The next day we planned to trek over 6 kms uphill from the village where we were staying to a tiny village on top of the same mountain. Though not visible from our location, we heard it to be a very serene place with only a couple of houses perched on the top of the mountain and then nothing but a spectacular view to greet the eyes.

So we set on our journey early in the morning, Brunel dropped out and stayed in bed as we began our journey. We crossed over several small bridges running over the streams, as we climbed higher the view just seemed to get better.

The ascent was tough we had not done a trek of this size until now, our bodies were not yet acclimatized and we were frequently running out of breath, especially me. Ramu who accompanied us was understanding enough, and he waited for us to move on, as he walked behind. We pushed on slowly and steadily with the frequency of stops increasing.



We climbed up one mountain, then walked to another and then a steep climb awaited us, but just at the start we took a slight detour to see this lovely waterfall. We also got a glimpse of one of the houses from there and we heaved a huge sigh of relief, we were closer to our destination. Since we had completed over 70% of the distance by now, we also made it in good time in spite of taking numerous stops, we decided to relax by the waterfall. The huge waterfall had a good amount of force but it was too cold for comfort, we decided to step in anyway. It felt good, water coming from a melted glacier flowed around our feet, as we shouted out in joy and also because the water was icy cold. All of us took turns to get our picture taken with the waterfall in the background. Just 15 minutes away from the waterfall we reached the only school in the village. A school situated high up in the mountains, has only one classroom, four students and the government inspectors or education authorities don't even bother coming up. But the teacher, Ranvir Thakur, walks from Manikaran to up here every day to teach his four students. He was such a nice, sweet and determined person, we spent some time talking to him, education was not a priority amongst the local people of this region and he was hoping to change that. The distance he covered everyday, apart from being strenuous, would possibly take us around 3-4 hours, and he walked up in an hour's time. The school also had a ferocious dog to guard the place.

The route from the school to the village takes good 30 minutes, not for people from the mountains of course, because its steep and a tricky path. We managed to reach the top of this hamlet, and were greeted by an old woman, Ramu's aunt, who was peacefully sitting outside her house, the first one of the few on the mountain. The village was virtually empty since people go to work during the day to neighbouring villages. The houses had the lovely Himachal look, the structure, the doors were similar to what we have seen on this trip. It was time for us to take some rest and enjoy the scenery and the majestic mountains around us. We thought of taking a walk around the village and soak up everything it had to offer. The view from this height was spectacular as the whole valley and mountain ranges lay ahead of us, like a painting. So beautiful that it all hardly looked real, it was like standing in a movie set. Buzzzzz, the sound suddenly appeared from nowhere, we looked around and saw a swarm of bees all making their way in and out of the little hole in the wall, we found two spots like these, perhaps the owner of this house managed to collect the honey. Bhavika is highly energetic, I think all the amount of sweets that she eats directly converts into globules of energy, she wanted to go further and further. Another friend who came along with us, found a spot and sat down, I proceeded a little further and then she was on her own. She walked on the path to get to Rasol and found a spot to take some lovely pictures of the entire village, comprising barely 13 houses. We found a Gharat lying abandoned by the stream, I had not seen one as yet and was thrilled to find one. A Gharat has an aqueduct with a wheel and fins that turns round as the water pushes against the fins. Its used to grind grain into flour, there are some projects in Uttaranchal where Gharats are used to generate electricity as well. Walking down is always faster and most of the times its easier, we were racing down until again a different muscle began to hurt or got strained. It was a good day, with a lot of walking, something that we do not generally do in Bombay, the scenic view was admired the most on the way down, because you are not trying to catch your breath.
A group of monkeys scattered off when we were quite close to them, they ran up the mountain with incredible speed, mothers with babies holding onto them, it was a lovely sight, into the wild. A macro shot of moss growing on the bark of a tree. Feeling drained and hungry Ramu took us to one dhaba, run by a Punjabi guy who had married a local woman. She made Aloo Paranthas and tea for us, we had the paranthas with cauliflower pickle, that was absolutely delicious. We went back to our rooms, and just waited for dinner to be prepared. This is the view of the room we stayed for 5 days for Rs 100 per day. The following day we had to drop one of our friends to Kasol since he was flying back to Bombay as he had to return to London soon. So we went to Kasol to drop him and canceled our train tickets to Mumbai, since our tickets never got confirmed. While waiting for the bus to Bhuntar, we saw a funny sight. The chicken walking on top of a sleepy dog, and the dog never woke up either, I guess they shared a good rapport. It was also our last day in Parvati valley, which had been so good to us, we enjoyed our stay here, made some nice friends and spent the last day absorbing this magical valley. Bhavika went out for a walk with the camera, capturing the essence of the place, while a friend and myself chilled with the farmer's two kids who were quite fond of us. Especially the little boy, who was naughty and playful, he even started dancing with me.
The village life is simple and wholesome, and a tough one too. You would see this often, a woman assorting grass and weed to feed her cattle. They loved to photographed and to view their pictures as well. It was difficult to get them still. We sat on top of the bathroom roof, watching the river flow by and in the distance we saw a distillation process, the villagers were brewing their own alcohol. We watched the moon rise and set behind the valley in the shortest time, it was just evening. We had our last dinner with the family who had hosted us, spoke to them for a while. We were tempted to ask Ramu to get us some of the local brew, which he willingly did and also set us a bon fire on a cold night to enjoy the drink. We spent a good amount of time keeping the fire going with all the wood shavings around the place. The fire flames also managed to burn me close to the eye. After an hour or so we crashed only for Bhavika to be dressed up once again before we made our exit from Parvati Valley. Ramu's wife was very excited to dress up Bhavika in her shawl, that she wears on special occasions. This time I was not left behind, as I wore Ramu's cap, to pose like a married couple. We bid goodbye to Ramu and his family, and thanked them for showering us with so much kindness. We walked back to Kasol to start our long journey to the cold desert of Spiti!