It was the August of 2008 when I last attempted to trek up to the Patalsu peak. Failed miserably of-course. Stop laughing, there’s a story behind it!!! People who read that blog know what happened. But for those who don’t know or don’t remember…
FLASHBACK
As usual back then in the August of 2010, I combined one of the weekends with a holiday or was it the 15th August holiday, and headed straight to Manali, like an excited coyote who sets a trap for the roadrunner often getting trapped in it by himself. I wonder why does he do that. All that money that he spends in buying those technically impossible to achieve technology from Acme, he could buy himself chicken or a turkey and not waste his energy behind the stupid roadrunner. Pretty sure with all the running that stupid bird does, his/her muscles would have stiffened up. The Roadrunner surly wouldn’t taste good!!!
Wait a second why are we talking of the coyote and the road runner!!! Stop wondering and lets just go back from the world of TV cartoons to the world of real cartoon. No no.. I aint talking about you. It was me who was a cartoon who brainlessly, rather stupidly headed to Mountains in peak monsoon. I got stuck in the Landslides all along the Manali highway. Left on a Thursday evening and reached Manali only on Saturday morning. 40hrs it took me for a 14hrs journey. Did I do the trek then?
Positive. Dint complete it, but atleast made an attempt. Reached almost up to the camping grounds and returned because it was pouring cats and dogs. And it was getting darker too. Returned to Manali and feasted at Chopsticks for rest of the time I had. It was Raj and Jason who joined me then. They were out on a bag packing trip to Himachal, met them during my journey to Manali and dragged them along to do the trek. And this time it was….
Shubhodip Konar: You might have seen this giant creature in many of my other blogs, since he quite often treks with me… Another creature, who eats, sleeps, plays, treks, eats, works, eats again and eats more. Well this time again, he dint let us sleep all night. At least Chander dint sleep all night (our guide). I will tell you what happened. We literally waited for Shubhodip to stop snoring so we could sleep. With the smallest window we got, we went off to sleep and we snored tooo.. So Chander couldn’t sleep because someone always kept snoring. Either me or Somak..
Somak aka Dr. Mondal:people either know him or they don’t, but who read my blog dedicated to this creature know him better and I dare to say they know him much much much BETTER!!! Well one always says, think outside the box and Dr. Mondal does that always. Literally! You wondering if I am being sarcastic. And if I say yes, you would think, why would I say so about a well educated smart man, whose name has a pre-fix “Dr.” A Doctorate. Well one gotta agree, that Dr. Mondal does have a doctorate, yes, but that of a different kind. If you are really keen to know, message me, I will give you a link to the great deeds of Dr. Mondal and how he achieved the title of “Doctorate.” but of-course one’s got to pay the royalties, cess and entertainment tax to Dr. Mondal. 
And you know me of-course!! Do you? Really!! Think what you can and you will still have a lot to figure out. Mysteries behind…the story began few weeks back. 
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
I was sitting in office, working rather thinking to myself, what do I do this Diwali? Ding-Ding the bell rang. I had to visit Manali for its food, so why not conquer the unconquered. So all set I was about to book my tickets to Manali. But then I dint wanted to go alone. So I walked over to Shubhodip’s desk to aks him if he would join. He said yes, but on one condition. That, we must do the trek on a weekend before Diwali, because he was going to the rig that week. Hesitantly I agreed. I dint wanted to use any of my holiday since I was running short of them. Online I met Dr. Mondal. He was chill axing in Mumbai. I invited him and soon he confirmed. So the trio of us were ready to eat at Chopsticks and conquer the Patalsu peak.
28th Morning, Dr. Mondal arrived to Delhi and in the evening we began our journey. Took the Metro from Gurgaon to Central Secretariat and boarded our bus at Chandralok Building, Janpath. It was the honeymoon time, we had couples all around us. They were giving us looks all the time, as if we were there to catch their act on the camera. It felt ridiculously hopeless, every time we even shake our heads couple were on high alert!! I wonder what the fuck were they doing (Pardon my language please). Bluddy Despo’s!! On top of that the Volvo was ridiculously uncomfortable. Not because of the bus, it were the seats. They had velvet covers and we kept slipping all night, every time the driver braked. Don’t know what all accessories those seat had, they kept poking my legs(rather knee cap) all night. Out of shear tiredness did manage to get some sleep. We reached Manali at 10am next day, thanks to our ridiculous driver, who seemed to keep stopping all night either for peeing or for smoking. Guaranteed that dude was a new driver on a Volvo. Well looking at the positive side, at least I dint get stuck for 40 damn hours!!!
29th morning, I couldn’t control myself or stop my feet from walking towards the chopsticks. I called up our guide Tikkam Thakur (+91 9418003288) and his son Chander (+91 9418523288) who accompanied us to Patalsu at Chopsticks. We had a heavy breakfast, Momos, thenthuks etc and spinach omelet of-course, and headed straight to Solang. Bought our necessary stuff i.e. food etc, Chander picked up the tent and fuel and we began our trek.
All set..we started our trek from the modern side of Solang Village.. along river Beas and then crossing it over a small overbridge to get to the more traditional/native/orignal side of Solang
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