Grey Shades

Continued from previous post “ Trip to Auli – Day 5 ” When I first regained conscious that morning, I was aware only of an aching body… and then of the condition of the room – clothes strewn all over, the suitcase open and clothes spread out near the heater. It was nothing to worry – it was like that when we slept yesterday :P Gosh, I don’t know what the room service guy would have thought when he came to serve dinner last night. Eeeeeks !! So that was what we did from 9:30 AM to 10:00 AM – cleaning. The swelling in my hands was still there and Ashwin could not fold his legs at the knee. We had planned to take ski classes for 3 days but since we did nothing the first day, trek the second, we were left with only 2 days for skiing. And after the accident it was impossible anyway. There was no point going to Auli. And by the time we got ready it was already past noon. We had lunch at our hotel and went to the adventure shop to see if he could arrange something for us for the day. H

Continued from previous post – “ Trip to Auli – Day 4 ” I woke up before the alarm went off :D . That’s because I wanted to use the washroom badly ;) I realized that my entire body was aching but the idea of ski was too much to keep me in bed for long. We got dressed and spent a little time trying to dry our washed clothes in front of the heater. A hanky that hubby put on the heater despite my pleas came back with burnt stripes of the heater on it. The taxi was waiting when we came out after breakfast. On the way we saw a few taxis coming downhill with luggage strapped on top. We guessed it could be the tourists from Clifftop leaving. Maybe the Punjabi uncle n aunty were in one of the taxis? When we reached the trek base, it had started to drizzle, but snow instead of water. It was cute in the sense it fell as snow drops n then became these beautiful water droplets like dew drops :) The trek was as tiresome as yesterday. The day was cloudy, none of the views we were able to

Continued from previous post -  “ Trip to Auli – Day 3 ” At exactly 4:00 AM the alarm went off. We dragged ourselves out of the bed half an hour later, dressed up in our layers and went to the terrace. It was as dark as the night before and the sky, as clear. Ashwin suggested that we resume our competition of last night. I caught 2 satellites in different parts of the sky in the interval of 20 minutes. When I showed him the third one he told me that I have been showing the same satellite each time. I am so not a morning person :P I waited and yawned while Ashwin adjusted his tripod and camera again n again. We waited for 2 whole hours before we started to see the effects of light and shadow on the mountain tops. Sadly we did not catch the sunrise. As I said, we are surrounded on all sides by humongous mountains and the sunrise happened on the other side of the mountain behind our hotel. It was disappointing. Neither did I sleep nor catch the sunrise, and even my satelli

Continued from previous post – " Trip to Auli – Day 2 ". Read a few things about Joshimath and Auli before proceeding further. When I first opened my eyes, I thought it was just 6:00 AM  or so. It was dark outside. Reaching for my icy mobile confirmed it was half past 10 :-O We were late again. Took us one and a half hour to freshen up and pile on 4 layers of clothing – thermals, thick top (me)/sweat shirt (him), sweater and jacket, followed by two pairs of socks and one pair of gloves and one woolen cap to cover the ears. Breakfast took another half an hour. We were aware that ropeway (this is the longest ropeway in Asia) needs to be taken to take us to Auli from Joshimath and that it costs Rs.500 per person, two-way from Joshimath to Auli. For our luck the ropeway was under maintenance and since the parts are not available in India, it was to remain that way for some weeks. We decided that it wasn’t worth spending so much for half a day and so went around doin