Scary Stay at Triund

Hi readers, I hope you liked the previous blog which was about Local Sightseeing and Food Trail in Mcleodganj.
This blog is in continuation of the previous one and in this blog, I would share with you all about the most adventurous and scary experience of Triund.

So, after walking and exploring so much the previous day, our Day 2 in Mcleodganj was a lovely morning with cool breeze and view of snow clad mountains.
For our day 2, we planned to trek to Triund.

Triund is a popular trekking destination in Himachal Pradesh. This pleasant hill allures the visitors by its glory and charm.

While at Triund, you can praise the beauty of Dhauladhar Range at one side and Kangra Valley at the other.

Its clean and calm ambiance makes it a perfect relaxation destination.

For the trek, we hired a guide who charged us Rs1000 per person which included our lunch (on the same day), evening snacks, dinner and early morning breakfast along with tea.

Our guide came to our hotel only around 9 am. And around 10 am we started our trek.

As I mentioned earlier that our hotel was in Upper Naddi Valley, so we had to start our trek which had its way from a dense forest.

Basically, there are 2 ways from where you can trek to Triund and ours was through that forest to Gallu Devi Temple and then to Triund and the other one has Shiva Cafe in its way, so if you haven’t been to there, you can plan your trek accordingly.

The total distance from where we started our trek to the base camp was about 8.9 km.

The pathway was through a dense forest and had an amazing view. and how can you forget to have hot and yummy Maggi with the view?

In the way, our guide gave us our lunch which he had brought along for us, it had a banana, munch, vegetable sandwich, apple juice and packet of biscuit.

Somewhere around 12:30 pm, we reached the starting point of Triund trek, where you have to cross a check post.

The person there asks about the number of people going, id card of one of the members of the group and allots a number which you have to get tick marked when you come back from the trek.

And from this point our main journey started, one suggestion which I mentioned earlier as well, don’t forget to carry your raincoat and also you can buy a stick to make your trek easy.

The trail takes you through one of the best views of mountain ranges and dense forest. There is definitely something magnetic about this place which pulls you towards the top.

I am not a person who can walk that much, but one thing that helped me through was my earphones. If you are going alone, do carry ear plugs and plug them in and trek up with your favorite songs on, the scenic views would definitely make that time worth going up there. And if you are with your friends, do carry a speaker, just play your squad songs and keep walking and and and don’t forget to capture the moments.

Walking through the beautiful as well as uneven path would take you up to the most charismatic view in not more than 4 to 5 hours depending on your speed.

We reached the base camp around 4:30 pm but as we wanted a silent place to camp our guide took us 1 km ahead of the base camp.

The view from that point was so mesmerizing that I couldn’t take my eyes off of the beautiful snow clad mountains which made me more excited about snow line.

But let me tell you, as pretty as it was, the weather up there is damn cold, a sweatshirt and a jacket is nothing in that cold weather and as it grows dark the temperature decreases, so do pack some warm clothes before trekking.

You can choose for your camps as well, as they give you the option to choose between double, triple and four sharing tents.

As we settled in our tents we were served with some pakoras and tea around 6 pm and dinner time was around 8 pm.

One more thing which you just can’t miss to take up is a roll of toilet paper.
They have made organic toilets up there which makes it easy for the trekkers in an emergency but there is no water or something so do carry a roll of toilet paper along.

As the sky grew dark the stars came out and sleeping under the blanket of twinkling stars and admiring them is probably the best thing to do.

As we all were lost in admiring the beauty of nature our dinner was served. In dinner, they served us, dal, rice, roti, chicken curry and matar paneer. The food was pretty decent.

I was so tired and it was so cold outside that I decided to sleep and after that what happened literally gives me goosebumps when I think about it.

Not much time passed when I could hear the sound of lightning and thunder, the thunderstorm was so much that it blew away the tent of one of our campmates, there was voice of people shouting for help, some were shouting to not to come out of the tents and some were shouting to run from the tent, it was all so scary and confusing that me and my friend couldn't decide what to do and then suddenly I realised my tent was also losing its grip and was about to blow.
There was nothing I could think of except god, I held my tent from one side and my friend’s hand on the other, the only thought we both had in our mind was maybe it's our last day or night.

The voice of people shouting, the sound of rain and thunder made us even more suspicious and I picked my bag and ran out of the tent with all the other people.
It was so cold and we all were so scared that the guides asked us to run to their kitchen and sit there only until everything gets in place.
Everyone was tensed and scared, most of the people left their belongings in the tent only but we were relieved that we all were safe.
We were around 30 people, all safely rescued.
We waited for the thunderstorm to stop till 7 in the morning, till then we all were astonished about what all happened with us in last 2-3 hours.

When in the morning at 7am, we came out to check our belongings only a few tents were standing as it is, rest all were destroyed badly.

We collected our things and were in no state to stay there and wanted to go down immediately.

We were served Maggi in breakfast which half of us didn’t have because we were in hurry to go down.

Around 8am, we started trekking down. Which was again difficult because the way was very slippery because of the rain. But anyhow we reached back to Gallu Devi Temple by around 12:30 pm.
We had our rooms booked in Shiv Shakti Guest House in Dharamkot. The cost of one room was Rs1000 but we got 3 rooms for Rs800. We checked in, in our rooms and crashed on the bed.

As we had almost nothing the entire day everyone was very hungry, thus we decided to go out for dinner at Morgan’s Place.

Morgan’s Place is an Italian cafe in Dharamkot, which was at a walking distance of 1km from our guest house and is famous for its pizza.
The owner Mr Morgan, also has a cafe in Goa by the same name.
The place has various option for sitting, you can choose to sit inside, outside in cold weather with a view, at the terrace garden or at the first floor.

As it was off season, we easily got our table but as per Mr. Morgan, after 15april, there is waiting to get a table. The place is most popular among the foreigners as the whole cafe was occupied by them only.

We placed our order for BBQ Chicken Tikka Pizza and Potate Broccoli,

The base and sauces they use for pizza are in-house, which tasted good in both the pizzas but the chicken chunks were way too less in the non-vegetarian pizza, rest the vegetarian pizza was also good in taste. Though I liked the chicken one more, so if you try Morgan’s Place in Dharamkot then do try their pizzas.

After trying the pizza at Morgan's Place, we went a few meters ahead on the same road, to Trek n Dine Restaurant. The trek left us so exhausted that all we wanted was some scrumptious food and this restaurant was definitely the place to be.

Trek n Dine is a beautiful place away from the hustle and bustle of the city and relaxes mind and body with its delicious food.

Though the place is famous for the wood-fired pizza it serves, as we had pizza earlier, I wanted to have a proper main course. For which we ordered Noodles, Dal Makhni, Butter Chicken and Butter Naan.

The food was pretty good, noodles were cooked well, less in quantity though. Butter Chicken was very thick and creamy with huge chicken chunks, and dal makhni was thick, it was just like homemade dal but it was good in taste, we had this hearty meal for Rs400 (approx) only.

After such an amazing dinner and days full of adventure it was finally time to bid adieu to the mountains.

This trip not only gave me memories but  I got to learn a lot of lessons about life which I would never forget.

So, this was another chapter written in my life book.
Hope you guys loved reading my experience.
Stay tuned for more travel stories.

Happy Reading :)