Things to do in Goa

If you are traveling to Goa, you might want to keep the following keywords in mind. This is the filtered list of all things fun in Goa. Courtesy Kiranjeet Kaur aka KK:

• Anjuna Flea Market (Wednesday till 6 pm): Sunsest view at Shore Bar, Osama a hip boutique, German Bakery
• Place to party - Disco Valley, Paridiso, Curlies - South Anjuna, Primrose
• Vagatore beach - Nine Bar
• Candolim beach - Frank Zappa
• Palolem beach (South Goa)
• Yum Yum Tom Yum, (on the south side of the beach near the very end, you have to walk in about 100 m from the beach, ask for Pelton's if you have difficulty finding the place)
• Boat ride to an island, Firang DJ, Neptune
• Martins Corner - the page 3 place
• Ashwem beach
• Arambol beach
• Saturday night flea market in Arpora, organized by a German since early nineties, is by far the largest and most vibrant flea market in North Goa. There is also a sizeable performance area which promotes local talent
• Baga - Zanzibar
• Baga - Cavalla, on Wednesday/Friday nights
• Fort Tiracol further down from Arambol. You need to take the ferry on the river to get to it. Amazing eagle’s view from the top of Fort Tiracol. From Tiracol you can head further to Paradise beach, which is untouched.

Sat Tal (India): October 2010

I've just come back from an amazing weekend get-away near Delhi.

The place is called Sat Tal (Hindi for seven lakes). It is located near Nainital in the Kumaon region of the Himalayas in Uttarakhand state. It is 350 km from Delhi and 20 km from Nainital. The main attraction of the place is that you can stay in a tent on the hills and do adventure activities near the main lake.

There are two ways to reach Sat Tal - by road and by rail, of which rail is the better, less tiring option.

• Road: The route is Delhi, Ghaziabad, Hapur, Gajraula (stopover to eat), Moradabad, Rampur, Kathgodam, Sat Tal. Be prepared for unpredictable mammoth traffic jams on the way, especially at Rampur and railway crossings. Internet says the road journey takes 7 hours, but 10-11 hours is more like how it actually works out. There's a McDonalds drive-through at Gajraula.
  
• Rail: Convenient night train (Ranikhet Express) from Old Delhi railway station to Kathgodam (30 km from Nainital / Sat Tal), and back. Taxis to Nainital and Sat Tal are readily available from Kathgodam.
  

We could not get the train tickets, so we hired a 10-seater Tempo Traveler and went by road. We were a group of seven people from office. We started on Saturday at 4am from Gurgaon, picked up some friends from Delhi, and eventually reached Sat Tal at 4pm, asking our way around as we neared the destination.

We were too tired when we reached there, but were blown away by the first view of the camp where we were to stay. We had booked the Sat Tal Birding Camp (they have a nice website). It is a set of 5-odd tents pitched on opportunistic flat clearings on the mountain slope. Hence all tents are not at the same level - the dining tent is perched at the top, and you have to climb down to the lodging tents. The tents themselves are amazing - very spacious, housing comfortable double-beds with mattresses, wooden chairs and tables, bed-side tables and lamps, and attached washrooms with hot showers and clean loos. More importantly, they have electricity and charging points. The camp site is 4 km uphill from the main lake.

Although it was already evening, the staff was very prompt in serving us a sumptuous lunch. The caretaker was very helpful in suggesting the activities we could do during our stay. We headed to the lake as it grew darker and colder. We hired paddle boats and soaked in every bit of the one hour we were there in the still, dark, murky water of the lake. We were the only tourists around at that time. The vendors near the lake offered to cook pakodas with tea for us, but we were too full and too tired. So we returned to the camp. On our request the caretaker arranged a bonfire for us. After spending a few hours there we headed for dinner late at night and then retired to our tents to get some precious sleep.

To our surprise we managed to wake up early next day - this usually happens in the mountains. After tea, we trekked down to another small lake close to the camp site. The lake was full of fish and we took a quick swim in its icy cold water. There was a small fresh water stream running nearby where we spent an hour. There was also a flower nursery adjacent to the lake where vans were being loaded with flowerpots to be taken to Delhi.

We trekked back to the camp for breakfast and checked out by noon. The caretaker informed us that we could do some adventure activities near the main lake within the 2-3 hours we had at our disposal, so we headed there. Vinod is a known guy in that area who takes visitors for rock climbing, rappelling (just the reverse of rock climbing), kayaking and river-crossing (well, more like lake-crossing). Due to lack of time we decided to skip kayaking and did the other three. Near the rock climbing site we spotted a huge tree that had fallen into the valley but had been held mid-way from falling fully by other trees. So we invented this adventure-activity of our own by walking on this tree a la tightrope. One slip and we'd have landed in the deep ravine below!

After an exhilarating couple of hours at the adventure stuff, we headed back to Delhi in the afternoon. We reached home late at night.

Overall, the trip was a great experience, though it could have been less tiring had we taken the train. I have bittersweet memories from this trip that will last forever.


Expenses:

Tempo Traveler (taxi): Total running 800 km @ Rs. 15/km
Taxes: UP state tax Rs. 500 per day, Uttarakhand state tax Rs. 500 per day
Camping: Rs. 2000 per person per day incl. all meals (Sat Tal Birding Camp)
Boating: Paddle boats (4-seater) @ Rs. 190 for one hour
Adventure activities: Rs. 150-200 per activity per person
Bonfire: Rs. 350

Overall expenses: Rs. 5000 per person

Mumbai, Goa, Pune (India): September 2010

Why would anyone go to Goa in monsoons beats most people.

Are you most people?

A full-blown family vacation had been due for quite a while when we decided to visit my uncle in Pune in early September. My brother and I took a week off from office and began searching for what we could include in our Pune trip. When you search for "monsoon tourism" destinations in India, the first few places on the list are all around the Mumbai-Pune belt. These include Matheran, Lonavla/Khandala, Bhandardhara, Malshej Ghat and Mahabaleshwar. Outside this zone, the other monsoon destinations include Konkan, Western Ghats and the Malabar coast, which roughly translates to Goa and Kerala.

This made life easy for us - we drew up a circuit to cover the whole Mumbai-Pune zone. The map looked somewhat like this (approx. distances from Mumbai):


The only fixtures on the itinerary till now were:

Reach Mumbai on Sunday morning by train from Delhi, and,
Fly back from Pune to Delhi next Sunday.

Everything in between was fluid (we're talking about monsoon tourism after all, ain't we!) We had not finalized how we were going to travel to our selected places, and where we were to lodge. This is one luxury you enjoy in off-season - too much pre-booking is not required.

Two hours before the train's departure as we were finalizing the places to stay at Matheran, Bhandardhara et al, Mom expressed her wish to go to Goa as she'd never been there before. Suddenly the idea of visiting the half-dozen destinations which we had shortlisted started appearing tacky to us - Goa is just an overnight train journey from Mumbai/Pune and has the sea. We chucked our destination map and decided for Goa.

The train journey from Delhi to Mumbai was enjoyable. Rajdhani train stops at just 4-odd places on this 1500 km route, and they keep on bringing stuff to eat all the time.

We reached Mumbai Central station at 8am (this station is different from Mumbai CST aka Mumbai VT which is 8-10km from Mumbai Central). We got our train tickets to Goa for the same night through one of the travel agents lurking around at the station's reservation counter. He said he'll use some VIP quota option to help us beat the waiting list of passengers and will charge Rs. 300 per person for this 'favor'. We agreed but did not get our seat confirmation right away even after paying the chap - he asked us to wait till the boarding chart is prepared 2 hours before departure. We were annoyed and asked him to reverse the deal - he hadn't told us anything about having to wait for the confirmation. But he was adamant that he'll get us the seats. There was precious little we could do but to take his word and wait till evening.

We had the day at our disposal in Mumbai, so after breakfast at the unique McDonalds-Rajdhani combo counter at the Mumbai Central station, we headed out to Gateway of India. (Now in case you are unaware, this latter Rajdhani is a very famous restaurant chain serving Indian food. It has nothing to do with Rajdhani the train, except for the common name.)

Situated on the edge of the sea, the aptly named Gateway of India is a sight to behold, what with the majestic Taj Mahal hotel located right across the road. It is hard to imagine that this place was the site of the unfortunate Mumbai terror attacks just a couple years back.

We decided to take a regular ferry to the Elephanta Island from the jetty at the Gateway of India. This one-hour ferry ride was absolute pleasure. The ferries have a capacity of over 50 people; the lower deck is covered while the upper deck is open to the sky. They charge Rs. 10 extra to let you climb to the upper deck. It rained heavily for some part of our ride and everyone came to the lower deck during that time.

I saw countless ships - some of them the largest I've ever seen - happily anchored at a distance from the shore. I wondered how the Coast Guard kept an eye on the activities of all of them, the sea-route being so notorious for smuggling activity.

The Elephanta Caves were great. It takes a bit of an effort to climb to the caves from where the ferries are docked. The whole ascending path is lined with souvenir shops and a couple of eating places. I bought some carved stone elephant souvenirs to mark my visit to the Elephanta Caves. The basic concept of the caves is that they've been carved out of a single rock, including the pillars and the sculptures of Lord Shiva, which all stand defaced today. They say the Portuguese did it. I'm not sure if I'll buy that.

We spent a couple of hours at the overcast Elephanta Island and ate roasted corn which was surprisingly sweet. I wasn't getting any mobile signal there and was getting edgy to know if the tonight's tickets to Goa had been confirmed. I let out a sigh of relief as I checked the Indian Railways website on my mobile on nearing the Gateway of India shore and found our seats confirmed. The agent hadn't lied after all.

We did a vintage Victoria chariot ride from the Gateway of India to Colaba market. We munched on the famous Bombay bhel-puri (crispy puffed rice garnished with ultra-spicy sauces, chillies and onions) and grabbed some quick dinner before heading back to the train station to board our 11pm night train to Goa. This time, it was the Mumbai CST station which is known for its Victorian architecture.

The night journey to Goa was peaceful and we woke up to the beautiful lush-green surroundings which the Konkan railway runs through. Madgaon is the biggest train station of Goa, but we de-boarded a bit before at Thivim which is up north of Madgaon and hence nearer to the North Goa beach of Calangute where we had planned to lodge. This was deja-vu as I had done the same drill three years back when I visited Goa with friends in Christmas - I've written about that trip earlier on this blog.

We took a taxi from Thivim to Calangute. There's a big pre-paid taxi stand outside the Thivim station, though we opted for a taxi outside the pre-paid union as this guy was willing to get us to Calangute cheaper. Maruti Omni van is the most common type of taxi in Goa.

During the half-hour long drive to Calangute, we saw more shades of green than we had ever seen before. It was as if the vegetation was celebrating every drop of rain that fell from the sky. Occasionally we saw paddy fields and small ponds along the way, overflowing with water. The dark gray road meandered through the greenery and we wished the drive never ends. Soon we arrived at the familiar-looking market of Calangute. At this very moment my colleagues in Delhi were arriving at their familiar-looking office desks. Gosh, did I ever have a better start to a Monday morning!

A friend of the brother-in-law of a friend of my father (whew) owns a hotel adjacent to the Calangute beach. This was the place we were to lodge at. There were very few tourists and the hotels had slashed their prices by more than half, and we got an even higher discount owing to our acquaintance. The hotel had a swimming pool too, so my brother could finally learn swimming.

Over the next three days we visited many beaches beyond Calangute - Baga, Anjuna, Vargator, Candolim, and Miramar. The first four are within 10-15 km of Calangute while Miramar is down south, in the capital Panjim.

'Natural' is a very famous ice cream brand of Mumbai. Their ice creams are creamy in the true sense and contain real fruit pulp. I rued having missed in Mumbai. But lo behold! I was elated to find out that they've opened a parlor right on the Calangute beach, one minute away from where we were staying. Add that to the list of reasons why you should stay at Calangute when you visit Goa.

We walked down in the rain from Calangute to Baga with our umbrellas. The rains in Goa are funny and fully tropical in character - they'll happen all of a sudden with shattering intensity, and then stop as suddenly, like someone just shut down the hose.

Baga's highlight was the prawn-curry rice I had at Britto's restaurant which overlooks the sea. The serving was huge and I had a bloated tummy for the rest of the day.

Anjuna's famous Wednesday flea-market was closed for the monsoons. We were told it opens around October. We visited the rocky side of the beach instead of the sandy one.

Vargator was unique in its own sense. It features a high cliff from where you have to climb down to reach the sea level. It isn't exactly rock climbing; there are smooth tracks that lead down to the shore. This beach was my personal favorite on this trip, though you get bored after an hour or so.

Candolim is where the Aguada Fort is. This fort is strategically built as it is open to the sea from three sides. Goa's Taj hotel resort is located on this beach, and my idol Vijay Mallya has a villa, called the Kingfisher Villa, next to it. There was a rusting, old ship docked at this beach which our driver told us had been there for the last 10 years, polluting the beach. The next day this stuff was in newspapers - the court had asked the government to remove the ship from the beach.

Miramar beach, strictly not to be confused with the one in Florida, is a different sort of beach located in Panjim. It is more like the Juhu beach in Mumbai. I didn't like it much after all that I'd seen.

For friends back home, we bought some, rather a lot of cashews, which are Goa's specialty. Fenny, a hard drink made from fermented cashews, is more famous than the cashew itself. I hate its taste and we did not buy any.

There is one thing you should NOT try at Goa. I'm not talking about weed. Do not take the "river-cruise" on the Mandovi river in Panjim. Our driver who had more or less become our guide, suggested the river-cruise to us and we bought the tickets. Several companies operate such cruises and they sell tickets at cashew and wine shops throughout Goa. During high season in December, these tickets sell for a premium. The idea is that they put you on a boat, then dock a little distance away in the middle of the river, and start playing loud music to which you are supposed to groove for an hour. Only, the music tends to get on your nerves and they serve preposterous amounts of diesel fumes for free, from which you have no escape - you're in the middle of the river, remember? They also show some "traditional Goan performances" which is actually a real shady, cheap show on the lower deck. You can escape to the open-air upper deck but can't sit there. We realized what we had gotten into in the first ten minutes of waiting before the boat set off. We called off the adventure and de-boarded. It took a lot of water and fresh air to wash diesel fumes down our throat. Our ferry ride to the Elephanta Islands was a trillion times better.

With our mixed bag of experiences, which were all excellent apart from the river-cruise, we bid adieu to Goa and boarded the overnight train to Pune the tickets for which I got booked through a local travel agent, through the same drill as in Mumbai but with greater amount of trust this time.

The remaining two days of our trip were more of a family affair. My uncle is an astronomer and before Pune he lived in Nainital at the UP State Observatory campus. Several of my summer vacations as a kid have been spent there gazing at the Moon's craters, Mars' surface and Saturn's rings through huge telescopes. He's now working on theories of the formation of the universe - the Big Bang and related whiz stuff - at the University of Pune. He showed us around his office complex and it looked more like a space museum. They've grown carpet grass on the roofs where they have cocktail parties.

We went to the Laxmi Road market for some purchasing the old folks had to do. The market reminds you of Delhi's Chandni Chowk, minus the fabulous eateries of the latter. The Ganpati festival was about to begin in Pune and the streets were heavily crowded. The fervor with which Maharashtrians celebrate Ganpati is outstanding. I also found some time to visit a good friend who lives in Nigdi, which is to Pune as Gurgaon is to Delhi.

We flew back to Delhi on Sunday noon - this was the only pre-planned thing we'd done since arriving in Mumbai one week back.

Do I think we should have done the more monsoon-famous Matheran, Lonavla etc. as planned originally in place of Goa? Naah!! Goa is at its natural best in monsoons, and it is neither as crowded as in December nor as deserted as people say it would be in this season. I've seen Goa at Christmas, and I've now seen Goa in monsoons. I can't really say which one is better - it's apples and oranges.

Some approximate costs:

Delhi to Mumbai train (Rajdhani): Rs. 1800 per person
Gateway of India to Elephanta Islands ferry: Rs. 150 per person (return trip)
Mumbai to Goa train: Rs. 1500 per person
Thivim to Calangute taxi: Rs. 300
Monsoon hotel rates in Goa: Rs. 1500-2000 per room (with swimming pool, non-5-star)
Beer can in Goa, 500ml: Rs. 38 (Rs. 70 in Delhi!)
Goa day taxi, 80 km limit: Rs. 1000
Goa river-cruise: Rs. 150 per person
Calangute to Vasco da Gama taxi: Rs. 700
Goa to Pune train: Rs. 1000 per person
Pune to Delhi flight: Rs. 4000 per person

Agra (India): April 2010

I just concluded a different kind of weekend trip - I went to Agra with my parents and two more families, both the uncles being schoolfellows of my father. I've not gone for such big fat family trips since my childhood, but the old fellas wanted to catch up and I wanted to see Agra. I'd seen the Taj Mahal once before on a school trip when I was 10; I had hazy memory and no pictures of the same.

We booked a 10-seater Tempo Traveler (a sort of mini-bus; google for pictures) for the road trip and rolled off on the morning on Saturday. We started at my parents' place in Delhi and went via Gurgaon, in order to pick up the two uncles & co. The logical route from Gurgaon to Agra is via Palwal in Haryana, which we decided to take. The road condition turned out to be poor and the traffic was bad, making the journey long and tiring. A better way would have been to go back to Delhi from Gurgaon and take the conventional highway route to Agra, even if it meant doing 50-odd extra kilometers.

We stopped for lunch en-route at Mathura (The Status restaurant at the Brijwasi Hotel located near the State Bank office - fabulous food, peaceful decor) and reached our hotel in Agra (Royal Residency, located on the Fatehabad Road opposite the TDI shopping mall) after noon. The heat was overpowering and we decided to rest for a while before heading to the Taj Mahal. We didn't realize when it struck half past five and we were left with just half an hour to dress up and get the entry tickets for the Taj. (Entry tickets are sold till 6 pm and visiting hours for the Taj are till 7 pm). We reached the ticket counter seconds before its closing time and managed to see the spectacle of Taj at sunset. Outside, the Taj looked majestic at twilight, while the inside hall of the Taj was dark and the zillion sweaty, loud-mouthed tourists were frantically taking pictures with their camera flashes, blatantly ignoring the signboards forbidding photography inside the hall. I was appalled to see what one of the greatest monuments of our country had come to. I did not venture inside. We had some food at McDonalds at the TDI Mall opposite our hotel before calling it a day. I dozed off early while the old timers kept chatting late into the night.

The next day was more like my kind of tourism. The group wanted to end their Agra sojourn right there and head to Fatehpur Sikri (50 km from Agra - famous for the gigantic arched doorway 'Buland Darwaza'). They also wanted to visit the Lord Krishna temples in Mathura and Vrindavan on their way back to Delhi. I'd no immediate interest in these places; besides, my Lonely Planet India guidebook told me that I'd a lot left to see in Agra, so I split from the group there. As I headed out alone I had the familiar energy and the spring in the step of a lone traveler. An autorickshaw driver proposed to take me around to the places of my interest scattered across the crowded city for Rs. 250. I took the deal.

I visited Mahtab Bagh (a Mughal-style garden that presents a great view of the back side on the Taj Mahal from across the Yamuna river), Itmad-ud-Daula's Tomb (build on the same concept and as symmetrically as the Taj Mahal but one generation earlier), and the Agra Fort (the gorgeous and mammoth fort of the Mughals). Just when I was beginning to trust my autorickshaw driver who patiently waited outside these places as I took my time clicking hundreds of pictures, he took me to a couple of shops which give commissions to these drivers for bringing tourists. I sensed it and did not buy anything from there, and the driver refused to take me to the shops I'd heard about as being special to Agra (for instance the Panchhi Petha shop which is famous of its sweets), citing no knowledge of those shops.

Incidentally one of my good friends from college was hosting his brother's engagement party in Agra the same day, so I briefly dropped by to say hello before boarding my 4 pm bus to Delhi. The state tourism's air conditioned buses leave the Idgah bus station in Agra for Delhi every hour and they do not issue tickets in advance. These are not Volvo-style coaches; there are only two per day of the latter (called the 'Swarn Shatabdi' service) - one leaves in the morning and the other at 3 pm.

I reached Delhi at 9:30 pm and was back at my place in Gurgaon in another hour.

Key expenses:
Tempo Traveler: Rs. 8500 for the trip (approx. 600 km)
Hotel in Agra (Royal Residency): Rs. 1500 per room per night
Entry tickets for the monuments: In the range of Rs. 5 to 30
Sightseeing by autorickshaw: Rs. 250
Bus from Agra to Delhi: Rs. 220

Dharamsala, McLeodganj, Triund (India): December 2009

We decided to celebrate the New Year in the popular and scenic hill station of Dharamsala/McLeodganj, located in the north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. McLeodganj is 9 km further from Dharamsala and is the bigger tourist center of the two. It also houses the Government in Exile of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader.

Number of travelers: 9

The itinerary:
Day 1: Take night train from Delhi to Pathankot
Day 2: Take a taxi from Pathankot to McLeodganj early morning, spend the day in McLeodganj (New Year eve)
Day 3: Head for a trek to Triund (9-10 km from McLeodganj), stay overnight in Triund
Day 4: Trek from Triund to Laka, then head back and reach McLeodganj by afternoon
Day 5: Take a taxi from McLeodganj to Pathankot, take the night train back to Delhi
Day 6: Reach Delhi early morning

Our train from Delhi to Pathankot was delayed by a couple of hours due to fog, though we didn't mind since we had booked the swanky first class compartment. The privacy of the compartment ensured that we could crack stupid jokes, laugh aloud and dance around freely. We missed this fun in our return journey since we could not travel first class.

We reached Pathankot early next morning. Considering our large group size, we were thinking of hiring two taxis from Pathankot to McLeodganj, but were happy to spot big vans lined up at the station to ferry upto 10 tourists at a time. The ride takes around 3.5 hours and is generally pleasurable, however there's a catch - the cabbies treat Dharamsala and McLeodganj quite differently, even though they are just 9 km apart. We were unaware of this and made a deal till Dharamsala for Rs. 1500, however when we asked to be dropped at McLeodganj the taxi charged us an extra Rs. 400, that too after much bargaining (a discussion which one of us cheekily videotaped! We laughed at the video later.)

We needed to look for accommodation since we hadn't booked any in advance. McLeodganj's main square looked quite crowded, so we went 2 km further ahead to Bhagsunag (commonly called Bhagsu) and took a nice hotel with a large terrace on each floor and an excellent view - that of the destination of our planned trek for the next day. Prices were around Rs. 1000 per room (we took 4 rooms), though there was a fallout while checking out four days later when the owner backtracked from the quoted price. The issue was settled amicably after a few heated discussions.

As planned we spent the day roaming around the main square. We had an amazing lunch at the McLlo restaurant, which proudly features a photograph of Pierce Brosnan enjoying a meal at the restaurant. The pastry shop right below the restaurant made for excellent dessert. Then we visited the main temple complex, which is attached to the residence of the Dalai Lama. It wasn't crowded or overflowing with security personnel like we had expected. Later in the evening we had wild New Year celebrations with drinking, dancing and hookah (which we had brought along from Delhi) that ran pretty late into the night. This put our next day's planned trek to Triund at risk, since we had to start early morning and no one seemed to be in a mood to wake up before noon. However we did manage to pull ourselves up together, even if it was after our guide Ricky said he would call off the trek if we delayed any further!

The trek to Triund was tough - it is not your regular mountain kachha track that you'll walk along to reach to the top. It is filled with boulders of all shapes and sizes and is quite steep at times. We did not find any snow on the way. We burnt more calories in those six hours than we did in the whole year, and it showed in the way we devoured food on a wayside cafe. The owner of the shed was kind enough to share a few puffs with me and I was then at peace.

The destination, Triund, is a flat ridge which overlooks the Dhauladhar mountain range - named so because of its permanent white, snow-covered slopes. From Triund the Dhauladhar mountain looks tantalizingly close; you feel you can touch it with a little extra effort. We reached the destination in time to catch the sun set over the horizon and to witness the visual spectacle of the gradually setting sun making the Dhauladhar mountains change color from shimmering white to golden yellow to supernatural red. What a start to the new year.

Triund has no electricity other than a few solar-powered lamps. There are no hotels, though a couple of sheds (brick-walled with tin roofs) are present, one of them run by the government (the Forest Rest House). You can choose between the sheds and the tents which the couple of tea stalls stationed there rent out to tourists. Our guide Ricky made arrangements for us to stay in the private shed (the one not run by the government). We took up four rooms here too. The shed owner arranged for a bonfire and piping hot dinner. There was utter darkness and freezing cold. Rum helped us survive the night and we woke up to bright sunlight next morning.

Not all were interested in trekking further to Laka - the snow line. Three went ahead with Ricky and six, including me, headed back to McLeodganj. We reached back by afternoon and had a much deserved hot shower. Going out in the evening for dinner seemed out of the question and we ordered room service. (By the way, we had retained our hotel rooms in McLeodganj (Bhagsu) when we spent the night in Triund since we had left our luggage in the hotel.)

Next day we did some shopping for folks back home - yak wool shawls, souvenirs and plum wine, the local specialty. Then came the highlight of the trip for me - it rained! Mountains, winters and rain - the land of Monks gave me my salvation. It must have snowed in Triund - guess we missed it by one day!

It rained the entire way as we did the usual 3.5 hour downhill journey to Pathankot. From there we took our night train to arrive back in Delhi early next morning.

Key expenses:
Return train tickets (Delhi-Pathankot-Delhi)*: Rs. 2000 per person
Taxi from Pathankot to McLeodganj: Rs. 1900
Hotel (Spring Valley Resort - Bhagsu): Rs. 1000 per room per night
Shed in Triund: Rs. 500 per room
Guide: Total Rs. 1500 for the group
Taxi from McLeodganj to Pathankot: Rs. 1500

Total expenses per person: Approx. Rs. 5000

Photographs are on my Facebook page.

*Note: Another way of traveling between McLeodganj and Delhi is by bus - Volvo night buses ply between the two destinations and take around 12 hours one-way. You can book the bus tickets from the main square in McLeodganj (below McLlo restaurant) - it costs around Rs. 800. Personally, I'm not a big fan of bus rides in mountains, or otherwise.