Solo travel is something i can't explain in words, for me its my path to nirvana, to find out hidden meaning behind lifeless journey we humans endure, it makes me grow, it makes me realize how beautiful life is. In 2015 things were different than usual i started doing more frequent trips, and first time i asked my friend sagar to join me, the plan was to live outside and eat in temples and gurudwaras. I live in Patiala and he is from Ambala i left early in the morning for his house and we packed our stuff, the most important thing was tarpauline, because we were planning to stay outside and this was the only thing we could carry with us, our main motive was to travel without money . After stuffing our rucksack we started our journey, we left in middle of the night and reached there after two hours. i still remember what a beauty it was but we didn't go to Rishikesh first we left for Haridwar, it was 9 in the morn and my eyes started looking for a guy who makes amazingly tasty samosa, if you happen to visit Haridwar ever in your life, do this one thing for sure, try crispy hot samosa with Indian masala tea. There were so many people taking bath and chanting, but i was looking for something else, and i asked Sagar to come with me to find my favorite hangout spot, actually i had been here before and thiis was the place which just takes my soul away. It's a little far but it's clean and away from civilization. After 2 hours of walking under scorching sun we reached to our favorite spot, white sand, blue water and the Gange river. It was hot so i asked Sagar to help me and fix our tent near the bank, after one hour of constant struggle we did it. And then fun began, time to dive, and man what a cold water it was, it freezed me to death but at the same time it was a different experience too. After taking bath we came inside our tent and lay there for a while it was getting really hot in Haridwar so we decided to leave for our destination, Rishikesh. We started walking down the road again and asked for lift in the meantime and got one, we could see the temperature change, it felt good, Rishikesh wasn't throwing heat on our faces like Haridwar did. Now we were hungry and wasn't ready to spend a single penny on the food so Sagar started looking for gurudwara, it didn't take him much time to find one and we ate food there, it was way better than the food we eat in restaurants. It was around three and already getting late, we had no accommodation, no food and all we had was two rucksacks, noodles and packs of glucose biscuits, finally after walking for more than two hours we reached near the river bank. It was a long day, but we already ate, and all we were looking for a place to sleep, and there you go we found one near the river bank, again it was white sand like haridwar but more cleaner with fresh air and crystal clear blue water. It didn't take us much time to fall under the shadows of dream world. A long sleep of two or three hours definitely makes your day. It was 6 now and we had to leave the place, i asked few local people and they said it's not safe to sleep near the river and somehow we convinced ourself to leave the place and after searching for two hours we found steps leading down to a body of water, and that became our sweet spot to spend the whole night. But something weird happened after mid night, temperature went down and it made me puke my soul out, it became so cold and i couldn't find anything to get rid of it, and finally we had to take the shelter with cows and dogs, way to go. we were here to do trek but now we were fighting for our life but somehow we made it through whole night, we i mean me because sagar he didn't care, that guy is strong. In the morning we took bath in the holy water of Ganga and started asking people for the nearby trek, our bad because agencies they don't allow you to trek alone , and it cost you almost 3 to 5 thousand Indian rupee to join one. I wasn't convinced with the idea of trekking and paying for it. well! idea of trekking couldn't work out and we came back looking for another river bank which was kinda safer than the last one. When you don't have a place to sleep rucksack surely helps you a lot, there was this one monk who were sleeping next to us and started talking and told us about the trek, it was eight kms long trek which was enough to satisfy our wanderlust, night was horrible because of the cold and smell of animal poop. Next day we took bathe, had tea and left for the trek. When we first saw it, it was a long vertical peak, which was surely going to kill us.
The very next day we bathe and left for the trek. It took us 4 kms to reach there, When we saw the vertical peak and looked back at our heavy rucksacks, it pushed us to quit thinking about our trekking, but finally we decided to climb up. It started around 8 in the morning after few hours of walking hunger striked back, we thought of making noodles and luckily we found a guy nearby. he cooked noodles and made tea for us. I couldn't believe that he trek daily for two hour to reach here with all his stuff. Lucky us, he gave us water, food to eat and typical Indian masala tea. When we were leaving he asked us to finish this trek as fast as possible because you can't stay up here in nights. Nights don't scare me much, neither my travel partner, still we tried to walk as fast as possible because elephants are scary. When we were trekking, we met with this russian guy who had really gorgeous dreadlocks we exchanged snacks and talked about life, and sagar asked him to take photograph of his dreads. And soon we left again it took us four more hours to reach up there, it was the temple, a big temple away from the civilization. And the time was 2 and we could see the sun throwing heat at us, but waterfall made it really simple to bear all the heat. Guys you should totally give it a short but only in winters and without heavy luggage like we were carrying, it was more like a rescue mission than a trekking. we bathe, went inside the temple and came out in just half an hour. Now we had two options first was to follow the same trail and the second one was to go to highway just to avoid elephants and other lurking creatures. We decided to finish our trek, which wasn't a wise choice. but believe me it didn't take us much time to finish it this time, walking down is way easier than the climbing up. Somehow monks were supporting us alot in our journey, as a guide, as a friend and as a guide to find our way out to get free food and tea. It took us 9 hours to finish the whole trek. It was a beautiful experience not like a tourist or a traveler, it was more like a hitchhiker who was looking for meaning in his journey. Eight kms of trek looks nothing but when you are doing vertical climb with heavy rucksacks then it's something you shouldn't deny that it's not 8 kms it's more than 30 kms, because of the effort it takes. Finally, we made it back before the dusk. We sat there for an hour or two and started looking for stairs to spend our night and we found one. we took out tarp and dozed off. After midnight temperature went down drastically, curse valley, this was the only reason i couldn't find any one near river banks because of the temperature drop. It became unbearable, and we had to leave the place. Imagine facing opposite of extreme India summer. First thing first, warmth, Indian masala tea. After one hour of walking in pitch black darkness we found this small vendor selling tea, and cigarettes with his wife, God! what a feeling it was, i can't explain it in words all we had to shed few bucks to get tea, and biscuits we already had.You know when you aren't hungry you wont find any hungry soul around you but when you are hungry you will plenty of hungry souls. There was this small pup looking at us with hungry eyes and we couldn't stop ourselves to share our part too. We finished our food, and looked for a warm place this time. It was the porch of the shop but we had a doubt that the guy will kick our soul out in the morning but it was so cold that we didn't care much . You guys would be saying what a jerks we were but it wasn't actually about money it was about facing the problems and doing it raw. Imagine a worker who sleeps like this daily, who spends his nights outside every single day and who eats nothing but street food. Though it wasn't about experiencing the life of the worker. finally three gruesome days and we put end to everything. It made me think how hard it is for monks to live like this, they don't keep more than 20 or 30 bucks, that's how they save their life from burglars while travelling or walking long distances. I came to know about the people who spend their life outside without a home, it made me question my sanity but taught me so much.
