Holidays and vacations are truly an escape, aren’t they?

Whether it’s to a beach, a town or even a temple trip, anything that can get you out of the city, the people you are usually with, the work you do… You just want to runaway once a while.

For me, this was a big adventure and my love affair with the Mountains was pretty new.

Last year, I experienced the mountains for the first time in Ladakh.

As I explored Ladakh from Leh to Pangong, Turtuk to Hanle, excruciating road trips, extreme weather, trekking, puffing, panting and knowing it was all worth it as I stood and saw nature at it’s most beautiful..

I realized then that this was going to last for a lifetime.

That same trip made me take a detour to Dharamsala where I met extraordinary people and had amazing memories.

So this year meant taking another mountain trip and so I signed up with India Hikes – a trekking community to Deorital -Chandrashila.

What is it you ask? To be frank, until I went there I had no idea of it. Nada, nothing, no information.

Did I research on the region? Nope, nothing of that sort. The only thing I did was watch one video on what to pack for the trek and organized certain basic stuff with my friend who was an experienced trekker and was joining me but other than that, I did nothing else. Until I signed up for it, I had no idea it existed.

So here I was, all excited, very nervous and excited as a teenager getting his/her first ‘Kick’ and was raring to go.

I had all these questions whirling in my head. How will it be?? Can I actually do the camping thingy?? The Last time I did that sort of thing was when I was 14 and as one grows older, all these barriers come up within us on what ‘comfort levels’ means to us.

Will I get to meet interesting people? Know their stories? Will we all be in this together?

And off I went taking an early morning flight to Delhi, enroute to Rishikesh..