Mountains were not calling, the River did and I had to go.
This was not my first trip to Kasol, I had one during my college and I knew I had to revisit.
We started around 5:45PM from Delhi to reach Kasol at 7AM via an AC Bus.
Checked in to The Hosteller, where we stayed in their cafe till 11:30 because the check-in time was 12PM and no bed was available.
We booked a few beds in a 8 bed dormitory, though to our realisation, it didn't have a washroom and we were suppose to use the common washroom of their cafe which was such a disappointment. The staff was also not easily cooperative. The location of The Hosteller is just okay, hence I suggest you can check another hotels/hostels during your stay in Kasol.
We settled and rested for a while and visited the Moondance Cafe for lunch.
As the first half of the day was already over, we planned to do to small 20 mins trek to Chalal Village. Its is a small village near Kasol but you can observe the beauty of the Parvathy River closely from here. Dipping my legs in the cold water of Parvathy River reminded me of the reason why I came back to Kasol.
We returned around 8 pm and visited the local restaurants. If you enjoy live music and lively environment, you should visit Panj Tara Bar & Grill.
The next day, we rented a few Activa's and checked in to Kabila Camps, it is around 3kms from the main city. Kabila Camps hosted us very well. We got ready and started around 2PM towards Gurudwara Sahib Manikaran. Its is around 6kms from Kasol. It's an extraordinary place where you can view the ice cold water of the Parvati river and the boiling water from the hot springs side by side in the waterfall. You can carry an extra pair of cloths, if you wish to take bath in the hot springs at the Gurudwara. Don't forgot to have your lunch at the langar.
Moving on, a drive from Manikaran to Tosh is just 15.5 kms but it might take you more than 2 hours as you definitely are gonna take frequent breaks to absorb the beauty around and also to take a lot of pictures.
We reached Tosh around 5:30 PM, and walked in the city to see around. You can visit German Cafe for powerful magic brownies.
You can plan your stay in Tosh(if you plan to do Kheerganga trek the next day), but as we had our stay in Kasol, we drove back to Kasol and reached the camp around 9:00 - 10:00 PM.
For the next day we plan to trek to Kheerganga (placed our bags at Kabila Camps, they were happy to provide us space for bags in the common area with no extra charge), it is located deep in Parvathy Valley at an altitude of 3000m. You can easily take a bus or ride a bike till Barshaini village, from there you can start the trek. We started from Barshaini at 2:30 PM and took the Jungle route, its a easy-moderate level trek and can take from 4-5 hours to reach at the top where you can easily find camp/tent with welcome tea, dinner, stay and next day breakfast in 600-700 Rs. We reached the top around 6:30 pm and had a wonderful evening followed by cozy dinner.
Note: You will not get mobile network after Barshaini, do inform your close ones regarding the same.
In the morning, we did a small trek of 8-10 mins to reach the temple where we took a bath in hot springs. Later we had our breakfast and trek down to reach Barshaini via the village route. We really enjoyed the Jungle route but village route is a bit easier, though there was direct sunlight most of the time during our return.
We reached Barshaini at 4:00 PM, came back to Kasol around 5PM. Later we explored the local market and cafes, you can definetely find something to buy from the market in Kasol. Boarded a train at 9:00 PM and reached back to Delhi at 10:00 AM in the morning.
Cafes to Visit: Panj Tara Bar & Grill, Off Limits, Moon Dance Cafe
Scooty/Bike rent rates : 700/1000 Rs per day