We reached Losar after a while, had some tea, got something to eat and continued on the ascent towards Kunzum Pass. Unlike other high altitude passes in this region, Kunzum Pass has no road. Just a dirt track leading upto the top of the hill. But the views are so magnificent that you wont mind the road at all.
Somewhere on this road, we stopped to click a few pictures and a Mahindra Bolero, that was also going towards Chandra Taal, neared us and stopped. We had taken over this Bolero just a while ago and i thought he stopped to ask us for directions. To my surprise, a woman, in her late 30s or early 40s, peeked out of the window and asked, "Ruk kyun gaye, chalna nahi hai?" For a moment, i didnt know what to say but replied, "Haan bas chal rahe hain. Kuchh photos leni thi" "Chalo phir" "Haan chaliye" I said and looked at Narender who was equally surprised "Chal Bhai" And that is when i noticed that that Bolero was packed with women, all in their late 30s or early 40s. There were so many of them in there that i couldnt even count at one glance. So now we started again towards Chandra Taal with Bolero following us. There are 3 camp sites around the lake, the first one asked us for Rs. 2500 / person, 2nd one asked for 1800 / person and the last one, also the one closest to the lake asked for Rs. 500 for one tent which we could both fit in easily. That Bolero also followed us to the same stop, gates opened, and one by one, 14 women stepped out of that Car, and 1 drive. I dont even know how they all fit in there. Fortunately, they did not camp there, just visited the lake and left for Kaza. After leaving our bags at the camp, it was time to go see the beautiful lake.
We came back to the camp when it started to get dark, had dinner and lit a bonefire with some other guys staying there. While sitting and talking around the fire, we heard a loud weird howling sound. We all sushed and then heard it again. We all looked in the same direction that the sound came from. It was dark all around but all of us could clearly see 2 glowing eyes in the dark, staring at us from the bottom of a nearby hill. Flashlights were immediately pointed in that direction, camera flashes went off but all that we say was a pair of eyes which after a while slowly climbled up the hill and vanished. None of us could get a good enough look to determine what it actually was. Scared and thrilled, At around 12 in the night, it was time for all of us to crawl back into our tents.
Day 9 & 10 - Chandra Taal To Manali To Delhi I got up early to get a few early morning shots of the lake before we started on our way to Manali.
At around 9, we had our breakfast at the camp and were soon on our way towards Mnali. We reached Batal in a couple of hours and from here, the worst patch of the road started. We encountered so many nullahs that i even lost count So bad was the road that it took us almost 4 hours to cover just 50 kms distance to Rohtang.
