Story of the Best Cup of Tea I ever had.

The one!

This was on 30th May 2019, when I was catching up with my friend who said that our next trip should be to Triund. That was the first time I was hearing about the place and on telling that to her she replied "Sneha, Triund is that lush green mountain which we have seen in Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani movie" and there was nothing left for me to say. I saw a few more photos of the place on internet and realized how amazing it would feel to relax having a cup of hot tea during the sunset at this place.

Triund Top

1: It is tomorrow or never. (30th May, Thursday, 11pm) 

It was Thursday night when we came up with the idea of trip and with a little research we found that we had just till next Sunday to catch best weather at Triund. But I had to launch a state level project next week and it would not have been possible for me to take leave then. Hence, next 3 days were what we had. We were over whelmed by the idea, but thought of giving it a try. It was 11pm when all 4 of us requested our respective managers for a leave the next day and it was a miracle that all were approved.

These are my crazy friends who made it happen. Shravni, Kusuma, Sonia (from left to right). I hope you know which one is me !

2: Do such things even happen? (31st May, Friday, 2pm)

So my route for the trip was Jaipur -> Delhi -> Dharamshala -> Triund. All of us were going to meet in Delhi on Friday and take an overnight bus to Dharamshala. One friend was going to join from Gurgaon, 2 from Neemrana (It is between Jaipur and Delhi) and I from Jaipur. Since no seats were available in online booking from Jaipur to Delhi, I went to station, and took the first bus to Delhi that I saw. As the bus was halfway between Jaipur and Delhi, a little ahead of Neemrana, police suspended the bus on grounds that it did not have a travel permit. All the passengers were abandoned on highway and were asked to take a lift from other vehicles on highway. WOW..right?

At the same time, 2 of my friends who were to take a bus from Neemrana to Delhi were not getting a single bus as all were crowded. To their rescue came a man, a little over 50 yrs, who was travelling from Neemrana to Delhi in his car and offered lift to the two friends, who then picked me up on way and we were able to reach Delhi by evening.

3: Why? Why does everyone want to go to Himachal? (31st May, Friday, 8pm)

As we entered Kashimiri Gate Bus station, we saw very little crowd in front of counters and we were happy as our chance to get tickets offline seemed better. We started searching for counter of Himachal Pradesh State and found that those were on other floor. Just as we got on that floor, we saw all the crowd that was missing, in front of Himachal Counter. For a second we thought of cancelling the plan as it seemed impossible to get the tickets. We prepared our minds to spend the weekend together in Delhi itself, but thought of giving it a try anyway. We stood in lines for 3 hrs, from 8pm to 11pm with no guarantee of tickets. Finally at 11pm we got the tickets for a 14hr long journey in a Seater Non AC bus!

4: Seriously? Even this had to go wrong? (1st June, Saturday, 1pm)

We reached Dharamshala at 1pm the next day, the time at which we were supposed to reach Triund and start with our trek. We took a cab to reach the hostel where we were going to stay and the cab stopped at a distance of 500m from hostel as road ended. We had to walk uphill towards the hostel on a rocky path with sprained backs and sleepy eyes and no energy. After reaching hostel, we could do nothing else but sleep the entire afternoon. We had to extend the trip by one day as we were not able to even stay awake, let alone trekking for 4 hrs.

5: You wanted to trek? Really?  (2nd June, Sunday, 12pm)

After relaxing for a day and doing some local sight seeing, we started with the trek the next day. It was a 4 hour long trek. We were accompanied by a lot of fellow trekkers and the route was also pretty evident. The best part was that a dog joined us during the trek and stayed with us till we completed it. I was pretty confident that I could easily finish the trek given that I was in good shape. As we covered the distance, I started seeing what the junk food that I ate for past year had done to my body. I had to take several breaks, I was panting the whole time and everything just seemed like a mistake at one point, but I didn't wan't to disappoint the doggo, so I had to go on!

Me questioning all my decisions halfway through 🙇! 

6: Oh wait... Just the last one! (2nd June, Sunday, 6pm)

After completing the 4 hour trek and getting hit by hailstorms twice, I was finally standing on the top of the mountain, watching snow clad mountains on one side, and a valley on other. And just I was walking on grass, wet due to hails, I slipped and hurt my knee, but luckily I did not drop the camera bag in my hand. I still remember, when I fell down, I kept the hand in air with which I was holding the bag. I asked the person who came to help me to hold my bag first. I was all covered in mud but luckily I had brought extra pair of clothes with me.

Just a few moments before I slipped 🙈

Finally as I settled with throbbing pain in my knee and as I was having the cup of Tea, I realized that the entire trip, from start was extremely uncertain. What were the odds of getting our leaves approved at 11 pm? What were the chances of us taking lift from a stranger on highway? What were the chances of getting bus tickets with hundreds of people competing? And the most important, what were the chances of us not cancelling the plan at any of these points because of getting irritated? If we had started analyzing and planning everything on the night of 30th May, we would have never taken this trip. There were many things to think about which could have gone wrong, and most of them did go wrong, even the ones which we could never have imagined, but we were crazy enough to have faith even when the chances seemed nil. This was the trip which made me realize that I just need to know 'WHAT I want' and not necessarily 'HOW that would happen'. 

While I wanted to have a cup of tea on mountain top, God was planning to make it the Best cup of tea I ever had. The same cup of tea wouldn't have been the Best had everything gone smoothly.

This bundle of joy. He is just trying to show some attitude in photo.

The happiness of pulling off the most uncertain Trip.