Rupin Pass Himalayan Trek

Why do you have to trek? It's dangerous! Why can't you just be a "normal 34 yr old mom"!!!
Why?
Because when the mountains call, one has to go...

Cliché?? yet so very True!!

For me, it's not about boasting, or any summit fever or trying to prove something. It's all about the mountains, and how just being surrounded by them fills me with euphoria. It's like meditation - away from everything worldly, away from even the thoughts of the day to day life, away from everything pretentious. Just so close to nature, so close to pure beauty, that it fills you up with simple yet profound happiness. And when you come back to the "real" world, you come back to the same world you left behind, to the world you belong to, and yet something has changed, and that makes a whole lot of difference.

Arunachal

My love for the mountains took me to Arunachal this time. One of the best thing of travelling to north east is that its not yet commercialized [barring few cities]. And you will find a pristine land, close to nature full of warm people, who still preserve their culture, know their roots and find happiness in simplicity.

I was planning the usual Tezpur to Tawang route. This is the most famous route done in Arunachal, Tawang being the largest monastery in India and second largest in the world. I still intend to return to Arunachal and visit this awe inspiring monastery someday. But for now, I stumbled upon an offbeat and exciting itinerary, just on time.

Hampi - A slice of our history!

Hampi – the former capital of Vijayanagara empire of 1500 AD. It was a very prosperous and huge city in its time and currently is a very important world heritage site situated in Karnataka, India.

Have always been interested in history and have been wanting to go to Hampi since a very long time. But it’s a sunny hot place, so winter months, is when one should go. This Jan, finally a plan to visit Hampi over the long weekend, got finalized in a very impromptu manner with few of my friends. It was 6 of us ( 3 from Bangalore and 3 from Pune Mumbai ) who reached Hospet early Sat morning, via overnight sleeper buses. From Hospet, its barely 15 kms to Hampi. As soon as we entered Hampi, we felt transformed to another era itself. The boulders and rocks strewn across, the ancient ruins scattered here and there, the whole atmosphere took us back in time. This being a long weekend, accommodation was little hard to find and we managed to get rooms on the other side of the Viruppapura Gaddi Tungabhadra river. Very basic but with a good relaxed view.

Time to Head back: Anuradhapura to Colombo to Pune

We woke up quite fresh today, after a comfortable ten hours sleep. A long day was lined up for us - first a train to Colombo, then 2 flights to Mumbai and then by road till Pune. 

For once we didn't have an early start. We got up at 7, had breakfast of eggs bread and fruits. Our train to Colombo was at 10:20. Surprisingly the first class reserved wasn't air conditioned, I mean the third class reserved to Ella was much better. Maybe they have special trains running on that route, considering that it is popular amongst both locals and foreigners. Journey was hot initially, but it got cooler as we headed south. It had been raining in Colombo

Anuradhapura

We wanted to be at Anuradhapura well on time to be able to see the ruins on the same day, as again we had only one day to reach there and see the place. Even with an early start, we could only get a 7 Am private bus, as that was the first bus and the first direct government bus was at 9:45. We boarded the private bus and waited - It was going to be a slowwww and long ride. It was barely 120 or so kms and straight roads, but still we reached only by 11. What I liked was, before the journey started, the bus did a parikrama of one of the temples there in Trinchomalee. This was something unusual, first I thought wow the driver is taking us from near the temple, and we got darshan sitting in bus itself. Next moment I realized he was actually doing a parikrama. Nice !

Roaming around in Trinchomallee

Kinda confused - what to do next day? The famous Pigeon Island seemed to be a costly deal (3000 lkr per head) and I wasn't too keen on doing snorkelling here, having done that at one of the best places, Lakshwadeep. So we decided on going to Trinchomallee instead - see Ford Fedrick, and Swami rock. Heat was a bummer, but we still headed out with our umbrellas. We took the local bus till Trincho and then walked till Fort F and above towards Swami rock, where a Shiv temple is. Hot hot!! By the way, one can see deer here, like we see dogs in our city - just roaming around.

Reached Uppuveli

Again an early start today - We left by 6 for the bus station and soon got a bus to Habarna. An hours journey and we were there. However then we had to wait for almost an hour before the next bus. Overall journey was fine. We reached Trinchomalee/Uppuveli homestay by 10. Here also it was quite hot. We stayed indoors during the day. 

At Habarna - As we wait for the connecting bus to Trinchomalee

The homestay had a very nice sit out, where we sat most of the time and had our meals too. Today was one day, when we had all proper meals - bread eggs for breakfast, chicken fried rice [seemed like the first tasty meal in Srilanka] for lunch and chicken noodles for dinner [not so good, turned out to be sevai instead of noodles].

A day in Polonnaruwa

Got the early morning Government red bus to Polonnaruwa – again very cheap. The local transport is extremely cheap here and in relation to this, food is very expensive. Journey was overall fine with some local songs being played in the bus [ Many of them had same tune as Bollywood songs]

We reached Polonnaruwa in 3 hours and were at our homestay by 10. It looked deserted, we kept knocking and ringing the bell, and finally even yelling "hello anybody there", but in vain. We spotted one more house adjacent to this one in the same compound with door opened. Could recognize it from the pictures I had seen in airbnb. Again this was deserted - We looked for any note our host might have left, but nothing. We were contemplating going to some neighbour house and requesting them to make a phone call to our host. Thankfully just then the mother of our host came in. She couldn't speak English, but we got directed to our room.

A day in Kandy

Thankfully a nice sunny morning [ After yesterday’s heavy rain, we are going to be equipped with umbrellas just in case ]

After breakfast, we first headed to the Tooth temple. Walking along the Kandy Lake we reached a point, from where looking in the direction of the city, we saw the giant Buddha statue on top of a hill, which so symbolizes Kandy.

Next to Kandy Lake

Our train was at 6:40 am, but we were up since 4. In fact I had barely slept, as Ishu wasn't comfortable, kept getting up for water (she hadn't eaten anything since lunch). Finally she puked water somewhere around 4. We cleaned and washed. Forced her to eat one biscuit, finally she slept. I was very worried at this point, cuz she wasn't eating at all.

We finally left at 6, walked till the station & waited for our train - Its such a small quaint station. Train was kinda empty till Nuwara Eliya and we took in the passing scenery once again. We took a more positive approach with Ishu - Played with her, gave her banana one bite at a time. She slept a lot too and seemed to be getting better. In Nuwara Eliya, coach completely filled up - Few students with some musical instruments sat next to us. They sang and played music for almost the entire journey till Kandy.