yet again ... getting lost ... then enjoying self-discovery ...

A Guest House at Naggar  On the last day of my previous trip to Naggar I happened to visit a Guest House as I walked from the Castle to the Roerich Estate . The Alliance Guest House is run by Gill; a person of French origin who speaks fluent Hindi. He had – with affection – shown me around the place and I recall being intrigued by the simple room; a guest staying there had to use a common toilet but the room had paper, pen, water-bottle, kettle and a torch. The basics were well thought out and in place. During this trip I made amends and stayed at the Alliance Guest House. Besides the stay enjoyed chatting with Gill. Image Credit: Alliance Guest House - Facebook Page The room I got ( the others were all occupied ) was the room where the then single room Guest House began in 1982; 5 years after Gill had arrived in India. It sat cosily near an open dining space; a lounge with a Himalayan view!  Enticing place for conversations and silences with those li...

Kullu and Naggar Nimesh Ved Published by The Alternative on 20th August 2015. We move towards Autt from Gushaini simultaneously charged and exhausted from our trek in the Great Himalayan National Park ( GHNP ). Here we put up at a fairly basic hotel that lies amidst the stretch of shops which constitute the Autt market. An evening walk in the market had us pick up walnuts and red kidney beans to take back home and apples to eat; each of these local, fresh and delicious. When we returned to the hotel we saw the hotel manager in exactly the same position that we had seen him when we left; busy playing teen-patti ( card-game ) online. Reach of the mobile-phone based internet and uses people put it to has been a mind-boggling phenomenon. As one travels, one learns more of one’s own country people. Not being able to contact the person we had planned to meet, we dropped the idea of going to Shimla . We would instead go to Kullu, the morning next, for Dushera celebration. D...