The quest for a new remote place in Himachal started in the month of February 2019. After lot of research, I selected this place called Waichin valley that is located above Malana village and also got a contact number of a cafe owner Viru Chaudhary. I talked to him about the place and fixed my dates of visit and booked my flight tickets. While I discussed this with my roommate Nutan, she was excited too and joined along one more friend Apurva. We packed our bags and stuffed some theplas (Nutan's speciality) and we were all set to go.
Here is the brief itinerary of our trip.
Day 1
We all met in Delhi on 20th March 2019. As our bus to bhuntar was at night, we decided to go to Bangla Saheb gurudwara and spend some time.
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| Bangla Sahib Gurudwara, Delhi |
Day 2
We got down at Bhuntar, refreshed and had breakfast in Hotel Malabar (opposite to bhuntar bus stop) and took a bus to Jari. From Jari we took a taxi(INR 800) until Malana gate. The vehicles are allowed only till this gate. We were greeted by Viru Bhai at the gate and we waited for some more time as Viru bhai said another group was about to come.
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| Towards Malana from Jari |
Malana gate is the entrance for Malana village. One has to trek from the gate to reach the village. It is an interesting village where the residents believe they are the descendants of King Alexander. They have unusual rules like the villagers or their temples cannot be touched by the outsiders as they will lose their purity and if you touch their temple wall or any villager, a huge fine will be imposed on you.
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| Malana gate |
The trek to Waichin valley (until Viru bhai's Monk Hut in Bela Moon Cafe) from Malana gate is approximately 5 kms. As we planned to stay at the cafe for one night, we dumped just one set of clothes in a single bag (3 people) and started our trek once another group joined us. Viru bhai led the other group and we were led by Ankush. The trek had a gradual rise and it made bit difficult as the snow height varied from 3 to 5 feet.
The journey from the start of the trek was just amazing with snow everywhere as though we were in a different world. On the way we were greeted by lovely pahadi dogs that accompanied us for some time. As we walked we fell down every now and then, our legs went down deep in the snow and only after removing the snow with our hands we could get up and walk. The breath taking view was motivating us whenever we fell and made us get up and move.
After about 3 hours we stopped at a home to sip some hot black tea chit chatting between the herd of sheep. We started walking again and after 2 hours we reached Viru bhai's Monk hut in Bela Moon Cafe around 7 pm. We got refreshed and sat in a big room with bon fire which could accommodate up to 12 people. Dinner was getting ready meanwhile we were enjoying malana cream and talking to the other group. Soon we were served with hot and super tasty rajma chawal and dozed off in some time.
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| Found some new friends |
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| Chai point |
Day 3
We woke up and watched the beautiful sun kissed mountains covered with snow, had breakfast and started our descend. This was the favorite part of the journey sliding down on snow wherever possible. We reached back malana gate and took a taxi till Jari, took a bus till Bhuntar and another bus till Mandi. We reached Mandi around 9 PM searched a hotel nearby, checked in and dozed off.
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| Monk hut in bela moon cafe |
Descend
Day 4
As we planned to head to Delhi at the night, we decided to visit Rewalsar lake which is approximately 22 kms from Mandi. Booked a taxi and drove to Rewalsar lake. The complete place is dedicated to Buddhist monasteries and another interesting thing is you will find people mostly from Spiti. They travel down to lower altitudes and stay until April due to harsh winters in Spiti and travel back after April.
As our bus was at 10 PM we roamed around Mandi market and boarded the bus called City lander, the worst bus service we have ever experienced. Never book this bus as you don't get your reserved seats nor water bottles. The passengers started a strike for not receiving the water bottles and bus stops at an expensive restaurant for dinner looting the passengers. The fight went really extreme that the police had to come and solve the issues. The bus finally resumed and we reached Delhi next morning.
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| Rewalsar |
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| La ping - Tibetian dish |
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| With Spitians |
In short,
1. Delhi to Bhuntar (bus)
2. Bhuntar - Jari (bus) - Malana (taxi) - Waichin (trek)
3. Malana - Jari (taxi)
4. Jari - Bhuntar (bus)
Expenses:
Please feel free to drop any questions below. More than happy to answer:)
