| A much awaited trip for three girlfriends. July 2008. I have no idea how it happened. All of a sudden, in a moment of utter boredom, I heard myself utter "Let's go to McLeodganj". Priyanka was game for it, but it was a bit difficult convincing Reby. But after a week of planning, booking, arguing and bickering, we finally caught the train from Delhi to Pathankot. It was an overnight journey and three of us had a cabin to ourselves. We spent the night chatting, munching, laughing, and discreetly sipping white wine. After 3-4 hours of sleep, we woke up and got off at Pathankot station.
Ah, Saturday morning. We took a cab from Pathankot to McLeodganj. The cab journey took only 2 hours and I was amazed to see marijuana shrubs all around us. The scenery was beautiful and the cab driver told us about the landslide that recently happened in Himachal. As we entered McLeodganj, a typical Himachal traffic jam welcomed us. We got off the cab and after an hour of search, checked into Surya McLeod. We chose Surya because it was slightly far from the crowded hub. We didn’t have to worry about transportation as McLeodganj is a very small place and everything is just 5 minutes walk away. After nice hot showers, and a big lunch, the three of us ventured out with our backpacks. We walked to a small village above McLeodganj called Dharamkot. It was just twenty minutes walk away but walking on the hills can be quite an exercise. The streets of Dharamkot reminded me of Goa. Narrow, with colorful open restaurants, and Israeli hippies walking around. It was on that very street, me and Priyanka spotted a sign that we had been looking for – “spike’s tattooing studio”. We had been eagerly waiting for this moment. We entered the studio, priyanka chose her tattoo design, and when my turn came, I chickened out. It just didn’t feel right. Maybe it wasn’t the right moment…
There’s something about the hills that makes you super hungry and God, McLeodganj is full of awesome restaurants and cafes with colorful walls and German / Israeli / Italian menu. We ordered pancakes, which were actually crepes, but amazing nonetheless. We were too full to walk back to McLeodganj so we took an auto rickshaw back. We shopped on our way back to the Hotel. Where we drank some and changed for dinner. We wanted to dine at a rooftop restaurant but unfortunately all of them were overstuffed, so we couldn’t find a table, except at Asian Plaza where we had our worst meal of the trip. We ate dinner again back at our hotel cause a) it was complimentary, b) we were still hungry!
Next morning, we woke up early and walked to bhaksunath temple. We wanted to go to this place that we had heard about “Shiva Café”. A stoner’s delight. All we knew was that there was a narrow path near bhaksunath waterfall that led to Shiva café. After reaching the waterfall, it took us good 10-15 minutes to figure out the trail to Shiva café. It looked very narrow and we weren’t sure if it was the right way or not. I led the way, thinking that I was taking the biggest risk of my life, stepping on the slippery rocks on a very narrow trail, next to a very small sign that said “Shiva café up ahead”. One wrong step would have made me fall crashing down to the valley. At that moment, I could feel fear pump up the adrenaline rush. I felt fear because there were no professionals helping us unlike in the case of para sailing or bungee jumping, still I felt a mad rush of excitement as I had never done anything so scary without anyone’s help. After 20 minutes, we were finally there. There it was, up on the hill, surrounded by colorful hand painted rocks and flowers – the Shiva café. Surprisingly, the only way to reach it was the one we took, so reaching that place on a car is out of question. We woke up the caretaker and asked him to fix us some breakfast, while we drank in the natural beauty that surrounded us. Three pancakes and a few doobies later, we decided it was time to head back.
The walk down from Shiva café was surprisingly very easy. We saw goats, horses and a psychedelic bug. I fell in love with the latter. If you don’t believe how a bug could be psychedelic, check out the pictures. We got back to bhaksunath and ate lunch at the German Bakery; apparently, Himachal is full of these German Bakeries. We had humus with pita bread, potato wedges, lasagna and a pancake (but of course).
Back at the hotel room, we took long hot showers and hit dharamkot again as we wanted to check out this place we saw yesterday “Trek and dine” but were too full to try food there. We sat there and chilled for hours. Smoked, ate, read, chatted and what not. On returning to McLeodganj, we hit the main street and shopped our hearts out. Sigh, it was our last day there. Me and Reby checked out the monastery where we met two girls from Tibet, who had WALKED all the way to McLeodganj from Tibet. It took them one full month to do so and it’s not an unusual thing for them to do we spent ages talking to them, and realized how those girls were so much like us, when in fact they appeared to be so different. They told us about their life in Tibet. We didn’t have to tell them about life in Delhi as they already knew so much! It made me realize how Indian culture is so exposed to the Asian countries, just like how American culture is exposed to the entire world.
Back at the hotel, out dinner buffet was waiting for us. And we ate again. Our fourth lavish meal of the day. No one looking at us can believe we can eat so much  Next morning, we caught a cab to Chakki Bank (its closer to McLeodganj than Pathankot) and took the train back to Delhi. There’s something about the journey back home after a fun trip. It always seems endless and super annoying. Whatever, it was one of the best trips, because it was with my girlfriends.
S. Kwatra
The Pics 
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