My mom kinda liked the boat ride and used her poor photography skills to click some pics. It seemed that she was having a good time. Suddenly she became obsessed with vegetable, fruit and ginger sellers for some strange reason. I didn’t stop on the narrow roads as we drove back to the room (and it was getting darker).
Parking Trauma
Going into a 10 foot drop parking area near the peak of mountains had given me trauma. Pulling out the car from the same trench had brought my balls to my throat TBH. Since it was dark by the time returned, I had made up my mind to not park in that resort trench.
Instead, I did something that was kinda stressful but not scary. I parked on the main road connecting Chamba and Kanatal, 800 metres from the resort.
To top of the tension and worry surrounding the decision, I had not carried my thick jacket to survive the 11-12 degree temperature. I rattled and prayed that nothing would happen to my car for the next 12-14 hours.
I had decided that we would fuck off from this beautiful place at 8 am. Parking issues and poor packing decisions spoiled my mood.
The Drive Back to Delhi
Climbing down from the top was much easier as I was now a newly christened mountain driver. I drove with great finesse and confidence. By 8.30 am I was in Rishikesh. My mom started a new tantrum mentioning that I had promised to stay back in Rishikesh and Haridwar because of my leaves on Monday and Tuesday.
Like a hypocrite, I just reversed my previous statements (which were mentioned as possibilities but not promises). I was getting a bit irritable because of the parking trauma. I just wanted to go home and lay on my own bed.
By 2 PM on Sunday, I was back in CR Park and finally, I stepped out for a haircut that I had planned to get on Friday night.