TRAVEL TO PARASHAR

6 min readJan 17, 2022

This is my first travel blog where on one hand I will try to touch upon the places we stayed and visited and on the other hand, I wish to document the bundles of memories created in a short time.

Memories brings us joys as well as sorrows that’s why some wise people say that live in present but hell no they don’t tell that it is not easy-peasy (impossible! no?)

Our 5-day trip in June 2019 looked like Delhi — Mandi — Parashar — Tirthan — Chandigarh — Delhi. We were 4 adults and 2 devilish kids. (Basically mine and my brother’s family).

Kids have a super power to make everyone revolve around them. When their wet kisses make you most happy, their intentional sobbing can sabotage a trip too!

Glad, they spared this one and enjoyed it a lot.

Delhi — Mandi is a quite long drive (11 hours minimum plus breaks in the trip). We started early and by the time we reached Mandi, It was 1:00 PM and our dear sky started to change its colours. Gray was fine but black? It was scary guys.

My husband and brother looked at me as travellers who give a look to their travel planner and asked If weather forecasting was looked at. and for the next 15 minutes, they heard me ranting about how I shared everything on an ‘Awesome Trip’ WhatsApp group and they only responded with:

okay! , Sounds great, nice and emojis.

Anyways, Our plan was to take lunch in Mandi and head over to Parashar for an overnight camp stay under the stars and that’s the sole reason guys why the weather was scaring us.

Just in time, the rain started pouring and the two so far enjoying kids started feeling restless to get out of the car and start wandering.

We decided to take a halt and let the kids freshen up, eat and then see ahead. We stopped at Visco Resorts in Mandi and took a large room for a few hours by paying a one-night price :|

This was a good decision though, gave us time to stretch and refuel ourselves and this resort is pretty nice — got a river view, large rooms and decent food.

So Parashar is 2 hrs drive from Mandi and is at an altitude of 2730 m. I was in constant touch with a person on the campsite to get a raincheck update. He assured me every time with his one-liner — don’t worry ma’am!! and I in turn reassured others!

But the reality was sinking in and my brother who always said okay and nice, in the WhatsApp group started to worry about the tent and his 1-year-old daughter in this weather. We called the camp guy again and got reassured again. Without thinking much we checked out and were back in the car.

While rain was playing with us, another seemingly important thing instantly planned by my husband was getting beer and mutton on the way and he made sure to locate one shop on the hills, get out in the rain and fetch all he needed!! the dedication you see!

With the Antakshari game led by my brother’s wife and husband, we headed towards Parashar.

Now the road to Parashar is really jumpy and dangerously narrow in places. Add weather to this equation, whoa! Since we had a trained driver driving us, It gave us all the time to giggle and enjoy the view.

And then the inevitable happened. It started raining heavily. I cannot justify the view with words here. With water flowing in small canals, narrow paths and rain continuously increasing, we became hysterical and started laughing uncontrollably thinking about our little camp adventure.

I called the camp again and got reassured again this time with a slight rain update there as well. but the person calmly assured don’t worry ma’am!! My husband made sure that I tell him about mutton too.. and he gladly agreed to cook the same. {everyone innocently ignoring the weather here}

The rain in the next few minutes showed its power. It started pouring in its full glory with no good view ahead and we were still 40 minutes away from camp and the always positive camp guy became unreachable :|

We had no other option than to move ahead. So I think we did the wise thing of just keeping calm and cracking jokes.

And then the camp guy called. His voice was no calmer and seemed to be coming from afar. I could only hear ‘Don’t come ma’am!! Don’t come .. .. and the call was cut.

We were half shocked and were still laughing about the whole situation and this little adventure for normals like us.

I started calling the camp repeatedly now and luckily got the person on call. He explained that we can’t reach camp due to the mud path leading to the camp being completely blocked and flooded. He quickly told me to stop 15 minutes before Parashar and go to Bogchi Hotel on the way...

When I took a month to book this camp, We were getting into a hotel completely unknown in Suhara Village near Parashar.

Now, this hotel property with 7–8 spacious rooms was quite new and naive and wasn’t either expecting anyone! They took good time to understand that they had guests.

We got really lucky to get two large rooms because, in the next 1 hour, Bogchi was flooded with tourists going or returning from Parashar.

My husband and brother took the black packet and made their way to the modest kitchen in Bogchi. They were extremely gracious to cook a nice meal for everyone there.

The rain kept pouring and we retired early that night rejuvenating ourselves from the long travel.

The next morning, the sky was clear and the weather was extremely pleasant. We had steaming Aaloo Parathas with Curd and big goodbye to Bagchi!!

Parashar Lake is within walking distance of 4–5 minutes from car parking. It is an extremely scenic place with a lake view and a beautiful temple by its side.