Best of the beast: Crossing the famous Rani Ka Nallah at Jobra campsite
The flight was scheduled departure at 6 in the morning on Sunday. I had prior experience of traveling in domestic flight on my Goa trip and international flight on my UK trip so my previous flight experience helped me. I booked an ola cab from my home at 3 am and picked up my friends on the way. We reached Bangalore Internation Airport at 4 am. After security and check-in all the bags we were ready to board the plane.
The magical view of the clouds from the plane
The Spicejet plane was better than I had thought and getting a window seat was a bonus. I fell asleep as soon as the flight took off and directly woke up when we approached Delhi. We landed in Delhi at 8.30 in the morning. It was very hot and humid here. It is common to experience humidity in coastal regions but it was very strange to see humidity in Delhi for me. I then learned that the rain in the surrounding area makes the capital city humid in Monsoon. Delhi airport was vast and big but it wasn’t as posh as our Bangalore airport. One best thing in Delhi is the metro connectivity. The metro network in Delhi is widespread, you can reach any corner of the city via metro at very affordable rates.
Delhi airport lane. One of the most high fi and amazing metro I have seen
We took the airport express lane to reach Dwarka where our stay was booked. The airport metro is very advanced and futuristic as compared to our namma metro in Bangalore. Knowingly or unknowingly I started comparing each and everything with Bangalore and I was glad that I was staying in the best city of the country 😀
The rooms were shady and the locality was bad. We had the plan to stay here only for 7-8 hours so we didn’t bother much about it. I wanted to explore Delhi in the given time but the hot climate and humidity made us not to step out of the room.
We took the metro to reach Mandi House station which was the pickup point for our bus to Manali. We had booked the HSRTC bus, the AC Volvo bus looked decent and cozy. I would highly recommend HSRTC Bus if you are planning to go to Manali from Delhi. The bus departed from Delhi at 9 pm, we had a stop for dinner after which I fell into a deep sleep.
Couldn’t believe I was finally going to the Valley of the Gods
When I opened my eyes we were already in Himachal Pradesh. Beautiful valley, pristine river, eye-catching greenery everything was so overwhelming to me. I couldn’t believe I finally reached this place which is thousands of kilometers away from my home. I just wanted the time to freeze forever and I would never have to leave this beautiful place ever. We crossed Mandi, Kullu and Finally reached Manali at 9.30 in the morning.
As soon as we got down, we were surrounded by auto and cab drivers. The auto fare is very high in Manali due to tourism. A 4 km stretch costed us Rs. 200 in the auto. We reached Indiahike’s assembly point Keylinga Inn at 9.30 am. The assembly time was 11.30 am. We freshened up in the common washrooms. Meanwhile, everyone reported. It was a big group of 22 people, I wasn’t expecting this big group. The trek lead took our health readings and briefed us about the trek.
Briefing session by the trek lead
We had lunch and were ready to start our journey. We loaded all the backpacks in the vehicle and boarded one of the Tata sumo to reach the starting point of the trek. 18-kilometer picturesque drive from Manali, along with 42 hairpin turns, has panoramic views of Kullu valley took us to the Jobri – the starting point of our trek.
One and a half an hour drive through this route took us to the starting point of the trek – Jobri
Jobri. The start point of the trek
The trek was going to be very easy for the day. A simple 45 minutes hike would take us to the first campsite – Jobra. It was 4.30 pm by the time we started trekking. It started drizzling, everyone got into their rain suites/ponchos. The trail was through a mixed forest of pine, bright green maple trees, and luminescent silver birch. The forest is mostly Pine with an occasional Maple tree with its new lush green leaves – a pleasant change in the vegetation. It’s an easy slope and after 20 minutes into the forest, we came to a bend with a huge rock which overlooks a meadow strewn with small rocks.
The route goes through mixed forests of pine, maple and birch trees, and eventually runs along the Hamta river.
The river stream was found throughout the trail
Mules gazing on the wet grasses
That’s the first campsite – Jobra
The Jobra campsite was very beautiful. We stayed here for the night to acclimatize better. Most of the other organizers keep continuing and camp at Chikka which is another 2-hour hike from Jobra.
We got hot cup of tea and crispy pakoda for the evening snacks. Now, this is called real – High tea 😉
The valley looked like the one from fairy tails.
This photo was taken at 7 pm. The valley was surrounded by the mist and the temperature dropped drastically
It was drizzling all over time. We got a hot cup of tea and pakoda for the snacks. I was overwhelmed to have such good food in the mountains. We had dinner and finally went to sleep at 9 in the night.
Read my next story where we trek from Jobra to Jwara crossing the bone freezing cold river. Meanwhile, you can also check out my vlog on youtube. Do subscribe to my channel. It keeps me motivated to get new vlogs every time I visit a place.
