It was a day of Pleasant surprises!
The first thing we saw in the morning was a river just in front of our rooms. We could not realize at night that the river was so near. We were actually very interested to take another hotel because the river was at its back, but the rooms were not at the same level and the rooms were very costly. So, it was a pleasant surprise. We could also see ‘Hemath peak’ far away in the mountains, may be third layer of mountains, and that was snow clad.
The river was in full spate. The water was brownish, although we saw clear water in the river earlier day while coming from Kullu. Actually, it had rained heavily whole night from 11 p.m. and the town had experienced landslides and road closure. We were informed by the Reception that Rohtang Pass road is closed. We rang the driver of Sumo hired for going to Rohtang Pass and he also said that the roads are closed and it is not possible to go anywhere. So, we cancelled the programme to go to Rohtang pass, Solang Valley and other places. We had no option but to stay in hotel and take hot tea and enjoy Carrom game in the lobby, which we did. It so happened that the elders were very relaxed and the youngsters were tense as there was not way to go ahead or return back.
Anupam and Aditi went out to enquire about the possibility of going for sightseeing or at least return towards Kullu. There was landslide just 800 metres towards city and the entry to city was also blocked. So, they returned to hotel. On the way they enquired from the vehicles coming from Kullu side. They were told that the road is clear now, although it was closed in the morning. They also enquired from a taxi driver near to the hotel and he said that we should not go as the road is not clear and landslide can occur any time. We soon realized that the taxi driver was speaking so that hotel will gain from our stay for one more day. We then contacted Kullu tourism by phone. They said that roads are O.K. and if the road is closed, it was start after sometime as this is NH and cannot be kept closed for long time.
We decided to take the advice of the Kullu tourism and got our lunch packed. We took 20 paranthas so that even if we get delayed, we will have sufficient food till night. We also kept enough water bottles. By about noon, we started from Manali.
The drive was very cautious. The river running along with the road was overflowing and looked dangerous. At some points the river water was coming on the road. We saw landslides many places on the way. It was common in mountains that landslides occur, specially when it rains heavily. Earlier day we saw small and thin streams of water at places, but today they all became very good water falls. At one such water falls, which looked very good, we stopped and took photographs. We reached Kullu by about 3 pm so we decided to go further to Bilaspur so that it will be convenient next day. We could manage only about 30 kms. in 2-1/2 hours as we had to stop many places to allow traffic from other side and allow boulders to be removed.
We reached Bilaspur before it was dark. We took time to search hotel and stayed in Sagar View Hotel. This hotel was just before Bilaspur and we had to come back as the hotels in Bilaspur were not good.
The hotels in Bilaspur, or many places in hilly areas start at road level and then go down. Our room was in Basement, i.e. road level minus one floor. There were more floors below. When we entered the rooms and opened the door leading to balcony, we realized that there was a lake at the rear side of the hotel. It was a big lake named ‘Govind Sagar’.
One of the rooms occupied by Anupam and Aditi was having bad smell, so they changed the room. The next room they got the door got jammed while latching it and it was difficult to open. They sang the son “hum tum ek kamre mein band hon aur chhabi kho jaaye”. They had to call bell boys as both mummys also could not open from outside. We had dinner with us and we took it in the same room. We soon found that we were all stuck in the room. We had to call the hotel boy, so we asked for water bottles. The boy came and opened the room from outside. Then Anupam and Aditi found that if door is only bolted from latch in the middle and if not bolted from the latch at the top also, the door will not get stuck. So, they slept bolting only with middle latch and could open the door next day morning.
We decided to leave early morning by about 5:30a.m., so that we could reach Delhi or if possible Agra by night.
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