I just returned from my second trip to Dharamshala. The first trip was in 2014 with my school friends, this time I went with my friends at my University.

An earlier blog post talked about how Kathamndu not Dharamshala was supposed to be the post placement getaway. We had to settle for Dharamshala as we didn’t have enough time for Kathmandu. Numerous deadlines like application for Startup-Chile, SequoiaHacks, interviews stopped us from going to Kathmandu. That will probably happen later.

So our trip started in New Delhi on the 20th of August, 2016. I had been in Delhi for a day as I had my interviews with Works Applications, which went great. Prabhjyot, Shubhankar and Ishan had arrived in the morning by the night train and had been going around Delhi.

I met Ishan and Shubhankar at Karims near Jama Masjid, Old Delhi. Prabhjyot couldn’t join us as he was working on his GSoC project. We ordered a dish called Chicken Bura, a bowl of Chicken Jalfrezi and some Roti. The staff wasn’t polite. The manager wouldn’t let me sit till these guys arrived. They took forever to take our order, despite us telling them that we had to catch a bus soon. After ordering the food came very quickly, as if it was already made and they just brought it to us. The Chicken Bura was good, but the Jalfrezi was too oily and lacked taste. This was similar to my experience at Al Jawahar near Jama Masjid just after my previous trip to Dharamshala. A lot of hype, very less substance. I had visited Rajender Da Dhabba a week earlier with my sister and it lived up to the hype, the chicken there was amazing.

After our meal we headed to ISBT Kashmere gate. Shubhankar and Ishan had already purchased the ticket, we just had to wait for the bus. Prabjyot joined us at the Bus station and our trip to Dharamshala had started.

We reached Dharamshala around 8.30 am on the 21st of August. Based on previous experience I knew there wasn’t much to do at Dharamshala and the group agreed and we left for McLeod Ganj. We had food at Moonpeak Cafe after unsuccessful attempts to find Tibetian Momo Cafe and Tibetian Mandala Cafe. We had ordered Iced Coffee and some breakfast. The food was good but towards the end all three of us who had ordered some form of Coffee found hair in the glass. The person running the Cafe was polite and offered to replace the drinks. After some research we decided to visit the Bhagsu Falls. We started looking for the Silver Moon House, a budget hotel near the falls. We checked in, the room was great and costed us just Rs 700. We washed our faces, rested and then headed for lunch. There were multiple German Bakeries near our hotel we decided to try one of them. The Chicken Sizzler was great, so was everything else they served. Soon we headed to the falls, the falls were beautiful. We decided to be a little adventurous and tried to climb as high up in the falls as we could. It was fun. The only wrong decision was not to take my Go Pro clone, the Xiaomi Yi. For dinner we went to this place called Singh’s corner, hoping Prabhjyot gets a discount. The atmosphere was amzing, felt like what we thought a Japanese restaurant should feel like but the food was sad. Probably the worst butter chicken ever. After that we headed to the Oak View Restaurant looking for cake, as Prabhjyot was obsessed with cakes, ordered some coffee, which was brilliant then went straight to bed.

In the morning of the 22nd of August, Shubhankar decided to go back to the falls to film it. Don’t worry, Vlogs are coming soon. He cameback, I was already ready so we went for breakfast while Ishan and Prabhjyot took their own sweet time. Soon we decided to go to the Dalai Lama’s monastery in McLeod Ganj. It was amazing. After that we headed to the Tiebtian Kitchen, the place stood up to the hype. Amazing food, amazing prices and great staff. I’ll definitely give it a 5/5 rating.

At 2 PM our trek started. We decided to record every stopage and called it a check point. At every checkpoint we filmed a 20 second video and took pictures.Compared to the four hours we took last time this time we just took 2 hours and 45 minutes for the trek. The hill was amazing. We saw two double rainbows on the top and made a few friends. We took a four person tent and played bluff. I won four times in a row. In the morning I woke up early and observed the sunrise. It was beautiful. Will be adding a video soon.

Our downwards journey started at 9 am on the 23rd of August and ended at 11.10 am. This trip barely had 5 checkpoints! After that we headed to the Woeser Bakery, it was tough to find the fabled place but it was completely worth it. Good music, great coffe. After that we went to Dharamshala, had lunch at the good old(had been here last time) Sher E Punjab Dhaba before taking the Rs 3 bus to HPCA Cricket Stadium. The stadium was small, batsmen must find the ground easy to score big runs. In the evening we took an over expensive bus to New Delhi and saw Bhagi and Ghayal: Once Again, while the bus was speeding on the hills. It was not the best journey but it was fun. Overall, great trip!

Side Note

This post is probably not as good as some of the other posts. The post about Kathmandu wasn’t that great either. I have been having Writers Block recently, it has affected my blog and my programming. My 185 or so day long Github streak broke and I haven’t been able to make small side projects. I’m trying to get past that. I have a few articles in my draft section which I haven’t been able to post. Writers block sucks and is the worst thing that can happen to a creative person. I just wanted to finish this post hoping that this helps me get past it.