Click Here to view our journey pics.
A
very very big "Thank you" to my friend Rex (Rutvik
Upadhyay) who called me around October to go for a trek at Dalhousie
through Youth Hostels Association of India (YHAI). The name of the
program was NATIONAL HIMALAYAN WINTER TREKKING EXPEDITION DALHOUSIE
(2013-14). He knew that I was desperate about trekking as I has never
trekked before. I waited for 1 day to think about it and inform at
home. When I checked the booking status on next day, Rutvik's batch
was fully booked. I was dissapointed but desperate to go. So I called
one of my neighbor friend (Kandarp - KD) to join me. He then gathered
a group of his college mates and we all decided to book the YHAI
Dalhousie trek. After booking the trek, we then started planning the
entire tour so that we can travel all the places in our route like
Delhi, Pathankot, Amritsar, etc.
On
the next day, we checked the train status and all tickets were easily
available. However, the exciting thing is that we learned a new way
to get the train ticket discounts in our journey. Instead of booking
two tickets (Abd-Delhi & Delhi-Pathankot) we booked a single
master ticket (Abd-Pathankot). Then, by showing that ticket, one can
book two different sub tickets at 0 cost. We saved almost Rs.100 per
head by doing it. Thanks to Abbas's (a trekker of our group) uncle
who does a job in railway at ticket booking window. After some days,
I noticed that Yatra.com was providing Rs. 2000/- discount on Hotel
stay. So we decided to book a hotel room (Hotel Grace) @ Amritsar
which cost us just Rs. 1/- for 48 hrs stay. :)
It
was now the desperate waiting time till the arrival of 13th
December, 2013 (the start date of our journey).
After
waiting for a long long time, it was finally 13th December
and my friends from Rajkot began their journey to Ahmedabad in train
where I had to join them. They were KD (Kandarp), DJ (Darshan
Dharajiya), Abbas, Kumar, Vibhas and ____.
As
decided, they came with lots of lunch and breakfast items which was
much more than my expectation. "You know, we are Gujaratizzz".
After a long and entertaining journey by kidding, joking and playing,
we finally reached Delhi @ 10 am. After bargaining a lot by our best
bargainer (Kandu - KD), we booked a taxi for local tour in Delhi as
our train to Pathankot was in the night. We visited Qutub minar,
Lotus temple, India gate, Raj ghat, etc and reached railway station
to catch train to Pathankot.
