Spiti Valley Travel Diaries: A Journey Beyond the Ordinary

 

What can I say… Spiti has already increased my heartbeat! Honestly, Spiti has been on my bucket list for ages, but somehow the opportunity to go never came. Of course, I wanted to see Chandratal too! But honestly, my biggest curiosity wasn’t even about Chandratal… it was about why Ranveer had told Sonakshi, “Before I die, I HAVE to see Chandratal once!”

I mean, WHAT was this Chandratal obsession?!      

At this point, I wasn’t just travelling to Chandratal… I was on a mission to solve the mystery of Ranveer’s last wish!

Forget the lake, I wanted answers!

And now, just when everything finally worked out, the Nepal floods decided to add some extra tension — “What if the water decides to travel all the way to our side too?”

And on top of that, Mohit pointed out the current situation and said maybe we should postpone the trip. I totally understand the poor bachelor’s concern — why would he risk his life for us? After all, the guy hasn’t even tasted the shaadi ka ladoo yet!

But me? I HAD to go somehow! My leave got approved after what felt like 100 years of tapasya.  And there was absolutely no way I was letting that hard-earned prasad go to waste. I wanted to enjoy the fruits of my 100 years of penance!

So I simply told Mohit: “Whatever happens, we are going!”

I was SO excited to go that I was shopping for a new outfit practically every day!

Every day, one more dress… because obviously, the only thing I had to worry about was looking good in Spiti!

Then came the day I had to pack my bags… and THAT’S when reality hit me.

I suddenly realized I had been shopping for summer while I was actually going to a place where the temperature could drop to minus degrees!

Technically, I had completely forgotten one tiny little detail: I was going to SPITI, not Goa!

My brain was packing for an Instagram photoshoot, while Spiti was preparing to freeze me!

Somehow, I convinced my mind to come back to reality and started packing whatever I could find that would actually keep me warm — some new clothes, some old ones, basically anything that could survive the Spiti cold!

But deep down, one thought kept haunting me: “Kaash maine shopping thand ko dhyan mein rakh kar ki hoti… meri moti si photos thodi toh achhi aati!”

I know, I know… I’m not exactly size zero!  But if I have to freeze in Spiti, at least let me look good on Instagram!

My priority list was very clear:
Survival first… but Instagram-worthy survival!

Finally, the day had arrived! I finished my packing, booked a cab for the airport, and came downstairs feeling like a normal person ready to begin her Spiti adventure.

But the moment I stepped outside… SURPRISE!

A shiny black MG luxury car was waiting for me!

I was like, “Excuse me?! Yeh mere liye hai?”

Because in my head, I had already imagined myself squeezing into a cute little WagonR, with my luggage fighting for its own seat.

And here I was… standing in front of a luxury MG like some celebrity going on a world tour!

I hadn’t even booked a luxury car, but clearly Spiti had decided that my journey would begin in style!

I thought, “Wah! Trip shuru hone se pehle hi luxury mil gayi… ab aage kya hone wala hai?”

Little did I know… this was just the trailer! Picture abhi baki hai mere dost !

I reached the airport and, to my surprise, Sherman still hadn’t arrived—even though he had left one whole hour before me!

So while waiting for him, I decided to make the best use of my time… I started checking out all the handsome guys around me, casually pretending that maybe, just maybe, I would spot my John Abraham somewhere in the crowd.

After about 25 minutes, Sherman finally called and said he had reached the airport too.

Since I didn’t want him to waste time standing in a queue, I very confidently suggested, “Use Digi Yatra!”

And then… reality hit me.

Turns out Sherman was just like me—he had absolutely NO IDEA how to properly operate Digi Yatra or Adani One!

The difference was, my daughter Diya had set everything up for me, so I could happily pretend I was technologically advanced.  But now Sherman was looking at me like, “Okay madam, you suggested it… now YOU do it!”

And there I was, confidently pretending like I knew exactly what I was doing—while secretly figuring it out myself!

Basically, two adults at the airport, both completely clueless about Digi Yatra… but I was at least acting like I had a PhD in it!

Finally, after all the Digi Yatra drama, we got everything sorted and Sherman made it inside the airport.

At baggage check-in, my luggage went through without any drama. But then came Sherman’s turn… and that’s when the real entertainment started!

His main bag was already over 18 kg, and on top of that, he had another travel bag weighing around 8.5 kg!

I looked at Sherman… then at his bags… then back at Sherman again.

And I was thinking, “What exactly have you packed in there, sir? We’re going for EIGHT DAYS, not relocating to Spiti!”

I mean, what else could possibly be in there besides eight days of clothes? Unless Sherman had packed his entire wardrobe, a backup wardrobe, and emergency clothes for the clothes that might get dirty!

At that moment, I realized something very important:

I was going to Spiti for 8 days. Sherman was apparently going to open a branch there.

Honestly, I was half expecting him to unzip that bag and pull out a sofa, a microwave, and one confused family member!

Then came the moment of truth—the bags were weighed, and we were told that the excess baggage would cost us around ₹3,000 extra!

And that’s when Operation “Reduce Sherman’s Luggage” officially began!

We started taking things out of his bag and shifting whatever we could into the travel bag. One item here, another item there… basically, we were doing airport-level luggage management under extreme pressure!

Somehow, after all that jugaad, we managed to bring the weight down and finally paid around ₹1,600 extra and got the bags checked in.

But while all this was happening, one thought kept running through my mind:

“Mujhe lag raha hai yeh aadmi Spiti jaa nahi raha… wahan apna doosra ghar basane ja raha hai!”

And then I started worrying about his family…

“Main unko kya jawab dungi agar yeh wapas aaya hi nahi aur Spiti mein permanently settle ho gaya toh?”

At this point, I wasn’t worried about the cold anymore.

By now, you must be wondering… who exactly is this Sherman who has suddenly appeared in my Spiti story?

Well, let me introduce you to my partner in crime!

Sherman is not exactly what you would call a travel enthusiast.  His idea of a perfect routine is basically office → home → office → home. That’s his comfort zone, and honestly, he seems quite happy there!

And guess what? This was officially his first proper trip! And yes… I may have had to do a little convincing—or, let’s be honest, a LOT of convincing—to get him to come along.

He is my adorable little “kuen ka mendak”, happily living in his own comfortable little world, while I keep trying to introduce him to the big, beautiful world outside.

And then there was me, taking this man on his very first adventure… straight to Spiti!

I was genuinely worried about him. I kept thinking, “Yeh aadmi Spiti ki itni thand kaise handle karega? Isne toh kabhi aisi jagah travel hi nahi ki!”

But after seeing his luggage at the airport, my worries slowly disappeared.

Because honestly, looking at the amount of stuff he had packed, it felt like Sherman wasn’t going to Spiti for eight days… he was going there to start a new life!

I was worried about whether he would survive the cold.

Sherman, meanwhile, seemed fully prepared to survive the winter, open a bank account, buy a little house and become a permanent resident of Spiti!

And that’s my partner in crime—a man who had barely stepped out of his comfort zone, and whose first big adventure was going straight to the mountains.

Little did he know… I was about to introduce him to a whole new world!

Of course, there was one small problem before Sherman could join me on this trip—getting leave!

He somehow managed to get the leave after his chhote papa passed away, and I was casually telling him, “Tu apne papa ko hi maar de, tab toh pakka chhutti mil jayegi!”

And then I suddenly remembered…

WAIT. His father had already passed away a few years ago!

To make matters worse, because he’s a senior person at work, his office colleagues had already come to pay their respects when his father passed away. So this wasn’t exactly something I could casually suggest!

Thankfully, Sherman didn’t take my brilliant advice seriously.

Because imagine if he had actually gone to the office and said, “Good news… I finally got my leave!”

Not only would Sherman have been standing outside the office permanently…

I would probably have lost my one and only job too, for giving him such a brilliant idea!

So yes, sometimes my mouth speaks faster than my brain. Luckily, Sherman knows me well enough to know when I’m being completely stupid!

Finally, we were on our way to Spiti!

We reached the airport, and obviously, when free food is available, how can I possibly commit the sin of not eating it?  So we headed straight to the lounge.

We found a nice little spot, kept our bags there, and I immediately ran towards the food like I hadn’t eaten in ten years!  The moment I saw the buffet, the animal inside me woke up!

We were so busy eating that we completely forgot about the flight. By the time we looked at the clock, our boarding time had already passed and we were almost 30 minutes late!

I suddenly told Sherman, “Chalo, boarding!”

And this man, without a single sign of panic, casually replied, “Haan haan, chalte hain… flight kahaan bhaag jayegi? Pehle aaram se kha lete hain.”

Finally, we rushed to the gate, where the lady looked at us like she was about to personally cancel our entire trip.

She angrily asked, “Where were you? The gate is about to close!”

I was so embarrassed that I couldn’t even tell her the truth:

“Ma’am… we were eating. Free mein mil raha tha.”

Somehow, after all that drama, we managed to board the flight.

Spiti was waiting for us… and thankfully, the flight hadn’t run away!

After reaching Delhi, we started waiting for our cab—which, by the way, I had already booked in advance using my super-talented, super-smart brain!

Our flight had arrived in the morning, but our Spiti pickup was only in the evening, so I had a brilliant money-saving plan: “Why waste money on an expensive hotel just to keep our luggage? Let’s take a cheap room, freshen up, change clothes and go explore Delhi!”

With my kanjoos-but-genius logic, I booked a room in Paharganj.

But the moment we reached the area, I started getting a very different kind of vibe.  And when we reached the hotel, my suspicion was basically confirmed!

For a second, I remembered those Bollywood scenes where Kareena asks the hotel guy, “Hume Room ghante ke liye chahiye”

And honestly, looking at this place, I felt like asking the same question—“Bhaiya, yahan bhi hourly package milta hai kya?”

I started thinking, “Okay… how do I get myself out of this situation?” I sent Sherman to check the hotel next door.

He came back and said, “Room toh achha hai… but ₹5,000 se zyada hai.”

My kanjoos brain immediately said, “Arre, sirf luggage hi toh rakhna hai! Luggage ka thodi na character assassination hone wala hai. Chhod, isi mein rakh dete hain!”

So we bravely entered our budget hotel.

And the moment we opened the door… TWO RATS were already inside, completely ignoring us and busy having their own romantic date!

I froze.

I looked at Sherman, expecting at least a little panic.

But this man just looked at the rats, looked at me, and calmly said something like, “Accha… inka bhi room yahin hai.”

I was like, “ROOM? Sherman, yeh hotel nahi hai, inka matrimonial home hai!”

And that’s when I knew we had made one tiny mistake:

“Mujhe lag raha hai hum yahan samaan rakhne nahi, samaan ki izzat lutwane aaye hain!pata nahi yah chuhe mere saman ke ijjat ke sath kya karenge ? ”

Later, when we looked properly, we discovered a huge hole under the sofa—clearly the official entrance to the rats’ luxury residence.

Apparently, this wasn’t just a hotel room for us. It was also a popular hangout for the entire rat family—to come for a visit, have a little romance, and probably spend quality family time!

But what could we do? We only needed the room to keep our luggage, so we quickly dumped our bags, didn’t waste another second, and escaped to explore Delhi!

Although, I have to admit, one thought did cross my mind…

“Yaar, agar is situation mein Sherman ki jagah John Abraham hota toh?”

At least getting stuck in a questionable hotel room with John Abraham would have had some entertainment value!

But then I looked at Sherman and thought…

“John ke saath toh thoda romance ho bhi jaata… Sherman ke saath main kya karungi—rats ke saath antakshari?”

And with that very important question unanswered, we left to explore Delhi!

Since We hadn’t eaten anything since morning, so we decided, “Pet puja first, baaki kaam baad mein!”

We spotted a hotel right in front of us and immediately walked in. And honestly, Ram kasam, the food was actually really good!

But then came another interesting distraction.

A Japanese girl was sitting right in front of Sherman. And suddenly, Sherman’s attention seemed to be less on his food and much more on the girl!

He was trying very hard to look casual, but his eyes were clearly having their own sightseeing tour.

But honestly, who could blame him? She was genuinely very attractive.

And before anyone starts judging Sherman, let me confess something — I was doing exactly the same thing!

So technically, I had absolutely no right to complain.

After all, when something—or someone—is that attractive, sometimes even your food has to wait for a few seconds!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was just the beginning of our Delhi adventure.

 The moment we stepped out of the restaurant , we found an auto driver who looked like a very simple, shareef kind of guy.

The moment he realized we were new to Delhi, his hidden personality suddenly came alive!

I swear, it felt like this man had actually been born to be a tourist guide but somehow ended up driving an auto by mistake!

From the moment we sat down, he started explaining everything—the roads, the turns, the crossings, the history, and practically every corner between us and the Red Fort!

He was giving us a complete Delhi sightseeing lecture, free of cost!

He even started telling us about Turkman Gate, Chandni Chowk, and every little landmark on the way.

Turkman Gate is one of the historic gates of Shahjahanabad (Old Delhi), the walled city established by Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in the 17th century. It was built around 1658 and was one of the city’s 14 major gates.

The gate was not named after Turkey or the Turks. It gets its name from the famous Sufi saint Shah Turkman Bayabani, whose tomb is located nearby. The saint lived centuries before Shah Jahan and was an important figure in Delhi’s early Sufi tradition.

The area also has a connection with Razia Sultan, whose traditionally identified grave is located close to Shah Turkman’s shrine.

The original walls of Shahjahanabad have largely disappeared, but Turkman Gate still survives as a reminder of Mughal-era Delhi. Its simple Mughal architecture includes arched openings and defensive bastions

Our Delhi sightseeing adventure started with an auto driver who seemed to have been appointed by the Delhi Tourism Department without anyone’s permission.

The moment he realised we were tourists, his commentary began.

Every road had a story. Every building had a history. Every turn came with a warning.

At one point, I wasn't sure whether I was sitting in an auto or attending a three-hour history lecture with no attendance option!

At one point I thought, “Bhai, auto chala rahe ho ya Delhi Tourism ka orientation session le rahe ho?”

Listening to his never-ending commentary, we finally stopped in front of the Red Fort. But then he pointed towards  “Red Fort” and confidently announced,

“Entry here is only allowed till 4 PM. You’re already late!”

Then he pointed towards Jama Masjid and told us to go inside from that side.

But before leaving us, he gave us one final piece of priceless Delhi wisdom:

“Keep your gold and chains safe. You won’t even realise when they disappear!”

And just like that, my sightseeing mood disappeared too.

My hand immediately went straight to my neck.

CHAIN CHECK!

After all, I had just spent a good ₹3.5 lakh getting that chain made. I hadn’t even properly admired it yet!

Imagine spending ₹ 3.5 lakh on a chain and then losing it in Delhi before the actual sightseeing had even started.

Forget Red Fort.

I would have built my own Taj Mahal for that chain and cried inside it!

So my priorities changed immediately:

Red Fort? Later.
Jama Masjid? Later.
Delhi Darshan? Later.
CHAIN PROTECTION? EMERGENCY!

And that’s how I officially entered Mission Chain Protection.

We continued walking through the narrow, unbelievably crowded lanes of Chandni Chowk. The crowd was so intense that, as a Mumbaikar, I immediately felt at home.

Honestly, it reminded me of the famous Dharavi crowds back in Mumbai.

Same madness.

Same pushing.

Same confusion.

Same feeling of “Bas bhai, kisi tarah nikal jao!”

But suddenly, through all that chaos, I spotted something beautiful.

FALOODA!

I thought, “Chalo, crowd ko goli maro. At least falooda par concentration karte hain!”

Unfortunately, that falooda turned out to be another level of Delhi adventure.

One spoonful and I felt like I was eating sev ki kheer swimming in rabdi!

I looked at Sherman.

Sherman looked at me.

Neither of us said anything.

Some food experiences are better left without commentary.

Then my eyes landed on pani puri.

Now, being a proud Mumbaikar, I had complete faith in pani puri.

I confidently told Sherman,

“Pani puri toh best hi hogi!”

And, thanks to my overconfidence, we ordered it.

The first pani puri went into my mouth.

Two seconds later, my brain asked:

“Madam… aapko exactly kya laga tha?”

I swear, I have eaten better pani puri in the smallest lanes of Mumbai.

But now I had a problem.

I had recommended it.

So I couldn't exactly turn around and say, “Sorry Sherman, meri judgement aaj officially kharab hai.”

Therefore, with the courage of a soldier and the facial expression of a hostage, I finished the pani puri.

By then, Delhi traffic had already eaten half our day.

The remaining half had been eaten by the falooda and pani puri.

And whatever was left was being guarded by my ₹3.5 lakh chain!

So we finally headed back towards the hotel.

The moment we entered the room, I looked straight at my bag.

Not casually.

Suspiciously.

Because now I had another concern.

What if the Delhi mice association had held an emergency meeting in our absence and decided:

“Aaj is bag ko kutarte hain!”

I quickly checked the bag.

Thankfully, it was still alive and in one piece.

At this point, I realised my Delhi trip had turned into a multi-level protection programme.

Mission 1: Protect the chain. ✅
Mission 2: Protect the bag from mice. ✅
Mission 3: Eat something edible. ❓
Mission 4: Actually see Delhi. ❌

Because honestly, where was my Delhi Darshan?

Somewhere between the falooda, pani puri, traffic, crowds and chain protection, my dream of peacefully exploring Delhi had quietly disappeared.

We had come to see the Red Fort, Jama Masjid and the beautiful old streets of Delhi.

Instead, I had:

protected my chain,
protected my bag,
survived the crowd,
reviewed Delhi’s falooda,
reviewed Delhi’s pani puri,
and fought Delhi traffic.

The only thing I hadn't successfully done was—

see Delhi!

At this point, I started wondering whether we had actually come to Delhi for sightseeing…

or whether Delhi had invited us for a personal survival test.

In the middle of all this chaos, I was also talking to my friend Sangeeta on the phone. I told her everything that had happened so far — the hotel, the mysterious mice, my ₹3.5 lakh chain protection mission, the crazy crowd, the disastrous falooda and the questionable pani puri!

I was expecting at least a little sympathy.

Instead, Sangeeta very clearly said,

“No way! I am NOT coming to your hotel!”

Apparently, after hearing my Delhi survival story, she had decided that meeting me at the hotel was simply too risky!

She told me that she would meet me somewhere nice instead, where we could sit peacefully, have some proper food together and then directly head towards the pickup point for our Spiti trip.

And at this point, you might be wondering…

“Okay, but who exactly is Sangeeta?”

Well, Sangeeta and Mohit are two friends I met during my Meghalaya trip. We got along really well, became good friends, and eventually ended up planning this Spiti trip together.

Sangeeta is from Bangalore, while Mohit is actually from Delhi.

And here comes the irony…

I had travelled all the way to Delhi and was struggling with crowds, traffic, suspicious auto drivers, falooda, pani puri and my chain protection mission…

while Mohit, the Delhi guy, was sitting comfortably in his own city!

But the best part was that I wasn't even going to meet him in Delhi at this stage.

Mohit would meet us directly at the Spiti pickup point at Kashmere Gate, where Sangeeta and I would also meet the rest of our tour members.

And from there, our actual Spiti adventure would officially begin!

So technically, Delhi was just the trailer.

The real movie was about to start…

SPITI VALLEY — HERE WE COME!

But before that, I still had one unfinished Delhi mission:

Actually seeing Delhi!

Because so far, Delhi had seen me…

but I had barely seen Delhi!

Sangeeta called us to one of Delhi’s poshest and most famous areas — Connaught Place, or CP, as Delhi people proudly call it.

After everything we had been through, we were more than happy to reach CP. At least this part of Delhi looked classy, peaceful and, most importantly, safe for my chain!

We had a nice dinner, finished our food and thought, “Okay, now we can finally relax.”

Wrong.

Another mission was waiting for us.

MISSION METRO!

Someone suggested to Sangeeta that instead of taking a cab, the easiest way to reach Kashmere Gate was by metro.

I don't know who gave her that advice, but I am quite sure that person had never seen our luggage!

Because travelling by metro with normal luggage may be easy.

But travelling with our luggage?

That was not travel. That was weightlifting!

We were carrying so much stuff that every few minutes we had to stop and catch our breath. One hand had luggage, the other had another bag, and somewhere in between I was still making sure my precious chain was safe.

We looked less like tourists and more like three people shifting their entire house from one city to another!

Somehow, after struggling through the metro, carrying our luggage up and down, changing directions and questioning every decision that had brought us there, we finally reached Kashmere Gate.

The moment our feet touched the ground, I thought:

“Finally! Mission Metro completed!”

But no.

Because now came the most difficult mission of the entire day.

MISSION: FIND THE CAPTAIN!

Our Spiti trip was about to officially begin, and we had to find our captain.

Simple, right?

Absolutely NOT!

Finding our captain at Kashmere Gate felt like finding a needle in a haystack… while carrying 30 kilos of luggage!

We kept walking.

Then running.

Then stopping.

Then calling.

Then walking again.

Someone said, “Come this side.”

We went there.

Then someone said, “No, no, come that side.”

We went there.

At this point, we were practically doing a Kashmere Gate sightseeing tour with our luggage!

We had already spent around 30 hours travelling and were carrying luggage that felt heavier with every passing minute.

Our condition was basically:

Body: 5% battery
Luggage: 200% weight
Patience: 2%
Excitement for Spiti: 100%

We kept calling our captain again and again.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he came to pick us up.

The moment we saw him, I think all three of us had the same thought:

“Thank God! We have finally found our captain!”

And just like that, after surviving Delhi traffic, the crowds, the chain-protection mission, questionable falooda, disappointing pani puri, metro weightlifting and the legendary “Find the Captain” mission, we were finally together.

Now there was only one thing left to do:

Start our actual Spiti adventure!

Delhi had already given us enough drama for one lifetime.

Spiti, please be kind to us!

The moment our captain finally took us to our group, I swear, jaan mein jaan aa gayi!

After wandering around Kashmere Gate with all that luggage, we had finally found our people.

And then I saw Mohit.

He looked at me, gave me his sweet little smile and came towards me.

I thought, “Bas! Ab toh emotional moment aayega.”

After all, I had travelled all the way from Mumbai, survived Delhi traffic, fought through Chandni Chowk, protected my ₹3.5 lakh chain, survived the falooda, bravely finished the pani puri, carried half my house through the metro and then wandered around Kashmere Gate looking for this man!

Surely, after hearing all this, Mohit would give me a proper, full, emotional hug.

The kind of hug that says:

“Come here! You have suffered enough. Don't worry, I’m here now!”

But…

He came towards me…

gave me a sweet smile…

and…

a tiny little hug.

Bas.

ITNA SA HUG?!

For a second, I just stood there thinking,

“Seriously, Mohit? THIS is all I get after everything I’ve been through?”

My expectations had been for a full Bollywood reunion hug.

His contribution was more like a formal office hug!

I was slightly disappointed, I won't lie.

I mean, we had been separated like friends lost in a mela, and after finally finding each other, I deserved at least one proper “Arey yaar, you made it!” kind of hug!

But then I thought…

“Bechare ko kya pata maine poora din kya saha hai!”

He had no idea about the auto driver, the chain-protection mission, the suspicious bag, the Delhi crowd, the falooda disaster, the pani puri disappointment, the metro luggage Olympics and finally the Kashmere Gate treasure hunt!

So maybe I should forgive him.

But still…

Mele mein bichhde doston ki tarah ek FULL hug toh de hi sakta tha na!

Anyway, emotional expectations aside, the important thing was that we had finally found each other.

And now, for the first time that day, I felt like—

Okay… now the real trip can finally begin.

Around 11:30 PM, our bus finally left for Shimla.

After the entire day of Delhi chaos, we were finally on our way towards the mountains!

The bus journey started with all of us chatting, laughing and pulling each other’s legs. And honestly, I was in full-on masti mode.

Our conversations had absolutely no direction.

One joke would lead to another, then another completely useless joke would somehow become the funniest thing in the world.

Basically, we were having the kind of conversations that make absolutely no sense the next morning but are hilarious at 1 AM!

After a while, my eyes started getting heavy and I finally managed to doze off.

But just when I had entered that beautiful “ab mujhe duniya se koi matlab nahi” sleep, the bus stopped.

The driver had decided it was time for a snacks break.

It was already well past midnight, and we stopped at a hotel called Haveli.

Normally, I would have been annoyed about being woken up in the middle of the night.

But then I saw the food.

And more importantly…

the kulhad wali chai!

There was something magical about sitting there in the middle of the night, having a hot sandwich and sipping tea from a kulhad.

After the madness of Delhi, the crowd, the luggage, the metro, the endless travelling and all the drama of the day, that little midnight break felt strangely peaceful.

The sandwich was delicious.

The chai was even better.

And that kulhad wali chai at Haveli…

I don't think I will ever forget it.

Sometimes, the most memorable moments of a trip aren't the famous tourist attractions.

Sometimes, they are simply a hot cup of chai, a roadside hotel, sleepy eyes and good friends at midnight.

And with that warm chai in our hands, we got back on the bus…

Shimla was waiting for us.

After finishing our chai, we climbed back into the bus and continued towards Shimla.

The bus was actually quite decent, but there was just one tiny problem — I have a habit of sleeping completely flat!

So, for me, that bus seat wasn't just a little congested… it was way too congested!

I tried adjusting myself this way, then that way, moved my legs, shifted my bag, adjusted my neck and did everything possible to somehow fit myself into that seat.

Finally, I gave up and thought,

“Vaishali, ab isi mein adjust hona padega. Shimla tak isi mein survive karna hai!”

So I somehow folded myself into that seat and waited for Shimla to arrive.

But Shimla wasn't actually our final destination.

Our plan was to reach Shimla, leave the big bus behind, change into a smaller Tempo Traveller and then continue towards Sangla, where we were supposed to reach by night.

So this wasn't just a journey to Shimla.

Shimla was only our gateway to the real adventure.

As we moved ahead, I could feel the journey slowly changing.

The noisy Delhi roads were now far behind us. The traffic started thinning, the roads became curvier and the mountains began appearing more prominently around us.

And honestly, this was the part I had been waiting for.

Theog — The Mountains Were Finally Taking Over

On our way ahead, we passed through Theog, a beautiful hill town in Shimla district. Theog lies along the old Hindustan-Tibet Road and sits at roughly 2,000 metres above sea level.

I didn't know much about Theog before this trip, but sitting inside the bus and watching the landscape outside, I could understand why these Himalayan towns are so special.

The roads were winding through the hills, houses appeared here and there, and the scenery was slowly becoming greener and more mountainous.

It felt like Delhi had been another lifetime.

Just a few hours earlier, I had been worrying about my chain in the middle of Chandni Chowk.

Now I was sitting inside a bus surrounded by mountains.

My chain had survived Delhi. My stomach had survived the pani puri. And now I was ready for the Himalayas!

Narkanda — Breakfast, Mountains & New Faces

After travelling further, we reached Narkanda, another beautiful mountain town in Shimla district, sitting at around 2,700 metres above sea level.

Narkanda is known for its apple orchards, dense Himalayan forests and the nearby Hatu Peak. It is also an important stop on the route towards the higher Himalayan regions.

But honestly, at that moment, my biggest interest wasn't Hatu Peak or apple orchards.

I was interested in breakfast!

After travelling through the night, everyone was hungry and sleepy, so our stop at Narkanda was very welcome.

And something else happened here that was equally important.

Our group introduction finally happened.

Until then, we were basically a collection of people travelling towards the same destination.

Now we finally started getting to know each other properly.

There were 11 of us in our Tempo Traveller.

There was me, Sherman, Mohit and Sangeeta.

Then we had the younger gang — Sumadhura, Tanishk and Nishchay.

There was Dev, who was a little older than us, and Kshitij, who was around our age.

And then there was Ananya.

Sorry, Ananya!

I almost forgot you while counting everyone!

Ananya was neither properly Gen Z nor Millennial — she was somewhere comfortably sitting in the middle, like a generation-neutral zone!

Over breakfast, names started becoming faces, and faces slowly started becoming friends.

At that point, none of us knew exactly what was waiting for us in the days ahead.

We only knew that we had a long road ahead, a beautiful destination waiting and a Tempo Traveller full of people who were slowly becoming our Spiti family.

Towards Kinnaur

After breakfast, we got back into our Tempo Traveller and continued towards Kinnaur.

And this was where the journey started becoming even more exciting.

The further we went, the more dramatic the landscape became. The roads twisted around the mountains, the valleys opened up in front of us and the feeling of being surrounded by the Himalayas became stronger with every kilometre.

We were gradually entering Kinnaur, one of Himachal Pradesh's high-altitude border districts, known for its dramatic mountain valleys, apple orchards, traditional villages and rivers such as the Sutlej and Baspa.

And then came a moment when everyone suddenly wanted to stop.

Kinnaur Gate!

Our Tempo Traveller pulled over and we all jumped out for photographs.

This was one of those moments where nobody needed to say, “Guys, let's take pictures.”

The moment we saw the spot:

Phones automatically came out!

Hair was fixed.

Jackets were adjusted.

Someone became the photographer.

Someone else immediately started posing.

And suddenly, all eleven of us were behaving like we had been personally hired by the Kinnaur Tourism Department!

But jokes apart, standing there felt different.

We had started this journey in Delhi, where I had spent half my time fighting crowds, protecting my chain and searching for food.

Now we were standing amidst the mountains, with Kinnaur opening up ahead of us.

The landscape had completely changed.

And somewhere between that first glimpse of the Kinnaur mountains and all those photographs, I realised:

Okay… this is what I had actually come for.

The Delhi chapter was slowly fading behind us.

The mountains were getting closer.

And our real adventure towards Sangla and eventually Spiti had finally begun.

Of course, I still had one tiny concern…

My chain and my luggage.

After everything they had survived so far, they were officially travelling with me till the end!

By the time we were somewhere deep into Kinnaur, it was already around 6:30 in the evening.

And just like that, the beautiful views that we had been admiring all day slowly disappeared into the darkness.

The mountains, valleys and those breathtaking landscapes that had been keeping us glued to the windows were suddenly swallowed by the night.

I remember thinking, “Itna kuch dekhne aaye the… aur ab sab andhere ki god mein chala gaya!”

But we had no choice. We still had to reach Sangla.

Finally, at around 8:30 PM, we reached our hotel, Hotel Royal Castle in Sangla.

By then, we had been travelling for almost two days.

At this point, our bodies had officially stopped cooperating with us.

We were tired, hungry and desperately in need of a bed.

We had dinner, spent a little time chatting and fooling around with the group, and then everyone finally disappeared into their respective rooms.

That night, honestly, I didn't even get a chance to properly understand where we had reached.

It was dark outside.

All I knew was that we had finally made it to Sangla.

I went to sleep thinking, “Chalo, kal subah dekhte hain yeh Sangla aakhir hai kaisa.”

And then came the morning.

Oh. My. God.

The moment I looked outside, I genuinely felt that I had entered a completely different world.

I don't think I had ever seen a morning quite like that.

The mountains were standing right in front of us, and the first rays of sunlight were falling over them.

The sunlight wasn't just shining…

it looked as if someone had scattered silver dust all over the mountains.

The rays were sparkling against the landscape, slowly bringing everything back to life after the darkness of the night.

And suddenly, the exhaustion of the previous two days didn't seem so important anymore.

All those hours of travelling, the uncomfortable bus seat, the luggage, the traffic, the metro, the endless roads…

it all felt worth it.

The night had hidden Sangla from us.

But the morning had decided to make up for it in the most beautiful way possible.

I just stood there looking at the view and thought—

“Okay… THIS is why we travelled all this way.”

And that was my first real glimpse of Sangla.

Not through Instagram.

Not through someone else's photographs.

But standing there myself, watching the first sunlight touch the mountains…

and honestly, it was far more beautiful than anything I had imagined.

The next morning, the view outside our hotel was so unbelievably beautiful that, for a while, I completely forgot one very important fact…

I hadn't had breakfast!

I was so busy looking at the mountains, the sunlight and the scenery that food had temporarily disappeared from my mind.

And we didn't have much time either. We had to get ready and leave for Kalpa.

Before leaving, the hotel owner gave the three of us some apples picked fresh from the trees on the property.

And oh my God!

Those apples!

I genuinely cannot explain how delicious they were.

We are so used to buying apples from supermarkets and fruit shops in Mumbai that eating an apple straight from the tree felt like a completely different experience.

And being from Mumbai, I have to confess something…

Apple trees are not exactly part of our daily city landscape!

So standing there in the mountains, eating an apple that had literally just been picked from the tree felt almost like a luxury experience.

Honestly, if someone had told me earlier that one of the highlights of my Spiti trip would be eating a fresh apple outside a hotel, I would probably have laughed.

But there I was — happily eating apples and admiring the mountains!

Eventually, we had our breakfast, took the mandatory photographs — because apparently no trip is official until you have enough photographs to prove you actually went there! — and finally left for Kalpa.

As we moved ahead, we continued enjoying the beautiful landscapes around Chitkul and the Baspa Valley. Chitkul is the last inhabited village of the Baspa Valley and sits at around 3,450 metres, with the Baspa River flowing alongside it. The landscape there is a combination of mountains, river, traditional villages and terraced fields.

We stopped near the river, clicked photographs, played games and simply enjoyed being there.

There was no hurry for a few moments.

Just mountains on one side, the river nearby, cold mountain air and our group behaving like a bunch of schoolchildren on a picnic!

And then, as we continued towards Kalpa, we got another beautiful glimpse of Kinner Kailash.

The Kinner Kailash massif rises to about 6,050 metres, and from the Kalpa–Reckong Peo area it forms one of the most dramatic Himalayan backdrops. It is traditionally associated with Lord Shiva and is an important sacred landscape for local people and pilgrims.

I had already heard about Kinner Kailash before the trip, but seeing it with my own eyes was completely different.

Sometimes photographs prepare you for a place.

And sometimes you reach there and realise—

“Okay… photographs were not doing justice to this!”

After enjoying the views, our next stop was Roghi near Kalpa.

And that's where we encountered a place with perhaps the most dramatic name of our entire trip:

Suicide Point!

Now honestly, when I first heard the name, I thought,

“Itni beautiful jagah ko kisi ne aisa naam kaise de diya?”

The viewpoint near Roghi is famous for its dramatic drop-offs and sweeping views over the Kinnaur landscape, with the mountains and valleys stretching out in front of you. It is commonly referred to by tourists as Roghi Suicide Point.

But standing there, looking at that scenery, my reaction was completely different.

The view was so unbelievably beautiful that I understood why people stop there just to stare.

The mountains seemed to fall away into the valley, the air was crisp, and everything looked almost unreal.

I actually thought:

“ Suicide Point … naam sunte hi mujhe laga tourism department ne thoda zyada honest marketing kar di hai!  But once we reached there, I understood why this place was famous. Neeche endless valley, saamne mountains and around us nothing but raw Himalayan beauty. Naam chahe Suicide Point ho, but view literally jaan lene wala tha!!”

Not in the literal sense, of course — but in that dramatic Indian way of saying that something is so beautiful it takes your breath away!

I stood there taking in the view and thought about how different this was from the world I had left behind.

Just a few days earlier, I was sitting in Mumbai surrounded by buildings, traffic and office life.

And now I was standing in Kinnaur, looking at enormous Himalayan landscapes with Kinner Kailash somewhere in the distance.

This was the kind of moment when you don't need a filter, a caption or even a photograph.

You just stand there quietly and think—

“Yes… this is exactly why I travel.”

Of course, after approximately thirty seconds of this deep philosophical moment…

someone from our group probably said something stupid,

and we were back to laughing again!

Because that's what this trip was slowly becoming —

beautiful mountains, crazy views, endless photographs and a group of people who couldn't stay serious for more than two minutes.

The scenery around us was so unbelievably beautiful that, honestly, I was running out of words to describe it. Every turn had another postcard-worthy view, another mountain, another valley that made me stop and think, “How can a place be this beautiful?”

But somewhere in the middle of all this beauty, I suddenly noticed something else.

Sherman had gone quiet.

He had almost completely stopped talking to me.

To be honest, at that moment, I didn’t pay too much attention. I was busy taking in the views, clicking pictures, enjoying the journey and generally behaving like someone who had finally escaped her office desk and had been released into the Himalayas! 😂

But somewhere in his mind, I think Sherman had started feeling that I was ignoring him because I was too busy enjoying the trip.

Which was absolutely not true.

I did try talking to him once or twice.

“How are you feeling?”

“Are you enjoying?”

“How is the trip?”

But his responses were short, almost like I was conducting an HR exit interview and he had already mentally resigned!

Maybe this whole experience was simply too new for him.

This was a man who was normally very comfortable in his office-to-home-to-office routine, and I had suddenly dragged him out of that comfort zone and brought him on a massive, long Himalayan trip.

And not just any trip.

I had practically kidnapped him into travelling!

He is also a little reserved by nature. He doesn’t immediately mix with everyone or start chatting with strangers. Me? I am completely the opposite. Put me anywhere — airport, hotel, bus, roadside dhaba, wedding, random group of strangers — give me five minutes and I will somehow find someone to talk to!

So perhaps we were simply operating on two completely different frequencies.

And then came my own contribution to the situation — my ego.

I had tried talking to him a couple of times. He wasn’t responding much.

So somewhere inside my head came the very mature thought:

“Fine. If you don’t want to talk, I won’t talk either.”

And just like that, instead of solving the problem, we both quietly entered our own little zones.

Two people travelling together in the Himalayas…

Surrounded by breathtaking mountains…

And conducting a silent war without even knowing what the actual war was about.

By evening, we reached Kalpa and checked into Hotel Aakash by Geetanjalee Group.

And now came the most important part of the evening:

THE APPLES.

I still had the taste of those fresh apples from Sangla in my mouth. Those apples had been so delicious that somewhere in my mind I had already started imagining myself continuing my Himalayan apple journey.

Maybe I would find another tree.

Maybe I would casually pluck one.

Maybe I would eat it while walking around like a local mountain girl.

Basically, I had developed too much confidence because of three complimentary apples!

And then I entered the hotel reception.

Right in front of me was a big board.

I read it.

Then I read it again.

And suddenly my entire apple strategy collapsed.

The board basically said that plucking apples would attract a ₹10,000 fine.

TEN THOUSAND RUPEES.

For ONE APPLE.

My brain immediately did the calculation.

Morning apple: priceless.

Kalpa apple: ₹10,000.

Suddenly that innocent little fruit no longer looked like an apple.

It looked like a ₹10,000 financial liability hanging from a tree.

I immediately decided:

“Thank you very much. I will admire the apples from a safe distance.”

The same woman who had been happily eating freshly plucked apples in the morning was now standing in front of the hotel reception thinking,

“Apple khana hai, bankruptcy nahi karni!”

So I kept my hands firmly to myself and decided that photography was the safest option.

After dinner, we went out for a little walk around Kalpa. The night air was cold, the surroundings were peaceful, and after the long journey and the emotional Sherman situation, a quiet walk actually felt good.

We came back to the hotel, and by then the entire day had finally caught up with me.

I went to my room, got into bed and thought:

Bas. Aaj ke liye enough adventure.

No more mountains.

No more apples.

No more ₹10,000 fines.

And definitely no more analysing whether Sherman was angry with me or simply tired! 😂

I pulled the blanket over myself and waited for sleep to take over.

Tomorrow was another day.

Another route.

Another set of mountains.

And, hopefully…

a fresh start — preferably with Sherman talking to me again.

For now, though, the mountains outside were silent, the hotel was quiet, and I finally closed my eyes.

Kalpa had given me breathtaking views, delicious apple memories, one potential ₹10,000 apple disaster, and a tiny unresolved fight with my partner in crime.

Not a bad day for the Himalayas.

There was one more incident from that day which I completely forgot to mention — and honestly, this deserves its own chapter.

Around lunchtime, while we were somewhere on the route, Nishchay had bought some kachoris from a roadside shop.

Now, Sangeeta saw those kachoris and immediately developed a serious emotional attachment to them.

She wanted one.

So she asked Nishchay to get some more.

Nishchay, being the decent human being he was, actually went and bought them.

But somehow, in the middle of all the travelling, talking, eating and chaos, Sangeeta forgot to take her kachori from Nishchay.

And then life moved on.

Or so we thought.

By evening, we reached our hotel in Kalpa.

And that's when the real drama began.

Our captain informed us that Nishchay's stay had been arranged at a different hotel.

Now, obviously, Nishchay wasn't happy.

Sumadhura and Tanishk were also not happy because they wanted to stay with the rest of us.

So suddenly the hotel reception turned into a full-blown negotiation centre.

Nishchay, Sumadhura and Tanishk were arguing with the captain.

The captain was trying to explain the accommodation arrangement.

Everyone was talking.

Everyone had a solution.

Everyone had a problem.

And in the middle of this very serious discussion, there was Sangeeta.

But Sangeeta wasn't really interested in the hotel problem.

She had only ONE THING on her mind.

Her kachori.

She came to me and said something like,

“Main Nishchay ke pass jake aati hoon… meri kachori uske paas hai! Normal bat karke apni kachori leke aati hu ”

I looked at her.

Everyone else was fighting over rooms.

People were trying to convince the captain.

There was a full accommodation crisis happening.

And Sangeeta was basically saying,

“Tum log hotel ka dekh lo… mujhe meri kachori chahiye.”

At that moment, the whole situation looked like a Bollywood movie.

The captain had unknowingly become the villain who was separating lovers.

Except this wasn't a love story.

It was a kachori story.

The captain had separated Nishchay from the group…

But according to Sangeeta, he had also separated her from her kachori.

And apparently, that was the bigger tragedy.

She kept saying,

“Main Nishchay ke paas jaake kachori leke aati hoon.”

I couldn't stop laughing.

I was thinking, Madam, people are fighting for their rooms and you are planning a rescue mission for one kachori!

Meanwhile, Nishchay, Sumadhura and Tanishka were still having their serious discussion with the captain.

The captain probably had no idea that, apart from the accommodation dispute, there was now a completely separate Kachori Emergency happening in the background.

At one point, I genuinely felt that if this argument continued for another ten minutes, someone would finally say:

“Forget the rooms. First find the kachori.”

And honestly, Sangeeta was fully prepared.

She was ready to leave the hotel, travel to another hotel, locate Nishchay and recover her long-lost kachori.

That kachori had travelled with us through the mountains, survived the journey, changed hotels, created confusion and somehow become the most important character of the evening.

Nishchay had a room problem.
Sumadhura had a room problem.
Tanishka had a room problem.
The captain had a group-management problem.
And Sangeeta had a KACHORI problem.

At that point, I realised something about our group.

We had come to Spiti for mountains, monasteries, valleys and adventure.

But our actual itinerary seemed to be:

Mountains → Food → Rooms → Arguments → Kachori → More Food.

And somewhere in between all this, we finally sorted out the accommodation situation.

But I still couldn't stop thinking about Sangeeta's priorities.

Some people travel for the mountains.
Some travel for the memories.
And some travel thousands of kilometres just to make sure their kachori doesn't get wasted.

And then, just when I thought this entire kachori drama couldn't get any better, Nishchay apparently heard Sangeeta's silent cry.

Before leaving for his hotel, he came over and handed Sangeeta her precious kachori.

Yes. The kachori had finally returned to its rightful owner.

I wish I could properly explain the expression on Sangeeta's face at that moment.

The happiness…

The satisfaction…

The relief…

It was as if someone had just handed her a lost family heirloom after years of searching!

I looked at her and thought, “Madam, it's a kachori…!”

But honestly, after everything she had gone through for that one kachori, I could understand the emotion.

She had remembered it from lunchtime.

She had searched for Nishchay.

She had announced her intention to personally travel to another hotel to retrieve it.

While the rest of us were dealing with accommodation drama, Sangeeta was fighting for her fundamental right to eat her kachori.

And finally… justice was served.

Of course, we didn't let her enjoy it alone. All of us shared the kachori.

But even while eating it, I could clearly see that the person getting the maximum satisfaction wasn't the group.

It was Sangeeta.

And why wouldn't it be?

The rest of us were simply eating a kachori.
Sangeeta was eating the reward for her struggle.

For us, it was a snack.

For her, it was the successful conclusion of an entire emotional journey.

I swear, the kachori probably tasted ten times better to her because of the effort involved in getting it.

At that moment, I realised something:

Food tastes different when you have worked hard for it.

And Sangeeta had definitely worked overtime for that kachori!

After all the arguments, hotel confusion, captain drama and the great Nishchay-Sangeeta Kachori Separation, we finally sat together and ate it.

And just like that…

Mission Kachori: SUCCESS. ✔

Honestly, I don't know what memories Sangeeta will remember most from Spiti — the mountains, the valleys, the monasteries…

But I'm pretty sure somewhere in that list will be:

“That kachori I almost had to travel to another hotel to rescue.”

 

After leaving Kalpa, our mission for the day was very clear — we had to reach Kaza by night.

Of course, with our group, a simple plan never remains simple for too long.

We had a long route ahead of us, but the beauty of the landscape kept making us forget that we were actually travelling for hours. Every few kilometres, the mountains would throw another spectacular view at us, and naturally, the entire bus would suddenly become a photography studio.

One of our memorable stops that day was Khab Sangam.

And what a place!

Khab is where the Spiti River meets the mighty Sutlej, creating a dramatic confluence surrounded by enormous barren mountains and deep Himalayan gorges. The landscape suddenly felt different — raw, rugged and almost unreal.

We stood there looking at the two rivers coming together, and for a few minutes, nobody seemed to care about the long journey ahead.

Of course, after staring at nature for some time, our group’s spiritual connection with the Himalayas quickly turned into a spiritual connection with food.

We found a place to eat and ordered siddu and thukpa.

The siddu was warm, soft and filling — exactly the kind of food you want when you are travelling through cold mountain roads. It felt like someone had taken comfort food and given it a Himalayan upgrade.

And then came the thukpa — a hot noodle soup loaded with vegetables, noodles and a comforting broth. After being surrounded by cold air and mountains for hours, that steaming bowl felt like a warm hug from inside.

One spoonful and I thought,

“Okay… now I understand why people fall in love with mountain food.”

We ate, laughed, clicked an unreasonable number of photographs and generally behaved as if we had been hired to promote Himachal Tourism.

Every person wanted a different pose.

One wanted a solo picture.

Someone wanted a group picture.

Someone wanted a candid.

Someone wanted a picture pretending they weren't posing.

And then, after taking approximately 847 photographs, everyone would say,

“Ek aur le na, ye achha nahi aaya.”

Honestly, half our travel time was spent travelling and the other half was spent proving through photographs that we had travelled.

From Khab onwards, the landscape became even more dramatic as we moved deeper toward Spiti. The mountains became more barren, the colours more earthy, and the entire valley started looking like another planet.

And somewhere in between all this beauty, I had another small personal problem.

Sangeeta.

Yes.

Apparently, after Sherman yesterday, today it was Sangeeta's turn to be upset with me.

I genuinely don't know when or how I managed to ignore her.

I had absolutely no intention of doing it.

But somehow, in the middle of travelling, photography, food, conversations and our never-ending group chaos, I had apparently made Sangeeta feel ignored.

And honestly, I was beginning to wonder whether this trip had secretly become a “Who Did Vaishali Accidentally Offend Today?” challenge.

Yesterday:

Sherman — offended.

Today:

Sangeeta — offended.

Tomorrow, I was half expecting the captain to announce,

“Madam, today it is my turn.”

But these were my friends.

And if I had unknowingly hurt them, then I felt it was my responsibility to make things right.

So before we reached Tabo, I decided to take full responsibility for the situation.

I started talking to Sangeeta, explaining that I genuinely hadn't meant to ignore her and that if I had made her feel that way, I was sorry.

Luckily, my friends were kind enough to forgive me.

And honestly, I felt relieved.

Because travelling with friends is not only about beautiful views and photographs.

Sometimes it's also about saying,

“Okay, fine… meri galti ho gayi. Ab gussa chhod.”

And thankfully, both Sherman and Sangeeta eventually came around.

So by the time we reached Tabo, my unofficial mission of the day was complete:

Mountains explored — ✔
Food eaten — ✔
Photos taken — ✔
Friends successfully pacified — ✔

Now I could peacefully enjoy Tabo.

TABO MONASTERY — SILENCE THAT SPEAKS

By evening, after making several stops along the way, we finally reached Tabo Monastery.

And honestly, Tabo was completely different from the dramatic beauty we had been seeing on the road.

From the outside, the monastery looked beautiful in its simple, earthy Himalayan surroundings.

But once we stepped inside, the atmosphere changed completely.

It was quiet. Peaceful. Almost meditative.

Tabo Monastery was founded in 996 AD and is one of the oldest and most important Buddhist monastic complexes in the Himalayas. The complex has nine temples, 23 chortens, chambers for monks and nuns, and caves on the surrounding cliffs that were used by monks for meditation. Its ancient murals and stucco sculptures have earned it the nickname “Ajanta of the Himalayas.”

And standing inside those old walls, surrounded by ancient paintings and that deep silence, I suddenly felt very small.

We had been laughing loudly, eating, posing, teasing each other and creating chaos all day.

And here…

Everyone automatically became quieter.

It was almost as if Tabo itself was telling us,

“Bas karo bachcho… thoda shaant bhi ho jao.”

We explored the monastery, admired the beautiful details and soaked in the peaceful atmosphere.

But after walking around for some time, there was another very important feeling that started making itself known.

HUNGER.

Apparently, spirituality has its limits.

So we decided to find a café nearby and sit down for some coffee.

And that's where another great injustice of the Spiti trip happened.

The café had both cappuccino and espresso.

Now, Mohit and I suddenly became very sophisticated.

We looked at each other and thought,

“Cappuccino lenge.”

Because apparently, after travelling through the Himalayas, we had decided we were suddenly European coffee connoisseurs.

Sangeeta and Sherman, meanwhile, ordered espresso.

Our cappuccino was more expensive.

We were happy.

At least initially.

Then the coffees arrived.

We took our first sip.

And looked at each other.

Then we looked at Sangeeta and Sherman.

And that's when the painful truth hit us.

Their cheaper espresso actually tasted better.

There are few things more painful in life than paying more money and getting less happiness.

I had one thought going through my head:

“Humne extra paise kis baat ke diye?”

Mohit and I were sitting there with our expensive cappuccinos, trying very hard to convince ourselves that they were amazing.

Meanwhile, Sangeeta and Sherman were happily drinking their cheaper espresso like they had just won the Coffee Championship of Spiti.

I wanted to complain.

But to whom?

The café?

The coffee?

My own decision?

Or my overconfidence?

Finally, I just accepted the reality.

We had paid premium prices for average happiness.

Sangeeta and Sherman had paid less and were enjoying more.

It was not just a coffee.

It was a financial lesson.

That evening, sitting outside a café near a thousand-year-old monastery in the middle of Spiti, I learned an important life lesson:

Never judge a coffee by its price.

And apparently, never assume that the more expensive option will give you more satisfaction.

Sometimes…

₹ cheaper espresso wins over ₹ expensive cappuccino.

And honestly, after everything that had happened that day — rivers, mountains, food, photographs, two emotional misunderstandings and one coffee betrayal — I was beginning to feel that this Spiti trip was giving me stories at every single stop.

And we still hadn't even reached Kaza.

As we continued towards Kaza, our Tempo Traveller had practically turned into a moving entertainment centre.

The roads were long, the mountains were endless, and sitting quietly was obviously not an option for our group.

So we started playing games.

And among all the games we played, there is one incident I absolutely have to mention — Dumb Charades.

Now, Dumb Charades sounds simple.

One person gets a movie name.

They have to act it out without speaking.

The rest of us have to guess.

Easy, right?

Absolutely not. Not with our group.

Ananya got her movie.

She looked at the title.

Then she looked at all of us.

And I could literally see the thought going through her head:

“How the hell am I supposed to act THIS?”

The movie was:

“Shin Shinaki Boobla Boo.”

Yes.

You read that correctly.

Shin Shinaki Boobla Boo.

Even saying the name itself felt like a tongue-twister created by someone who had absolutely no intention of making Dumb Charades easy.

Ananya started acting.

First, we were all completely confused.

She tried giving us clues through expressions.

Nothing.

More acting.

Still nothing.

Then she realised she had to somehow communicate the “boob” part of the movie title.

And that's when the entire Tempo Traveller lost whatever little dignity it had left.

Ananya started doing an exaggerated gesture to indicate “boobs.”

For about five seconds, everyone just stared at her.

Silence.

Complete silence.

And then suddenly the entire vehicle erupted.

“WHAT ARE YOU ACTING?!”

Someone started throwing random movie names.

Someone else was laughing so hard they couldn't even speak.

Another person was trying to decode her gestures like it was some international sign language competition.

And Ananya was getting more and more desperate because we still weren't getting it!

She was basically thinking:

“Guys! I am literally giving you the biggest clue possible!”

Meanwhile, we were throwing guesses everywhere.

“Shinchan?”

“No!”

“Some old Hindi movie?”

“No!”

“Something with… boobs?”

“Yes!”

“BOOBLA WHAT?!”

At this point, I think everyone had forgotten that we were supposed to actually guess the movie.

We were simply enjoying Ananya's increasingly desperate acting performance.

The best part was that the more confused we became, the harder she had to act.

Eventually, after what felt like an entire film festival, someone finally started connecting the clues.

And when the actual movie name came together —

“Shin Shinaki Boobla Boo!”

There was a collective,

“OH MY GODDDDD!”

We had been travelling through some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world, surrounded by mountains, rivers and ancient monasteries…

And inside our Tempo Traveller, eleven grown adults were sitting there trying to guess a movie called Shin Shinaki Boobla Boo while Ananya was desperately acting out the title.

Honestly, Spiti gave us mountains outside the window and absolute madness inside the vehicle.

And that is exactly what made the journey so much fun.

Because sometimes the best memories aren't the famous viewpoints or the perfect photographs.

Sometimes they're the completely ridiculous moments when everyone is laughing so hard that your stomach starts hurting more than it did from the mountain roads.

By the time we finally reached Kaza at night, we were exhausted.

Not emotionally, not mentally…

Physically. Completely. Totally. Finished.

Our minds were still enjoying the trip, the mountains, the games and all the madness, but our bodies had officially submitted their resignation.

After a full day of travelling, stopping at beautiful viewpoints, eating, clicking hundreds of pictures, playing games in the Tempo Traveller, laughing, talking and creating unnecessary drama, all we wanted was food and a bed.

At that point, our priority list was very simple:

1. Find food.
2. Eat whatever is available.
3. Find the bed.
4. Don't talk to anyone.
5. Sleep.

We somehow managed to eat something.

And when I say something, I genuinely mean something.

I don't even remember what I ate that night!

Usually, I am the kind of person who remembers what I ate, where I ate it, whether it was good, whether it was spicy and who ordered what.

But that night?

Nothing. Blank.

My body had reached a stage where it was basically saying,

“Madam, calories ka analysis kal kar lena. Abhi please sone do.”

Only one thing I remembered

The desert had arrived… but unfortunately, without the sugar. 

We somehow finished dinner, went back to our rooms and collapsed.

No long conversations.

No planning.

No scrolling through photographs.

No “kal kya karna hai?”

Nothing.

Just sleep.

Because somewhere inside, we knew that tomorrow was going to be another day in Spiti — and with this group, that meant only one thing:

A new adventure.
A new experience.
New places.
New stories.
And, most importantly, new opportunities for us to create completely unnecessary chaos.

So I closed my eyes, completely exhausted but genuinely happy.

The body was tired.

The feet were tired.

The back was tired.

But the heart?

The heart was already excited for tomorrow.

Because in Spiti, every morning felt like opening a new chapter.

And I had absolutely no idea what the next chapter was going to bring.

All I knew was—

Tomorrow was waiting. And knowing our group, it was definitely not going to be boring.

The next morning, we had to wake up early and get ready quickly.

Our plan for the day was ambitious — Hikkim, Komic, Langza and finally Key Monastery.

After the previous day's exhaustion, my body was basically requesting a leave application.

But Spiti doesn't care about your leave requests.

So we got ready, had breakfast and started our next adventure.

HIKKIM — THE WORLD'S HIGHEST POST OFFICE

Our first major stop was Hikkim, famous for its post office, which is popularly known as one of the world's highest post offices at around 4,400 metres above sea level.

Now, obviously, once we heard “highest post office,” we had to see it.

Because when you're travelling with a group, apparently standing next to a post office at 4,400 metres is an achievement worthy of approximately 200 photographs.

Everyone started posing, clicking pictures and enjoying the surreal feeling of being at such a high altitude.

At that height, even something as ordinary as a post office suddenly feels extraordinary.

I mean, in Mumbai, we complain if the post office is five minutes away.

Here, we were travelling up into the mountains just to say,

“Yes, we came all the way here to see a post office.”

But honestly, standing there with the enormous mountains all around us made the whole thing feel special.

KOMIC — WHERE THE MOUNTAINS MEET THE SKY

From Hikkim, we continued towards Komic, one of the highest inhabited villages in the world, sitting at roughly 4,587 metres.

And when I say the landscape was breathtaking, I mean it literally.

The air was thin, the surroundings were almost completely barren, and the mountains stretched endlessly in every direction.

Komic has that strange Spiti magic where there is almost nothing around you — yet somehow, you don't feel that anything is missing.

There are a few traditional houses, the famous Tangyud Gompa overlooking the village, prayer flags moving in the wind and enormous mountains surrounding everything.

And then there was us…

Eleven people trying to look glamorous at an altitude where simply breathing already felt like cardio.

Every few minutes someone would stop, take a deep breath and say,

“Yaar, oxygen kam hai.”

And then, two minutes later:

“Ek photo le na!”

Priorities were very clear.

Oxygen — optional.

Instagram picture — compulsory.

LANGZA — FOSSILS, MOUNTAINS & THEN… MY CAREER CHANGE

From Komic, we headed towards Langza, one of the most picturesque villages in Spiti.

Langza is famous for its enormous Buddha statue overlooking the valley, traditional mud-and-stone houses and its fossil-rich landscape. The village is also surrounded by spectacular high-altitude Himalayan scenery.

The moment we reached Langza, the beauty was unreal.

The huge Buddha statue seemed to watch over the entire valley, with the mountains forming a dramatic backdrop.

We spent time walking around, taking photographs and enjoying the surroundings.

And then…

we got hungry.

Not normal hungry.

Not “thoda kuch kha lenge” hungry.

We were at the stage where our stomachs had stopped negotiating with us.

We went to a small hotel/eatery in Langza.

The owner was trying his best to manage everyone, but there were so many of us that he simply couldn't keep up with the orders.

One person wanted this.

Another wanted that.

Someone was asking for tea.

Someone wanted food.

Someone was asking, “Kitna time lagega?”

And meanwhile, our hunger had reached a completely different level.

At first, I was sitting there like a normal tourist.

But after watching the poor owner struggle to manage everything, I thought,

“Chalo, main help kar deti hoon.”

And that was the beginning of my downfall.

I went into the kitchen and started helping with the cooking.

I cooked.

I served.

I ate.

And then I also helped feed everyone else.

Basically, I had entered the hotel as a tourist…

and within a short time, I had been promoted to temporary kitchen staff.

The funniest part?

After some time, even the owner seemed to forget that I was actually a customer.

At one point, he looked at me and casually said,

“Madam, ab yeh bana do jaldi… order aaya hai.”

I just stared at him.

MADAM?!

Five minutes ago I was a tourist.

Now I'm apparently working here.

I almost expected him to hand me an apron and say,

“Madam, lunch ke baad billing bhi dekh lena.”

And the worst part was…

I actually did it!

Because by then our hunger had taken over everything.

There was no question of waiting patiently for food.

Our stomachs had officially stopped listening to our brains.

So I cooked my own food, ate it, and helped prepare food for the rest of the group.

Honestly, I don't know whether I was a tourist visiting Langza or an employee completing her shift there.

If someone had asked me at that moment,

“Aap Langza ghoomne aaye ho?”

I would probably have said,

“Haan… but pehle kitchen ka order complete karne do.” 😂

And somehow, after all that cooking, eating and serving, the entire group finally got fed.

That meal probably tasted even better because we had practically earned it ourselves.

Spiti had given us mountains, monasteries and adventure.

Langza gave me something completely unexpected:

A temporary job.

KEY MONASTERY — THE GRAND FINALE

After Langza, we continued towards Key Monastery, one of the most iconic landmarks of Spiti Valley.

And after the craziness of the morning, arriving at Key felt like entering another world.

Perched dramatically on a hilltop above the Spiti River, Key Monastery is the largest and one of the most important Tibetan Buddhist monasteries in Spiti. Its whitewashed buildings seem to rise directly out of the rugged mountainside, making the whole place look almost unreal.

The climb and the altitude made us work for the view, but once we stood there, surrounded by those massive mountains, it felt completely worth it.

The monastery itself had a very different energy.

Quiet corridors.

Prayer flags.

Ancient Buddhist paintings and scriptures.

Small prayer rooms.

And that peaceful silence that seems to exist only in places far away from cities.

After spending the day running from one high-altitude village to another, suddenly everyone became quiet.

No shouting.

No dumb-charades.

No kachori drama.

No coffee arguments.

And definitely no kitchen orders.

Just mountains, monastery bells and silence.

I stood there thinking about how strange this journey had been.

We had started the day as tourists.

At Hikkim, we became photographers.

At Komic, we became oxygen-deprived models.

At Langza, I became a cook.

And finally, at Key Monastery, we became peaceful, spiritual tourists again.

At least for a few minutes.

Because with our group, I knew one thing for sure—

Peace could never last too long.

There was always another joke, another photo, another food stop or another adventure waiting around the corner.

And honestly, that was exactly what made this Spiti trip so unforgettable.

After exploring the monastery and taking in the peaceful atmosphere, I finally entered one of the rooms where the Lamas were serving the monastery’s special tea and prasad.

Of course, the moment I saw everyone sitting there enjoying the tea, I thought,

“Chalo, spirituality ke saath thodi chai bhi ho jaye.”

So I happily joined everyone.

The tea, however, didn't exactly impress me.

I took a few sips and thought,

“Hmm… spiritual toh hai, but meri taste buds ko abhi enlightenment nahi mila.”

But then came the prasad.

Now THAT was a completely different story.

The moment I tasted it, I liked it so much that without thinking twice, I took a full handful and ate it.

One of the monks looked at me and smiled.

And that smile, for some reason, gave me confidence.

I immediately thought,

“Oh! He smiled. Matlab aur le sakti hoon.”

So I went for round two.

Another full handful.

At this point, I had completely forgotten that I was sitting in a monastery and not at a family function where someone keeps saying,

“Aur lo beta, sharmao mat.”

I was happily enjoying my prasad when another thought came into my mind:

“Thoda donation bhi kar deti hoon.”

I felt that would be a nice thing to do.

After all, the monastery was so beautiful and peaceful, and I thought, “Chalo, family ki taraf se bhi thoda punya ho jaye.”

So I made a donation and started walking out.

And then…

I don't know what happened.

My eyes went back towards the prasad.

My stomach said,

“Ek last time.”

My brain said,

“Bas kar.”

My heart said,

“Prasad hai… waste thodi karna hai.”

And obviously…

My heart won.

I went back for round three.

This time, when I took another full handful, I noticed the Lama looking at me in a slightly different way.

Not the same smile as before.

There was something in his expression that made me realise,

“Okay… maybe he is not completely happy with my enthusiasm.”

For one second, I understood the situation.

I could almost imagine him thinking,

“Madam, prasad hai… unlimited buffet nahi.”

I knew.

He knew.

The universe knew.

But at that particular moment, I decided that pretending not to notice was the best possible strategy.

So I politely ignored the expression, took my third full handful and walked away with complete confidence.

After all…

I had already donated.

Donation bhi ho gaya, prasad bhi mil gaya.

Spirituality successfully completed.

Looking back, I think I may have slightly misunderstood the concept of prasad.

It was supposed to be received with devotion and gratitude.

I received it with devotion, gratitude…

and three rounds.

And honestly, that tiny moment at Key Monastery became one of those memories that still makes me laugh.

Because everyone else probably went there for peace, blessings and spiritual experience.

I went for the tea, rejected the tea, discovered the prasad and accidentally turned it into an all-you-can-eat spiritual snack counter.

And just when I thought my Key Monastery prasad adventure was over, the universe decided I hadn't had enough drama for one day.

I had forgotten something.

My sunglasses.

And not just any sunglasses.

These were my ₹8,000 sunglasses.

Normally, I am not someone who happily spends so much money on sunglasses. I usually don't believe in wasting too much on them.

But these particular glasses were expensive for me, and somehow I had managed to leave them behind inside the monastery.

The moment I realised it, I froze.

“OMG… my glasses!”

And then came the second thought:

“Wait… I have to go back inside and search the ENTIRE monastery again?!”

My brain almost stopped working.

We had already explored the monastery, walked around, visited different areas and finally come out.

And now I had to mentally prepare myself for Round Two of Key Monastery.

For one horrible second, I thought,

“Okay Vaishali… ₹8,000 gaya.”

But then another thought immediately came into my head:

“₹8,000, Vaishali? Aise hi jaane degi?”

Absolutely not.

The ₹8,000 sunglasses had officially activated my survival instincts.

And just like that…

MISSION SUNGLASSES BEGAN.

I turned around and went back inside.

Everywhere I had been earlier, I started searching.

The room.

The corners.

The places where we had sat.

The areas we had walked through.

I was now retracing my entire journey like a detective investigating a very serious international crime.

Except the missing evidence was a pair of sunglasses.

And then…

After searching all over the monastery, I finally spotted them.

THEY WERE RIGHT THERE.

And guess where?

Exactly beside the same Lama whose prasad I had attacked three times earlier!

I walked towards him.

The moment he saw me coming back, I swear I could almost read his mind.

He probably thought:

“Oh no… this woman is back again.”

And considering my previous performance, I couldn't really blame him.

First round of prasad.

Second round.

Donation.

Third round.

And now I was coming back into his room again.

From his point of view, the logical conclusion must have been:

“Madam has returned for Round Four.”

But this time, I didn't even look at the prasad.

I quietly picked up my sunglasses…

and started walking straight out.

No food.

No second glance.

No spiritual snack.

Nothing.

Just my ₹8,000 sunglasses and me.

As I was leaving, I turned around one last time and looked at the Lama.

And honestly…

I saw something in his face.

It looked like… satisfaction.

Not happiness.

Not excitement.

Just pure, peaceful relief.

Almost like he was thinking:

“Thank God! Finally, she is leaving without taking prasad.”

I couldn't stop laughing.

The same Lama who had looked slightly uncomfortable when I took my third handful of prasad was now watching me walk away with my sunglasses.

And I swear, his face seemed to say:

“Take your glasses, Madam. Take them. Just please don't touch the prasad again.”

So finally, Mission Sunglasses: SUCCESS. ✔

₹8,000 saved.

My sunglasses rescued.

My dignity… questionable.

And the Lama's prasad… finally safe from me.

Looking back, Key Monastery gave me much more than a spiritual experience.

I came there for blessings.

I left with prasad memories, an ₹8,000 sunglasses rescue story, and the distinct feeling that one Lama was extremely happy to see me leave empty-handed.

We had to cover all the remaining spots rather quickly because we had one important destination left on our schedule — Chicham Bridge, the last stop of the day. So, without wasting much time, we started wrapping up the other places and headed towards Chicham.

Chicham Bridge is one of the most famous attractions around Spiti Valley. Located at an altitude of around 13,596 feet, it is known as one of the highest motorable bridges in Asia. The bridge connects Chicham village with Kibber and is built over the deep Samba Lamba Nallah gorge. Standing there and looking down into the massive valley, you really understand why this place is considered so spectacular.

Honestly, there wasn't a whole lot to do at Chicham Bridge. It was more about standing there, taking in the dramatic landscape, clicking pictures and enjoying the feeling of actually being there. And thankfully, the weather was on our side. The wind was absolutely fantastic — cold, fresh and so powerful that it made the whole experience even more memorable.

We spent some time taking pictures, admiring the incredible views and, of course, making sure everyone got their share of photographs. After all, reaching Chicham Bridge and coming back without a proper photo session would have been almost a crime!

Once we had had our fill of the bridge, the views and the freezing-but-amazing wind, we finally decided it was time to head back.

Our sightseeing for the day was officially over, and we were now on our way back towards Kaza and our hotel — tired, hungry, slightly frozen, but very happy with another beautiful day in Spiti Valley.

After completing all our adventures for the day, we finally reached our hotel in Kaza.

But before we could even relax, another mission was waiting for us.

What mission?

I'll tell you that later.

First, we had more important things to do.

We quickly changed and headed out to explore Kaza Market.

And honestly, I had already decided that today I was NOT eating dinner at the hotel.

I had been eating my daily sugar-free dessert for so many days that my taste buds were beginning to file a formal complaint.

Enough!

Today I wanted proper outside food.

My plan was simple:

Explore the market → do some shopping → eat something nice → go back to the hotel.

Simple plans, as we had already learned, rarely remain simple with our group. 😂

Sherman and I found a nice little café and settled ourselves there.

Basically, we put down our bags and established our temporary headquarters.

After some time, Ananya, Gautam and Sachin joined us.

A little later, Mohit and Sangeeta also arrived.

Now, when it came to food, I had absolutely no mood to experiment.

After travelling all day, I wanted something familiar.

Something safe.

Something I could pronounce.

Something where I wouldn't have to ask the waiter,

“Bhaiya, yeh hota kya hai?”

So Sherman and I went with the safest possible options:

Schezwan fried rice and soup.

Perfect.

Comfort food.

No surprises.

No adventures.

At least, that's what I thought.

Then Ananya ordered something.

I looked at the menu.

I looked at her.

Then I looked at the name of the dish.

Ema Datshi.

I had never heard the name in my life.

Not only had I never eaten it…

I wasn't even sure I had ever seen those three words together before. 😂

Now obviously, I couldn't announce this in front of everyone.

Because I have a reputation to maintain.

I can't always be the person who confidently pretends to know everything and then gets exposed by a menu.

So I decided that sometimes silence is the smarter form of intelligence.

I quietly sat there.

“Let's see what arrives.”

Ema Datshi is a traditional Bhutanese dish made mainly with chillies and cheese, creating a rich, creamy and spicy preparation. It is often eaten with rice or bread.

And with it, Ananya had ordered something called Tingmo.

Now, none of us knew what Tingmo was either.

But the name sounded important.

Tingmo.

It sounded like a completely separate, special dish.

Maybe some Tibetan delicacy.

Maybe something steamed.

Maybe some exotic Himalayan bread.

We had absolutely no idea.

And unfortunately, Ananya had stepped out for a while.

Which meant we had no one in the group who actually knew what we had ordered.

So we waited.

The Ema Datshi arrived.

The bread arrived.

We ate.

But somehow, all of us were still waiting for TINGMO.

Because in our minds, Tingmo was still another dish that had not yet arrived.

We kept looking towards the kitchen.

Then towards the waiter.

Then at the table.

Then back towards the kitchen.

Finally, we called the waiter.

“Excuse me… we ordered Tingmo also, but it hasn't come.”

The waiter looked at us.

Then looked at the table.

Then looked at the Ema Datshi.

Then looked at us again.

His face had that very specific expression people make when they are trying to understand what exactly is wrong with the people sitting in front of them. 😂

He asked,

“Aapne Ema Datshi kiske saath khaya?”

We all looked at each other.

Very innocently, with absolutely no shame, we replied,

“Bread ke saath.”

The waiter paused.

There was a tiny moment of silence.

And then he said,

“Wohi Tingmo hai.”

SILENCE.

All of us just looked at each other.

WHAT?!

That bread we had already eaten…

The bread we thought was just some complimentary side…

The bread we had been happily waiting to be accompanied by another dish…

THAT was Tingmo!

We had literally eaten the Tingmo and then complained to the waiter that our Tingmo hadn't arrived.

I swear, I wanted the table to swallow me whole.

And the funniest part was the waiter's face.

He was probably thinking,

“These people have already eaten the Tingmo and are now asking me where the Tingmo is.”

Meanwhile, we were sitting there with the most innocent faces possible.

“Ohhh… THAT is Tingmo.”

At that moment I realised something very important.

Travelling is not just about discovering new places.

Sometimes it is also about discovering what you have already eaten. 😂

And Ananya wasn't even there to save us from our embarrassment!

Had she been sitting with us, at least one person could have explained,

“Guys, Tingmo is the bread.”

But no.

We had to discover this information the hard way.

So there we were in Kaza, surrounded by mountains, enjoying Himalayan food…

and learning the difference between ordering food and actually understanding what we ordered.

The Ema Datshi was new for us, the Tingmo was even newer, and our confidence in pretending to know everything had officially taken a hit.

But honestly, that's what made the evening so much fun.

Because sometimes the funniest travel memories aren't the places you planned to visit.

They are the moments when you sit in a café, confidently ask,

“Where is our Tingmo?”

only to discover…

you've already eaten it.

ven after the whole Kaza market adventure, our day was still not ready to end.

Apparently, Spiti had decided that one more major incident was waiting for me.

We reached the hotel, and by that time Sherman’s wicket was already down.

The man was finished.

Completely.

His only remaining goal in life was:

BED.

Nothing else existed.

Not mountains.

Not friends.

Not food.

Not conversation.

Just bed.

One look at him and I knew there was no chance of getting him back into masti mode.

But unfortunately for him, my energy was still alive.

I had developed a sudden “kuch toh karna hai” feeling.

So while Sherman disappeared towards his bed, I went up to the terrace and joined the others.

Ananya was there, along with Sumadhura — whom I had somehow, by mistake, renamed “Samudhri.”

And the funniest part?

She didn't even object to her newly assigned name!

I had accidentally changed her beautiful name from Sumadhura to Samudhri, and apparently she had decided,

“Theek hai… ab yahi sahi.”

At this point, I think our group had reached a level of friendship where people were no longer questioning what I was doing.

If tomorrow I gave someone a completely new name, they probably would have just accepted it.

So there we were, sitting on the terrace, talking, laughing and enjoying the cold Kaza night.

And then came the moment that would officially become a first in my life.

Sangeeta and the others decided they were going to teach me how to smoke a cigarette.

Now, I had never smoked before.

Not even once.

So naturally, the entire group suddenly became my personal training team.

Everyone had an opinion.

“Like this…”

“Hold it like this…”

“Don't inhale too much…”

Basically, for something I had never even planned on doing, I suddenly had a full instruction manual being delivered live on the Kaza terrace.

And I was sitting there thinking,

“What exactly am I doing with my life?”

A few minutes earlier I had been eating Tingmo without knowing what Tingmo was.

Now I was being given a crash course in something else I had never tried.

Spiti was definitely expanding my skill set.

So, with everyone around me watching and giving instructions, I took my first puff.

And honestly…

It was nothing like the movies.

There was no dramatic background music.

No slow-motion mountain breeze.

No sudden feeling of becoming extremely cool.

Just me trying to figure out what I was supposed to do next while everyone around me watched my reaction.

And that was it.

My first-ever cigarette experience had officially happened on a cold terrace in Kaza, surrounded by friends and mountains.

If someone had told me before leaving Mumbai that my Spiti itinerary would include:

High-altitude villages ✔
Monasteries ✔
Kachori rescue missions ✔
₹8,000 sunglasses rescue ✔
Accidentally eating Tingmo ✔
And learning to smoke on a Kaza terrace ✔

…I would have probably told them they had lost their mind.

But that's the thing about this trip.

Every day had started with a plan and ended with a story I could never have planned.

And little did I know…

this wasn't even the biggest story Kaza had waiting for me.

That night, after enjoying ourselves, tasting our first sutta adventure, and laughing over everything that had happened so far, Sangeeta and I finally went back to our room.

Since we had to leave early the next morning for Chandratal, we started packing our backpacks. And honestly, I was quite excited.

Not just because of Chandratal.

I had another very important personal mission.

I had to finally find out why Chandratal had been Ranveer Singh’s last wish!

Yes, you heard me right.

For everyone else, Chandratal was a beautiful high-altitude lake.

For me, it had become a research project.

I wanted answers.

Why this place?
Why Chandratal?
What was so special about it?
And most importantly—what exactly was going on in Ranveer Singh’s mind when he made it his last wish?

I was determined to investigate this mystery personally.

But clearly, the universe had other plans.

Suddenly, Sangeeta screamed.

And I mean SCREAMED.

I immediately turned towards her.

She was sitting on the bed with a face so terrified that for a second, even I got scared.

The expression on her face looked like she had just seen a ghost standing in the room.

I asked, “What happened?!”

And then came the shocking revelation.

She had seen two mice entering our room.

I just stared at her.

Two… mice.

That was it.

I honestly didn’t know how to react.

I mean, I have seen people scream after seeing ghosts.

But Sangeeta?

She was sitting on the bed like two innocent little mice had come to collect her soul.

I looked at her.

She looked at me.

And somewhere in my head I was thinking—

“Madam, tomorrow we are going to Chandratal at high altitude, and tonight you are fighting for survival against two mice?”

But then I realized something very important.

My Chandratal investigation could wait.

A far more urgent mission had begun.

 MISSION: SAVE SANGEETA FROM THE MICE

Or possibly…

MISSION: SAVE THE MICE FROM SANGEETA

I started searching.

Under the bed.

Behind the bags.

Around the room.

Every possible corner.

Nothing.

No mouse.

Not even a tiny whisker.

The mice had apparently disappeared like professional criminals.

I told Sangeeta, “Relax. They must have gone somewhere.”

But she was not ready to negotiate.

For her, those two mice had officially become the most dangerous members of our Spiti group.

After searching for a long time, we finally gave up.

Since it was Nishchay’s birthday celebration upstairs, we decided to leave the room for some time.

Our logic was simple:

Let the mice have some privacy.

Maybe if we stopped chasing them, they would quietly leave the room.

So we went upstairs to celebrate Nishchay’s birthday, hoping that when we returned, the mouse situation would have solved itself.

And for a little while, everything was peaceful.

Birthday celebrations.
Laughter.
Photos.
Cake.
Masti.

Then we decided to go back to our room.

And this time, we didn’t return alone.

Our captain and almost the entire gang came with us.

At this point, even I was confused.

Were they coming to rescue us from the mice?

Or were they coming to rescue the mice from us?

Nobody knew.

Suddenly, our simple hotel room had turned into a full-scale mouse rescue operation.

Everyone started searching.

Under the bed.

Behind the luggage.

Near the curtains.

Around the corners.

We checked everywhere.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

The mice had disappeared so professionally that I started wondering whether they had secretly packed their own backpacks and left for Chandratal before us.

We searched and searched.

Still nothing.

Finally, after all that effort, we looked at each other and accepted defeat.

There was nothing left to do.

So we made a historic decision:

Tonight, we were going to sleep with the mice.

Not because we wanted their company.

But because apparently, they had already booked the room.

And honestly, after everything we had faced on this trip, I had a feeling that these two mice were going to become an important part of my Spiti story.

At that point, I had two missions waiting for the next day:

Mission No. 1: Find out why Chandratal was Ranveer Singh’s last wish.

Mission No. 2: Survive the night without becoming the mice’s midnight snack.

And somehow, I was more worried about Mission No. 2.

Sangeeta was absolutely not ready to switch off the light.

“Light band nahi karenge!”

I tried to explain that the mice were probably more scared of us than we were of them.

She looked at me as if I had just given the most useless advice in human history.

Finally, I surrendered.

“Fine. Light on rakhte hain.”

And that is how two grown women decided to sleep with the lights on because of two tiny mice.

But our logic was even better.

We were scared that if we switched off the lights, the mice might come out, jump onto the bed and get accidentally crushed under us while we slept.

So basically, we were not just worried about our own safety.

We were worried about the mice's safety too.

At this point, I was beginning to wonder who exactly was the endangered species in that room.

For some time, everything became completely silent.

We thought, Okay… maybe the mice have left.

And then suddenly—

Krrrrrrr… krrrrrrr…

Something started chewing under the bed.

Sangeeta's eyes became so big that I genuinely thought they might fall out.

She whispered,

“Vaishali… woh phir aa gaye!”

I said, “Maybe they are eating something.”

She immediately replied,

“Exactly! Hamara samaan!”

And that became her next major concern.

According to Sangeeta, the mice were not planning to attack us.

They had a much bigger agenda.

They were planning to destroy our entire wardrobe.

She was imagining us waking up in the morning to find our clothes, bags and belongings converted into mouse-sized shredded paper.

And honestly, I started getting worried too.

I knew my bag wasn't exactly easy to chew.

That bag had probably survived airports, buses, mountains and my packing style.

But Sangeeta wasn't taking any chances.

So we launched:

OPERATION SAVE THE LUGGAGE

We packed everything.

Every single thing.

Nothing was left behind.

Our bags were packed with the seriousness of people evacuating their house before a cyclone.

Then we carried the entire luggage collection to Sherman and Mohit's room.

Because we had reached an important conclusion:

If we couldn't save ourselves, at least our luggage should reach home safely.

We looked at our bags one last time before leaving them there.

It honestly felt emotional.

Like we were saying goodbye to our children before sending them to boarding school.

“Beta, tum safe rehna. Hum shayad na bachein… but you must reach home.”

Once our luggage was safely deposited, we returned to our room.

We climbed onto the bed.

Lights still ON.

Eyes still OPEN.

And ears working overtime.

Then—

Krrrrrrrrrr…

Again.

This time louder.

Sangeeta completely lost it.

She jumped off the bed and ran outside.

I looked at the clock.

Around 2 a.m.

Two women in Spiti, instead of sleeping before a long journey to Chandratal, were playing lappan-chhappai with two mice.

The mice were hiding.

We were searching.

Then Sangeeta was hiding.

I was searching.

At this point, even the mice must have been thinking,

“Yaar, these two ladies are very entertaining. Let's stay a little longer.”

Finally, I decided that Sangeeta was never going to sleep in that room.

And worse—

if Sangeeta didn't sleep, she definitely wasn't going to let me sleep either.

So I told her to go upstairs and sleep with our other friends.

And Sangeeta agreed in approximately 0.0001 seconds.

She practically disappeared.

I was finally alone.

I looked around.

Silence.

For approximately thirty seconds, I felt brave.

Then I heard a tiny sound.

My bravery immediately submitted its resignation.

I thought,

“Okay. Maybe I also need adult supervision.”

So I went straight to Mohit's room.

“Main aaj tum logon ke saath soyegi. Gadda neeche daal do.”

Mohit looked at me.

I looked at him.

He looked at the floor.

Then he said,

“Aise neeche kaise soyegi?”

And I thought—

Fine. Maybe I should ask him to come and sleep in my room.

But then my brain started overthinking.

What will Mohit think?

Maybe he'll feel awkward.

Maybe he'll think this is weird.

Maybe he'll think I've completely lost it.

Then I remembered one person I could wake up without worrying about any of these things.

Sherman.

My partner in crime.

So I went and woke him up.

The moment I disturbed his sleep, his expression looked like I had asked him to donate both kidneys, his liver, his lungs and one eye.

Oh God.

It looked like I had not woken him up.

It looked like I had walked into his room and said:

“Sherman, please donate your kidney. It's an emergency.”

His eyes were half open.

His soul was still sleeping.

And he was clearly thinking,

“Why is this woman disturbing my sleep for nonsense at two in the morning?”

I explained the mouse situation.

He still wasn't impressed.

I said,

“Bhai, mere room mein aa ja. Main akeli yeh jang nahi jeet sakti.”

Finally, after enough emotional blackmail, he agreed.

But the way he got out of bed…

Honestly, he looked like a man going to donate a major organ against his will.

He followed me to my room with the enthusiasm of someone being taken to the execution ground.

And then…

I saw the spider.

Right next to my bed.

And this was not some cute little spider.

This thing was approximately the size of my palm.

The moment I saw it, all my confidence disappeared.

I screamed.

And then I started panicking.

Because this is where I have to admit something embarrassing.

I am TERRIFIED of spiders and cockroaches.

I can tolerate many things in life.

But show me a spider and suddenly I forget that I am a grown woman who has travelled across mountains.

A ghost?

Maybe I can negotiate.

A spider?

I will vacate the country.

And suddenly, I understood Sangeeta.

Completely.

Absolutely.

Karma had excellent timing.

Karma had arrived faster than any taxi.

 

A few minutes earlier I had been judging Sangeeta for being terrified of two innocent mice.

Now I was standing there panicking over one spider like it had come specifically to kill me.

I pointed at it from a very safe distance.

“SHERMAN! THERE! SPIDER !”

Sherman looked at the spider.

Then he looked at me.

Then, without any drama, he picked up his shoe.

THAPP!

One hit.

Finished.

The spider was dead.

Just like that.

At approximately two in the morning, my partner in crime had officially committed one midnight murder on my behalf I looked at Sherman.

Then at the dead spider lying right in front of my bed.

And I thought—

“What kind of friendship is this?”

I had woken him from his precious sleep.

Dragged him into a mouse-infested room.

Made him participate in my midnight survival mission.

And now I had made him murder a spider.

Sherman, meanwhile, looked completely uninterested in my emotional trauma.

His face said only one thing:

“Can I please sleep now?”

And honestly, I couldn't blame him.

That night had officially become a wildlife documentary:

Episode 1: Two mice enter the room.

Episode 2: Two women lose their minds.

Episode 3: Luggage is evacuated to a safe house.

Episode 4: Sangeeta escapes at 2 a.m.

Episode 5: Vaishali recruits Sherman as security.

Episode 6: Spider makes surprise entry.

Episode 7: Sherman commits midnight murder.

And all this was happening just hours before we were supposed to leave for Chandratal.

I had started the night thinking about Ranveer Singh and his mysterious last wish.

By the end of the night, I had completely forgotten about Ranveer Singh.

My only wish had become:

“Bhagwan, bas subah tak koi aur creature room mein mat bhejna.”

Because at this point, if a dinosaur had entered the room, I honestly wouldn't have been surprised.

The next morning, I woke up unusually excited.

Because finally…

I was going to Chandratal!

The place that had occupied my mind for the last few days.

The place that, according to my own investigation, had apparently been Ranveer Singh’s last wish.

And now I was going there to personally understand why.

I had only one question in my mind:

What was so special about this place that even Ranveer Singh wanted it as his last wish?

And honestly, after making such a serious pilgrimage on his behalf, I felt I deserved something too.

At the very least, Deepika Padukone should have sent me a special gift.

Maybe a thank-you hamper.

Maybe a handwritten note:

“Dear Vaishali, thank you for completing Ranveer’s final wish. With love, Deepika.”

At this point, I had already started imagining what would be inside the hamper.

Maybe perfume.

Maybe chocolates.

Maybe jewellery.

Okay, fine… I was getting carried away.

But after everything I had gone through in Spiti, I felt I had earned it.

We picked up our backpacks and finally started towards our last destination in this Spiti adventure—Chandratal.

The road to Chandratal was beautiful, rugged and almost otherworldly.

Our first halt was Losar, where we had to collect our lunch parcels.

There isn't much food available around Chandratal, so our lunch had to be packed before we entered the more remote stretch.

While everyone was busy waiting for the food to get packed, I noticed a local speciality—

Sea Buckthorn Juice.

Sea buckthorn is a bright orange berry that grows in the high-altitude Himalayan region. The berries are naturally tart and are commonly made into juice. It is packed with vitamin C and has a refreshing sweet-sour flavour.

I took one glass.

Very tasty.

So I took another.

Still very tasty.

Then somehow a third glass appeared in my hand.

By that point, I had completely forgotten that we were travelling to Chandratal.

I was drinking sea buckthorn juice like I had been appointed its official brand ambassador.

Three glasses!

Everyone else was having lunch.

I was having a sea buckthorn farewell ceremony.

Honestly, I drank so much that for a moment I thought—

“Maybe this really IS my last journey.”

If something happened to me on the way, at least my last three memories would be of sea buckthorn juice.

Lunch parcels collected, we continued towards Chandratal.

On the way, we stopped at Kunzum Pass, where we visited the famous Kunzum Mata Temple.

And this was not an ordinary temple visit.

I had heard that people stick coins at the temple and make a wish. If the coin sticks, it is considered a good sign that your wish may come true.

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I don't believe in doing things halfway.

So while everyone else got off the bus with one or two coins…

I got off with a full wish list.

I was ready.

I had wishes for myself.

Wishes for family.

Wishes for friends.

Wishes for life.

At this point, I was practically carrying the Kunzum Mata version of an Amazon shopping list.

I started sticking coins.

First coin.

Plop.

Down.

Second coin.

Plop.

Down again.

Third.

Same story.

I tried again.

And again.

And again.

I changed the angle.

I changed the pressure.

I tried gently.

I tried firmly.

I even tried with full emotional involvement.

Nothing.

Not a single coin wanted to stay.

The coins were falling down so fast that I started feeling personally rejected.

I looked at the temple.

Then at the coins.

Then back at the temple.

And somewhere inside, I thought,

“Mata ji… itni bhi kya narazgi?”

Maybe she had already seen my wish list and thought,

“Beta, pehle ek wish sambhal le. Itni saari ek saath mat de.”

After several unsuccessful attempts, I finally gave up.

My heart was a little heavy.

But then I thought—

“Chalo, rehne do. Itna pressure dena bhi theek nahi hai. Mata ji agar gussa ho gayi toh lene ke dene pad jayenge.”

So I respectfully put my coins away and left.

Maybe my wishes weren't rejected.

Maybe they were simply kept on hold for processing.

I decided to trust the universe.

After all, I still had Chandratal to reach.

And finally…

We arrived.

The bus dropped us at the point from where we had to walk approximately 2 kilometres to reach Chandratal.

The guide said, “Bas 2 kilometre walk hai.”

BAS.

That word should be banned from trekking vocabulary.

Because for me, those 2 kilometres were not 2 kilometres.

They were at least 10 kilometres emotionally.

One problem was my weight.

The second problem was my complete lack of enthusiasm for walking.

And the third problem was that I was born with such an extraordinary level of laziness that I genuinely believe millions of lazy people must have died before me so that I could be born and carry their legacy forward.

I started walking.

And then I saw people much older than me walking comfortably towards Chandratal.

Men and women who looked well above 65 were walking ahead of me as if they had come for an evening stroll.

I looked at them.

Then looked at myself.

Then looked at the road.

And for a brief moment, I felt ashamed.

But then I remembered an important rule of life:

If you are embarrassed, don't show it.

So I hid my shame very professionally.

Inside.

Very deep inside.

Outside, I continued walking like everything was absolutely normal.

Finally, after what felt like a personal battle between my legs, my lungs and my laziness…

I saw Chandratal.

And suddenly—

Everything stopped.

My complaints.

My tiredness.

My laziness.

Even my obsession with Ranveer Singh's last wish.

Because the moment I saw that lake, I finally understood.

Now I knew why.

Why Chandratal?

Why this place?

Why would someone want this to be their last wish?

Because Chandratal isn't just a lake.

It feels like someone took a piece of the sky, surrounded it with massive mountains, added crystal-clear water, painted everything in shades of blue and silver—and then placed it in the middle of nowhere.

The name Chandratal literally means Lake of the Moon, and standing there, I understood the name completely.

The lake looked different from every angle.

The mountains around it seemed almost unreal.

The silence was extraordinary.

There was no traffic.

No city noise.

No buildings.

No chaos.

Just mountains, sky, wind and this unbelievably beautiful lake sitting quietly in the middle of the landscape.

And honestly, if someone asked me to describe its beauty, I would struggle.

Because sometimes words are simply not enough.

In fact, I would go one step further:

Every human being should see Chandratal at least once in their lifetime.

Not because it is a tourist attraction.

But because places like this remind you how tiny your problems are compared to the world around you.

For a while, I simply stood there looking at it.

Then, of course, reality returned.

Because we were a group of 11 people.

And apparently, whenever 11 people reach a beautiful place, the first thing that happens is not meditation.

It is:

“Photo le na!”

So we started taking pictures.

Photos.

Videos.

Group pictures.

Individual pictures.

Pictures with the lake.

Pictures with the mountains.

Pictures pretending we were casually enjoying nature when in reality we were checking whether the camera had captured the right angle.

We spent a long time there, just enjoying the place.

After all the chaos of the trip—the mice, the spider, the luggage evacuation, the altitude, the food experiments, the endless roads and my personal battle with walking—this felt like the perfect reward.

But there was one important rule.

We couldn't stay after sunset.

Once the sun started going down, we had to leave because staying around Chandratal after dark is not permitted.

So as the evening approached, we reluctantly started our walk back.

I looked at Chandratal one last time.

And somewhere in my head I thought:

“Ranveer… ab samajh aaya.”

Your last wish made sense.

And if I ever get another chance to come back here, I won't need a reason.

I’ll just come.

We finally left Chandratal and headed towards our stay for the night—

Chandrayan Camp, near Chandratal.

Tired, happy, slightly sunburnt, completely overwhelmed and carrying enough photographs to prove that we had actually made it there…

we finally reached our camp.

And for once, I wasn't complaining about the journey.

Because some destinations are worth every kilometre, every breathlessness, every lazy-person crisis…

and Chandratal was definitely one of them.

When we finally reached Chandrayan Camp, we were honestly too tired to understand what was happening around us.

The camp looked peaceful, the surroundings were beautiful, and after the excitement of Chandratal, we were mostly thinking about one thing—

“Bas ab bed mil jaye.”

At that time, the cold didn't seem that bad.

But as the evening turned into night, the temperature decided to introduce us to its real personality.

Slowly, the cold started getting serious.

And by serious, I mean—

Spiti had finally removed its mask.

We had travelled around September, and apparently by this time many camps around Chandratal start getting removed because the weather can become unpredictable and there can be chances of snowfall. Once snowfall begins, staying around the lake can become unsafe, so tourists and camps have to move out.

Which meant that technically, we were staying there at the tail end of the season.

And honestly?

After seeing Chandratal, I had decided that thoda risk toh banta hai boss.

If the choice was between:

“Be safe and leave early”

and

“Take a little risk and spend a night under Chandratal's sky,”

my adventurous side immediately said—

“Risk le lo.”

My practical side was nowhere to be found.

But there was one small problem.

The cold.

That was not adventurous anymore.

That was personal.

As the night progressed, the temperature kept dropping, and the cold started entering our clothes, our bones and possibly our future generations.

I had to admit that I was feeling it badly.

Fortunately, I had already had a little alcohol, so compared to everyone else, I was managing slightly better.

Basically, I had created my own internal heating system.

Not scientific.

Not recommended.

But at that moment, it was working for me.

Then came another celebration.

Because apparently Nishchay's birthday was not satisfied with being celebrated just once.

We had already celebrated it earlier, and now we celebrated it again at Chandrayan Camp.

At this point, Nishchay wasn't having a birthday.

He was having a birthday festival.

Cake, laughter, photos, jokes—and then something happened that genuinely made me happier than it should have.

WE FINALLY GOT A REAL DESSERT.

A proper dessert.

With sugar.

After days of eating desserts that were suspiciously sugar-free, this felt like a luxury.

For the entire Spiti trip, dessert had become something that looked like dessert but behaved like punishment.

Every time dessert came, I had the same feeling:

“Why does this sweet dish have no sweetness?”

But that night at Chandrayan Camp, finally—

SUGAR.

Actual sugar.

Sweetness.

Happiness.

I took one bite and honestly felt like I had been reunited with a long-lost family member.

I think I enjoyed that dessert more emotionally than I enjoyed some of the sightseeing.

After dinner, we stepped outside.

And that's when we realised how incredibly clear the sky was.

No city lights.

No pollution.

No tall buildings.

Just complete darkness and an enormous Himalayan sky.

I was hoping to see the Milky Way.

I had imagined this perfect Spiti moment—

Me standing under the stars, Milky Way above me, Chandratal nearby, mountains all around, and the universe basically giving me an Instagram photoshoot for free.

But unfortunately, the universe had other plans.

A full moon night was approaching.

And the bright moonlight meant that the Milky Way wasn't clearly visible.

For a few seconds, I was disappointed.

But then I looked up properly.

And honestly…

Who needed the Milky Way?

The sky was absolutely filled with stars.

So many stars.

And because there were hardly any artificial lights around us, they looked incredibly bright and beautiful.

It felt completely different from looking at the night sky in Mumbai.

In Mumbai, if you look up at night, you mostly get:

buildings + wires + pollution + one confused star.

Here, the entire sky looked alive.

We stood outside for a long time, just looking up.

No traffic.

No phones.

No city noise.

Just freezing cold, mountains, stars and the occasional person saying,

“Bhai, bahut thand hai, andar chalo!”

And honestly, that was one of those moments when you realise why people travel so far.

Not every memory needs an activity.

Sometimes you just have to stand somewhere beautiful, look at the sky and think—

“Damn… I am really lucky to be here.”

Of course, I didn't think this for too long.

Because five minutes later, I was freezing again.

Spiti had reminded me that even the most beautiful moments come with one condition:

Enjoy the view, but don't forget your jacket.

That night, I had made what turned out to be a very dangerous combination.

I had a little alcohol…

and then, completely by mistake, I also took a sleeping pill.

Apparently, my body decided that there was no further discussion required.

Within minutes, I was sleeping so deeply that I could probably have slept through an earthquake, a snowfall and possibly even another mouse entering the room.

While everyone else was experiencing the legendary Chandratal night, looking at the stars and freezing outside…

I was busy selling horses.

I had absolutely no idea what was happening around me.

When I finally woke up in the morning, I felt fresh, rested and completely unaware of the previous night's freezing temperatures.

And then came the first reality check.

WATER.

There was barely any.

Not just “water kam hai.”

Water had practically resigned from the camp.

Everything had frozen.

The temperature had dropped to around -7°C during the night, and apparently the water had decided that if nature was going to freeze, it was going to participate fully.

Now I had a very basic problem.

I needed to use the washroom.

I needed to freshen up.

But the camp had almost no usable water.

I stood there thinking,

“Okay… ab fresh kaise hone ka?”

This was no longer a travel problem.

This was a personal crisis.

I stepped outside and asked Sherman what was happening.

He casually said,

“Yahan solar hai. Thoda garam pani aa raha hai.”

My face lit up.

“Really?!”

I immediately went towards the solar water system with hope in my heart.

And this is where my luck showed its true character.

Apparently, before I arrived, the water flow was something like 1000 km per hour.

The moment I reached?

It became approximately 10 km per hour.

And I am being generous.

The water wasn't flowing.

It was appearing.

One drop.

Pause.

Another drop.

Pause.

Another drop.

At that speed, filling one mug felt like a government project.

I was standing there watching the bucket as if I was waiting for a miracle.

I thought,

“Isse toh Himalaya pighal jayega, lekin mera mug nahi bharega.”

After waiting for what felt like an entire lifetime, I finally accepted defeat.

I thought,

“Chalo… brush kar leti hoon. Baaki ka baad mein dekhenge.”

At that point, even the washroom had become a survival challenge.

Forget luxury.

Forget hot showers.

Forget proper freshening up.

I was ready to negotiate with one mug of water and my destiny.

Even the tea had started feeling suspiciously cold after a while.

And then we finally learned why.

Minus 7 degrees!

No wonder everything was freezing.

The water.

Our hands.

Our faces.

Probably our emotions too.

After somehow completing our morning routine and having breakfast, we packed up and started our journey towards Manali.

And somewhere along the way, we stopped at a place called:

Chacha-Chachi Dhaba.

Now, don't let the name fool you.

This was not some tiny roadside place where someone's chacha and chachi were casually making parathas.

This place was practically world famous.

And after my previous experiences with food in Spiti, I had decided to play it safe.

I wasn't going to experiment anymore.

My philosophy was simple:

“Jitna mil raha hai, utna kha. Risk lene ki zarurat nahi.”

So I ordered something safe.

Tea.

And Maggi.

Very adventurous.

Then I noticed people around me eating something with a very interesting-looking chutney.

I looked at it.

Then looked at the people.

Then looked at the chutney again.

I thought,

“Okay… ek baar taste karne mein kya jaata hai?”

I took a tiny bite.

And then—

OH. MY. GOD.

What chutney!

It was the kind of chutney that doesn't just enter your mouth.

It enters your soul.

My entire food philosophy changed in approximately three seconds.

A few minutes earlier I was saying,

“No more experiments.”

Now I was thinking,

“Bhaiya, aloo paratha lagao!”

I immediately ordered one.

I wasn't going to miss this opportunity.

Because after everything I had experienced in Spiti, I had learned one important lesson:

If something tastes amazing, don't assume you'll get it again.

So I ate my paratha with that magical chutney like it was my last meal on earth.

At this point, I wasn't sure whether this was breakfast, lunch or an emotional food reunion.

But who cared?

My stomach was happy.

And that was enough.

Back in the bus, we continued towards Manali.

But I had one more dream left.

Atal Tunnel.

Ever since it had opened, I had wanted to see it.

For some reason, it had become one of those things on my mental bucket list.

And I had never imagined that we would actually enter Manali through it.

Then suddenly our captain announced a surprise:

“Hum Atal Tunnel se hokar Manali jayenge.”

I was instantly excited.

Finally!

My childhood dream was about to come true.

Although, technically, Atal Tunnel hadn't even existed during my childhood…

But emotionally, it had somehow been on my childhood bucket list.

Don't ask me how.

I don't make the rules.

All I knew was that I was finally going to see it.

After days of mountains, dust, freezing temperatures, altitude, mice, spiders, suspicious water supply, sea buckthorn juice, sugar-free desserts and my personal battle with walking…

Atal Tunnel is a 9.02-kilometre-long highway tunnel built beneath the Rohtang Pass in Himachal Pradesh, connecting the Manali side with the Lahaul-Spiti region. It is one of the world's longest highway tunnels at an altitude above 10,000 feet and was inaugurated in October 2020. The tunnel has made travel towards Lahaul and Ladakh much easier, especially by providing an all-weather alternative to the Rohtang Pass route.

For me, though, it wasn't just a tunnel—it was another tick on my travel bucket list!

we were finally heading towards Atal Tunnel and Manali.

Somewhere on the way to Manali, Sherman suddenly told me that he had some urgent work in Delhi and would have to leave for Delhi that very evening.

And my brain immediately stopped working.

Because our plan was to stay in Manali for another day.

Now I had a serious problem.

A life-and-death level travel dilemma.

If I stayed back in Manali, I was worried Sherman might think:

“Madam convinced me to come on this trip, dragged me through mountains, and now that we're finally in Manali… she has abandoned me!”

And honestly, I couldn't blame him.

This was his first proper trip, and I really wanted him to experience Manali too.

Especially paragliding.

For me, paragliding wasn't something we could casually skip.

It was one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences that you should do at least once.

I wanted Sherman to experience it because I knew that if I simply stayed in Manali while he rushed back to Delhi, I'd feel guilty.

But if I left with him…

then when exactly would I explore Manali?

So there I was, mentally standing at a crossroads:

Option 1: Stay in Manali → Sherman feels abandoned.

Option 2: Leave with Sherman → I sacrifice Manali.

Option 3: Find some jugaad that somehow gives me BOTH.

Obviously, I chose Option 3.

Because why solve a problem normally when you can create a complicated travel plan and call it an adventure?

I thought about it and suddenly had an idea.

Dosti bhi nibhaani hai… Manali bhi dekhna hai.

So I decided we would explore Manali before Sherman left.

Our original plan was completely rearranged.

Instead of reaching Manali, checking into the hotel, resting and exploring the next day, we decided to get down at Solang Valley on the way.

The plan was:

Get down at Solang → go paragliding → explore Manali in the evening → have dinner → take the night bus to Delhi.

Simple.

At least on paper.

Reality, as usual, had other plans.

I took Sherman with me and we got off at Solang.

And because apparently I had decided to become the official logistics manager of this trip, I turned to Mohit and said,

“Tu please humara luggage hotel tak pahucha de.”

Poor Mohit.

He had no idea that along with being our friend, he had slowly been promoted to:

Luggage Manager + Transport Coordinator + Emergency Support Staff.

Meanwhile, Sherman and I got down with our backpacks and prepared ourselves for the next adventure.

We had no hotel room.

No luggage.

No idea how the rest of the day would go.

But we had one very important thing:

A plan.

And as everyone who has travelled with me knows…

The moment I say, “Plan simple hai,”

that is usually the exact moment when the real adventure begins.

Getting off at Solang was only the beginning.

For paragliding, we had to go to a specific take-off point high up in the mountains. The actual paragliding happens from the top, and from there you glide down towards the landing area below with a trained pilot.

The idea sounded absolutely fantastic.

Until we reached the spot.

Because apparently, before we could fly like birds…

we first had to walk like goats.

We were told that we had to trek approximately 500 metres uphill to reach the take-off point.

Now, 500 metres may sound like nothing.

For some people, it probably is.

For me?

500 metres was Mount Everest.

I started walking and within a few minutes my body started asking very serious questions.

“Why are we doing this?”

“Who planned this?”

“Was paragliding really necessary?”

And the most important question:

“Why did I convince Sherman to do this?”

At one point, I genuinely thought—

“I came here to give Sherman a lifetime experience… and in the process, I may have accidentally booked my own death.”

But then I reminded myself:

Dosti ke aage jaan ki kya value hai!

So I kept walking.

Panting.

Stopping.

Walking again.

Panting again.

At some point, I wasn't sure whether I was trekking towards the paragliding point or towards heaven.

But somehow, with my dignity hanging by a thread and my lungs filing a formal complaint, I finally reached the top.

And then I saw the take-off point.

Suddenly, all my tiredness disappeared.

Because now I was looking down from a very high place.

And the height looked…

VERY HIGH.

My heartbeat immediately increased.

Then the pilot casually announced:

“Sherman pehle jayega.”

I looked at Sherman.

Then at the cliff.

Then at the pilot.

Then back at Sherman.

And my brain immediately started producing horror stories.

What if something goes wrong?

What if he doesn't take off properly?

What if the parachute doesn't open?

What if he falls?

What am I going to tell his family?

I had brought the man to Spiti.

I had convinced him to travel.

And now, if something happened to him while flying off a mountain, how exactly was I supposed to explain it?

“Aunty, woh actually trip par aaye the… aur phir maine unko uda diya.”

No.

Absolutely not.

I immediately started praying.

“Bhagwan, please isko safely uda dena. Isko zinda neeche bhejna. Please koi experiment mat karna.”

The pilot, meanwhile, was completely relaxed.

He had probably done this hundreds of times.

I was behaving like Sherman was about to be launched into outer space.

Then came the moment.

The pilot attached Sherman to the harness.

Checked everything.

And then said:

“Run… one… two… three… GO!”

Sherman started running.

For those few seconds, I swear my heart stopped.

And then—

HE FLEW.

Actually flew.

He was suddenly in the air.

My partner in crime, who usually preferred office-to-home life, was now literally floating over the mountains.

I watched him go higher and farther.

And finally, I could breathe again.

Sherman was alive.

Mission successful.

Now it was my turn.

And here's the funny part—

This was not my first time paragliding.

I had done it before.

But apparently, knowing what is about to happen does not make you less scared.

It makes you more aware of exactly how high you are about to fly.

I got into position.

The harness was secured.

The pilot was ready.

And suddenly, all my confidence disappeared.

I started thinking:

“What if I die?”

Then another thought came immediately:

“If I die, Sherman will have to tell my family.”

And honestly, that scared me almost as much as the flight.

I could already imagine him saying:

“Actually, aunty… Vaishali was paragliding…”

No.

I refused to become a family WhatsApp story.

The pilot said:

“Ready?”

I nodded.

Inside, I was absolutely not ready.

He said:

“Run!”

I ran.

And then—

I WAS FLYING.

The moment my feet left the ground, something magical happened.

The fear slowly disappeared.

And suddenly, I understood why people love paragliding.

It genuinely felt as if someone had suddenly given me wings.

There I was, floating high above the mountains, with the wind rushing past me.

Below me, the entire landscape looked completely different.

The roads looked like tiny lines.

The people looked like dots.

The mountains stretched endlessly into the distance.

And everything that had seemed so huge from the ground suddenly looked so small.

For those few minutes, it felt like the whole world had paused.

No office.

No phone calls.

No responsibilities.

No luggage.

No mice.

No spiders.

No freezing water.

Nothing.

Just me, the sky, the mountains and the wind.

And I honestly cannot describe the feeling properly.

It felt like I had borrowed a pair of wings from the universe.

I had already experienced paragliding once before, but even then, the feeling was the same—

there is something incredibly liberating about looking down at the world from the sky.

You suddenly realise how enormous nature is and how tiny we are.

And somewhere between the fear and excitement, I was actually laughing.

The same woman who had been struggling to walk 500 metres uphill was now happily flying over the mountains.

Life has a strange sense of humour.

Eventually, our flight came to an end and we landed safely.

Adventure completed.

And more importantly—

Sherman was alive.

My friendship had survived.

His family didn't need a tragic phone call.

And I had successfully managed to turn one ordinary day into yet another Spiti adventure.

After completing our paragliding, we finally made our way back to the hotel.

When we arrived, we found Sangeeta and Mohit sitting comfortably and eating snacks.

I looked at them.

They looked at us.

We had just been trekking up a mountain and jumping off it.

They were sitting peacefully…

eating snacks.

I thought,

“Wah. Yeh bhi ek lifestyle hai.”

We met them, went back to our room and finally got ready.

Because our Manali mission wasn't over yet.

We still had to explore Manali.

So we planned to take a quick shower, freshen up, change and head out.

And after spending the day between mountains and clouds, we were now preparing for another round of adventure—

Manali by evening… and Delhi by night.

Because apparently, after everything we had already done, we still weren't tired enough to stop.

Manali, honestly, is not a very big city, but it is beautiful. Since we had very limited time, exploring the whole of Manali was practically impossible. So we decided to keep it simple — Hidimba Temple and Mall Road, and whatever else we could squeeze in between.

We started with Hidimba Temple.

Now, God had probably decided that my paragliding adventure had not been enough punishment for one day.

To reach the temple, we somehow discovered a so-called “shortcut.”

And by shortcut, I mean approximately 500 stairs.

I don't know who named it a shortcut, but I would personally like to meet that person.

After all the trekking we had already done in Spiti, my legs looked at those stairs and probably thought, “Madam, ab bas bhi karo. Humne resignation de diya hai.”

But there was no turning back. Step by step, breath by breath, complaint by complaint, we somehow made it to the top.

And finally, we reached Hidimba Devi Temple.

The Hidimba Devi Temple is one of Manali's most famous landmarks. It is dedicated to Hidimba Devi, the wife of Bhima from the Mahabharata. The temple is surrounded by the beautiful cedar forest of Dhungri and is known for its distinctive wooden architecture, pagoda-style roofs and peaceful atmosphere.

After those 500 stairs, the peaceful atmosphere felt even more precious!

We had a really good darshan, clicked plenty of pictures and sat there for a while, simply enjoying the surroundings.

But then my attention shifted to something far more important.

A rabbit.

I had suddenly decided that my Manali trip would be incomplete without a picture with a rabbit.

And then I found one.

Not just any rabbit — this one was beautiful, fluffy and extremely well-behaved, basically the rabbit version of me. 😄

I went near him and the moment I touched him, I was gone.

He was so soft and fluffy that I honestly didn't feel like leaving him. He looked like a living cotton ball. For a moment, I seriously considered putting this little bundle of cuteness into my bag and taking him home.

Then common sense returned.

I thought, “Wait… iska owner mujhe zinda nahi chhodega.”

So I decided to respect the law, the owner and my own life and left the poor little cotton ball where he belonged.

From there, we headed towards Mall Road.

We had some food and then something very dangerous happened.

My shopping mode switched ON.

Because, according to my personal travel constitution, coming to Manali and doing absolutely no shopping is a crime.

And I had no intention of going to jail.

So I started shopping.

Unfortunately, I had completely forgotten one tiny detail.

Sherman had packed enough luggage to start a new household.

His bags were already practically full, and now I was adding my shopping to the equation.

Sherman looked at me with that expression which clearly said:

“Tumhe abhi bhi shopping karni hai?”

And I looked at him with my expression which clearly said:

“Of course. Kya tum mujhe jail bhejna chahte ho?”

After some convincing, some emotional blackmail and probably a little bit of “bas thoda sa hi loongi” — which I knew was a complete lie — Sherman finally agreed.

And then the shopping began.

I bought something for myself.

Then I saw something else and thought, “Yeh bhi mere liye.”

Then another thing.

“Yeh bhi mere liye.”

Then I remembered my mother.

“Okay, yeh mummy ke liye.”

Then I remembered my friends.

“Yeh friends ke liye.”

And then I remembered a few more people.

At this point, my shopping list had become a family reunion.

The shopkeeper must have been wondering whether I was buying souvenirs or opening a new branch of his shop in Mumbai.

Finally, we stood there surrounded by bags and packages, and the biggest question remained:

How were we going to take all this stuff home?

That was when the shopkeeper gave us the most beautiful sentence of the entire shopping experience:

“Madam, hum courier bhi karte hain.”

Problem solved!

My face lit up.

“Courier? Perfect!”

And suddenly, luggage capacity was no longer a problem.

Now there was no reason to stop shopping.

I could shop freely because my bags were no longer my problem.

They were now the courier company's problem.

After collecting everything and giving very strict instructions to the shopkeeper to send it safely to our home, we finally left.

We had some food and returned to the hotel.

But there was one more surprise waiting for us.

Mohit and Sangeeta had also gone out to explore Mall Road.

We had to leave for the bus stop because our bus to Delhi was waiting, so there was absolutely no time to wait for them.

But honestly, I didn't want to leave without saying goodbye.

By then, this was no longer just a trip.

These people had become a part of my journey — the laughter, the arguments, the food, the crazy plans, the long bus rides, the mountains, the exhaustion and all those little moments that we would probably keep talking about for years.

I really wanted to meet Mohit and Sangeeta one last time and say goodbye properly.

But sometimes travel doesn't give you the perfect ending you want.

We had a bus to catch.

So, with our remaining luggage, our newly purchased shopping, and a head full of memories, we finally started towards the bus stop.

As the bus to Delhi came closer, it slowly started sinking in that our Spiti adventure was actually over.

From Delhi to Shimla, Sangla, Kalpa, Kaza, Hikkim, Komic, Langza, Key, Chandratal and finally Manali — we had travelled through some of the most incredible landscapes, survived altitude, cold, mice, spiders, frozen water, endless trekking, food experiments, luggage drama and my never-ending shopping.

And now, it was time to say the hardest goodbye.

Goodbye, Spiti.

Not just to the mountains, but to the version of us that existed on that journey.

The people we travelled with, the stories we created, the crazy moments we survived and the memories we collected — all of it was coming home with us.

The bus started moving.

I looked back one last time and silently said,

“Thank you, Spiti. You were difficult, exhausting, crazy… and absolutely unforgettable.”

And just like that, with one last look, we left for Delhi — carrying our bags, our shopping, and a lifetime of memories.

Spiti was over. But the stories had only just begun.

The overnight bus journey from Manali to Delhi felt completely different from everything we had experienced over the last few days.

There were no mountains to admire, no random photo stops, no “Guys, 5 minutes mein bus se utro!”, no searching for cafés, no checking the weather, no fighting with luggage and, thankfully, no mice.

For the first time in many days, we were simply sitting quietly and heading back to normal life.

And honestly, normal life already felt a little strange.

At some point during the night, I looked at Sherman and realised that the same person whom I had practically dragged into this trip had actually survived the entire adventure.

He had survived my plans, my excitement, my constant “Chalo, chalo, chalo!”, endless sightseeing, freezing temperatures, mountains, trekking, paragliding and, most importantly, me.

That itself deserved an award.

By morning, we finally reached Delhi.

And the moment we stepped out of the bus, reality hit us.

We were back.

No more Himalayan mountains.

No more beautiful valleys.

No more snow-capped peaks.

Instead, Delhi welcomed us with traffic, noise, people, pollution and the unmistakable feeling of:

“Congratulations. Your holiday has officially ended.”

We stood there with our luggage, shopping bags, backpacks and all the memories we had collected along the way.

Well… technically, most of the shopping was already on its way home by courier.

So at least that headache was solved.

I looked at Sherman and laughed.

A few days earlier, we had been worrying about altitude, oxygen, freezing water and whether we would survive Chandratal.

Now our biggest concern was much more ordinary:

How do we get home from here?

And that is probably the funniest thing about travelling.

While you're on the journey, you keep waiting to reach the next destination.

And when you finally reach home, you realise that the journey itself was the destination.

Spiti had started with excitement, a little confusion and a lot of luggage.

It had given us mountains that looked unreal, roads that tested our patience, food that surprised us, temperatures that tested our bodies, mice that tested Sangeeta's soul, a spider that tested mine, paragliding that tested my courage and enough memories to last for years.

And somewhere between all those crazy moments, strangers became friends, friends became family, and a simple holiday became a story.

We had left as a group of people going on a trip.

We returned as a group with inside jokes, shared memories and approximately 500 stories that nobody outside the group would ever fully understand.

I took one last look at my bags and thought about everything we had carried back from the mountains.

Not just clothes.

Not just souvenirs.

Not just photographs.

We had brought back laughter, friendship, madness, courage and memories that could never be packed into a suitcase.

And as I finally headed towards home, one thought stayed with me:

Some journeys end when you reach home.
But some journeys stay with you long after you return.

For me, Spiti was definitely the second one.

The trip was over.

But the story of Spiti would stay with us forever.