Our latest and most memorable trip happened recently, on our honeymoon! We decided to move away from the clichéd phoren vacation and decided to do a road trip across Himachal. We decided to go to Tirthan Valley, which is one of the most beautiful places in Himachal Pradesh and yet, almost untouched. We flew to Chandigarh from Mumbai, and took off from there in our car armed with a route map, google maps and lots of stuff to eat on the way! We were visiting my friend who stays there, and just as we were leaving, she calls us up at 6.30 AM and tells us to go the other way around, saying it was more scenic and more adventurous. So last minute change in plan and we set off. From Chandigarh we drove to Shimla, across Shimla, we cross Kufri and then hit the brakes for a 1 hour traffic jam at a village called Theog. Took a walk, admired the beauty, looked for tea, listened to the radio etc etc! Finally the public outcry was controlled by the cops and the traffic started flowing. We carried on towards Narkanda where we stopped for Lunch at a Nature camp, on the menu was a ‘desi murga’ and the bill was Rs. 150/-. We called our friend from there who said that we will take another 6 hours to get to their place, considering we had just 100 kms to go, that seemed a little absurd, but then if traffic jams can happen, so can anything else. After driving for some 8 hours, we drove downhill for quite some time (when we expected to be climbing, considering we were to get to 11000 feet!) to reach a place called Sainj, which was almost at the bed of river Sutlej - 4000 feet. It was a gorgeous place! From there, we started driving upwards towards a town called Ani and further towards the Jalori Pass. We had NO IDEA what was in store for us! Well, first we had a flat tyre and couldn’t get anyone to fix it properly… then our journey, which was supposed to be 8 hours had already gone into its 10th hour with no sign of our destination around and 3rd – there was almost no road 10 kms before and 5 kms after Jalori pass! Right from the bed of the Sutlej, we had to climb up all the way to Jalori pass which is at 10,400 feet! It’s a very sharp climb and hence had to drive in first gear throughout. It was also getting dark and there was no sign of any civilization aroud (kinda scary!). After we crossed Jalori pass, then we had to go down again, to about 8000 feet. The decent was even more sharp than the climb, so first gear again! Anyway, we reached our destination after 12 hours! It was one of the most memorable journeys we have had. We stayed at a place called ‘Ghyagi’ for about 6 days – went to lots of small villages around, picked our own trout after a long trek to the fish farm, crossed the river in a locally made trolley, had loads of fresh plum jam, did river walking and river bathing, had bonfires almost every night… what more can I say?!