Scooter, bag, tent, stove and some eatables, just a sudden plan made a day before and my neighbor and I reached Bhadraaj Peak. I feel blessed that I have grown up in the lap of Himalayas, whenever I feel like exploring another mountain, I just set off.
Around 2 o'clock in the afternoon, we picked up our scooter and my neighbor took his and started towards Bhadraaj Peak. Bhadraaj is about 45 kms from Dehradun, there are some camping sites about 4 to 5 kms before the temple where you can rent a place and pitch your tent there by paying a small amount of money.
We had to pitch our tent and camp so we decided to go a little closer to the temple. The temple security told us that we cannot pitch tents within 500 meters of the temple so we came down a little and found a suitable place to camp. While doing all this, it was about to get dark. As soon as the sun sets in the mountains, it becomes dark immediately. Two of us took the job of collecting wood and two of setting up the tent. And we made the two kids sit in one place while we set up everything.
Luckily we got enough wood, normally it is not so easy to find wood on the top of the mountain. We had set up the tent and lit the fire. By 7 o'clock it was so dark that we could only see as far as our torch light fell. We were all very hungry, we ate the potato parathas and tea that we had brought from home, the kids ate Maggi and we put some raw potatoes that we had brought to roast on the fire.
The sky was looking very beautiful, the stars were coming very close and then suddenly we saw the moon rising from the mountain. It seemed as Top of the Montian wore a silver crown.
Due to the pollution of the city lights, we cannot see the things that can be seen in the dark in the Montians, no noise, no more lights, a perfect campaign.
Slowly as the night progressed, the slight cold also increased. The temperature was around 5 degrees and we had a fire. The children had slept and we the elders thought that we would stay awake during the night and talk and experience the mountain night. We were chatting when suddenly some animal tried to come near us. We could not see the animal but the closer it came the more we could hear a strange sound coming from its mouth. That sound was a bit like a whistle. I searched on Google which animal can whistle and the name of marmots came up. One of our neighbors was a bit scared. He thought it was a tiger and he tried to scare the animal away by making a loud sound. The sound of the animal's whistle went a bit far. I was relaxed because we had a lot of fire and since childhood we have always used fire in the dark to stay away from animals.
There was only a little time left for morning and I was very excited because the mornings in the mountains are very different, very refreshing, warm, golden. And that's what happened, the 15 minutes of the morning were the best minutes of this entire camping trip. The kids sat in the warm golden sunshine. After a while, we packed up all our camping gear and headed for Bhadraj Temple. Riding a scooter in the hills is a challenge in itself. The hill here is about 70 degrees steep.
Bhadraj Temple is associated with Balram who was Krishna's brother in mythology. It is said that after the Mahabharata war, the king and others traveled to find peace of mind. Balarama stayed here when he reached this place. There is also an 11 km trekking route from near Mussoorie, which people can trek if they do not bring any vehicle to reach here. We had to walk about a kilometer after parking the scooter. After visiting the temple, we headed for home and reached home in about 3 hours.
This post is written in Hindi using Google Transliterator, all the photos are taken from my phone OnePlus, and the thumbnail is made in canva.
[//]:# (!worldmappin 30.47986 lat 77.95223 long Wheels on the Himalayas : Bhadraaj Peak and Camping (2200 mtrs) - Part IV d3scr)