I had heard a lot about the beautiful valley in the Northern Himachal from books, articles, fellow travellers etc and to visit here was once of my dreams.
I mostly travelled parts of Goa and Kerala in India and probably have covered all beaches of Arabian sea. So, visiting the foothill of mighty Himalayas was in my bucket list for long time.
So friends from Bangalore whom I had planned the trip with were all ready for a budget trip to get lost in the hills. Flight from Bangalore to Delhi was the best option as we dint have direct flights to Punjab those days.
IGI airport was my first time experience, hot summer in Delhi with heat waves irritated us for a while, however we had late evening bus-which dint matter us a lot. Couple of hydrating drinks helped us till we board the Himachal Transport bus fro Kashmere Gate.
As most of us were tired, we slept over the bus journey via Chandigarh, Mandi and finally reached Bhuntar at 9 in the morning. We have two options to reach to reach Parvati Valley base:
Option 1: Bus from Bhuntar bus-stop to Kasol (Approx 2 hours, 50 INR)
Option 2: Cab from Bhuntar Bustorp to Kasol ( Approx 1.5 hours, 1200 (in 2014))
As it was a budget trip, we planned to experience bus- instead of hiring two cabs for group of 12.
The journey from Bhuntar to Kasol was a little scary with narrow roads and an ungauged valley on your left. Also heard a story from a fellow passenger, recently there was an accident and chunks and peices of a bus was found in Parvati river, with no survivals. There is always risk when you travel to hilly regions, we just had to get over it and cross Jari and the reach Kasol- which happened 2 hours from the time we board the bus and thanks to the best drivers of Himachal government transport.
Had a local contact, so got our accomodation booked in Sony cottage- which had a pretty nice view of the Parvati river and cosy rooms.We had all two weeks to plan for the rest of Parvati.
Below are the options what you can choose based on your time.
1. Kasol- Challal-Manikarn-Tosh-Keerganga.( 1week)
2.Kasol-Rasol-Tosh (1 week)
3. Kasol- Malana- Tosh (1 week)
4.Kasol-Malana-Magic Valley-Manikaran-Tosh-Keerganga ( 2 weeks)
5.Kasol-Tosh -Kalga -Phulga-Thulga- Keerganga (2 weeks)
6.Kasol-Challal-Manikaran-Rasol-Tosh-Kalga-Phulga-Thulga-Keerganga-Malana valley (3/4 weeks)
Best time to visit:
Trekking- June end to November
Coldest Months- December to February (If you want to experience snow)
There are many villages like Nacktan, Rudranag and many other places when you can stay with villagers. I will pen my experiences about these places in my upcoming blogs.
I mostly travelled parts of Goa and Kerala in India and probably have covered all beaches of Arabian sea. So, visiting the foothill of mighty Himalayas was in my bucket list for long time.
So friends from Bangalore whom I had planned the trip with were all ready for a budget trip to get lost in the hills. Flight from Bangalore to Delhi was the best option as we dint have direct flights to Punjab those days.
IGI airport was my first time experience, hot summer in Delhi with heat waves irritated us for a while, however we had late evening bus-which dint matter us a lot. Couple of hydrating drinks helped us till we board the Himachal Transport bus fro Kashmere Gate.
As most of us were tired, we slept over the bus journey via Chandigarh, Mandi and finally reached Bhuntar at 9 in the morning. We have two options to reach to reach Parvati Valley base:
Option 1: Bus from Bhuntar bus-stop to Kasol (Approx 2 hours, 50 INR)
Option 2: Cab from Bhuntar Bustorp to Kasol ( Approx 1.5 hours, 1200 (in 2014))
As it was a budget trip, we planned to experience bus- instead of hiring two cabs for group of 12.
The journey from Bhuntar to Kasol was a little scary with narrow roads and an ungauged valley on your left. Also heard a story from a fellow passenger, recently there was an accident and chunks and peices of a bus was found in Parvati river, with no survivals. There is always risk when you travel to hilly regions, we just had to get over it and cross Jari and the reach Kasol- which happened 2 hours from the time we board the bus and thanks to the best drivers of Himachal government transport.
Had a local contact, so got our accomodation booked in Sony cottage- which had a pretty nice view of the Parvati river and cosy rooms.We had all two weeks to plan for the rest of Parvati.
Below are the options what you can choose based on your time.
1. Kasol- Challal-Manikarn-Tosh-Keerganga.( 1week)
2.Kasol-Rasol-Tosh (1 week)
3. Kasol- Malana- Tosh (1 week)
4.Kasol-Malana-Magic Valley-Manikaran-Tosh-Keerganga ( 2 weeks)
5.Kasol-Tosh -Kalga -Phulga-Thulga- Keerganga (2 weeks)
6.Kasol-Challal-Manikaran-Rasol-Tosh-Kalga-Phulga-Thulga-Keerganga-Malana valley (3/4 weeks)
Trekking- June end to November
Coldest Months- December to February (If you want to experience snow)
There are many villages like Nacktan, Rudranag and many other places when you can stay with villagers. I will pen my experiences about these places in my upcoming blogs.
