It's time to move ahead, to a different city, to a new place. I'm in Bir, and I woke up with the realization that we're going to go to Mcleodganj today. For me, moving to a new hostel, going from places to places isn't generally difficult. I want to explore places to a point where I start feeling like a local, and then move ahead to new one. But this time, it's not that easy. Bir is a Blackhole.
Morning routine is to work at the hostel. There are many people who're working from hills here. Many of them are also pursuing the Paragliding Pilot Courses from academies over here. People come here to do a tandem flight, and they experience something that makes them want to fly solo, to become a pilot. I have a lot to experience in adventure sports, but maybe one day I'll also come here to fly solo from Bir Billing.
We explored Bir's market today. There was an authentic Tibetian shop here that showed me Tibetian stuff I never saw before. The decoratives and dresses were all colorful, silky, so beautiful that I wanted to buy them all. But then it was expensive and there was no utility so I had to convince myself to move on. We then went to the landing site to bid adieu to the paragliding ground.
For lunch we went to Avva's Cafe. It only serves South Indian, but we really liked the food last time. So we thought we should definitely go here before leaving Bir. We ordered varieties of Dosas and Uttapams this time, it was good. Plus I really like the ambiance of this place, it doesn't even need to have it's own vibe, the fields around give it the vibes.
We went back to the hostel and packed our bags. Saying goodbye to people over here was difficult, but somewhere I know I'll meet them again. Their stories would stay with me. And when I'll look back, I'll lose myself in the memories I made over here. Our taxi was waiting for us outside, we reached Mcleodganj in 3 hours at about 6 in the evening.
In the first sight, Mcleodganj seemed to be a tourist city. It didn't seemed to be a secluded traveler's nest or hippies destination. It was brimming with hotels and settlement. On the way to our hostel which is properly in Bhagsunag above Mcleodganj, I captured a photo in which I could see a layer of haze over the whole city.
We reached at The Moustache which is going to be our hostel for the next 3 days. The hostel is new in Mcleodganj, but when it kicks off it'll fly. It is beautifully made, and I love the common area. It seems like a perfect place to chill, they also have a nice book collection and games collection.
For dinner, we went to Cafe Yeti. This cafe will pull you in when you're passing through the Bhagsunag Road. We had Rice and Manchurian, the food wasn't exceptional but the warm service that the owner offered enticed us. The ambiance was lovely, it's a small and cozy place. You can visit here for spending an afternoon.
We went back to the hostel to enjoy the games over there. I learned a new card game called 'Black Queen'. We also played Uno, Tambola, and Dominoes. Fun stuff. After the games, we were sleepy enough to go to bed. Tomorrow's gonna be a long day, we'll ascend to Triund and camp the night over there. So, until tomorrow!
Musings
Three generations ago, people didn't have media, smartphones, or any fancy gadgets. It must have boring for them many a times, but the thing is, they never knew the definition of being bored. For them, their lives moved at that pace, and that was their normal. Today, we're in a world where we crave for constant simulations. When we perform actions towards an imaginary goal in our mind, we want results. Quick scalable results. In short, our lives have become fast-paced. But a major difference that I see between us and them is they absorbed stuff and reflected on it, while we absorb a lot more stuff and try to find our kind of way to reflect on it from a million other ways. Ah! We're chained to a lot of simulations in our life, and to break free, to be able to perform without expectations, to be in the moment is going to be our task.
This is an article in my series 'Workation 2020', which is a 16-Day post-lockdown trip to Himachal. Follow me to live the whole experience along. Check out the posts and story highlights of this trip on Instagram at my handle @divyagolyan!