I Turned 28 In The Mountains…!
This year’s birthday was going to be special because I was going to spend my birthday in the mountains after 2 years of obsessing over it, tons of crying over it, 1 cancelled trip, and 7 months of planning.
Why mountains? During the lockdown, I was forced to meet all the sides of myself, the good, the bad and the worst… It wasn’t easy being trapped with myself in a single place for months without any means of an escape. Ngl, these few months of isolation helped me discover a lot of things about myself that slowly helped me in my personal growth. But, those few months seemed like a nightmare…
All I could use as an escape was Netflix and Social media… I know what you are thinking. The minute we say the word social media, we think how toxic it is and I agree that some parts of it are highly toxic. But I stumbled upon one of the most beautiful sides of it.
I have always loved travelling and have dreamt of making a living out of it for as long as I can remember. Luckily for me, I stumbled upon some beautiful travel creators (Brinda Sharma, Sharanya Iyer, Radhika Nomllers being the first three badass female travellers I found). I was captivated by their Instagram feed which was filled with breath-taking views of the mountains. I spent the entirety of the lockdown period either binge-watching their posts, watching Radhika’s and similar travellers’ YouTube videos and daydreaming about one day walking in among those tall pine trees, collecting pine cones, breathing in the fresh mountain air. That is when my obsession with the mountains began.
In September 2020, lockdown restrictions were eased in Mumbai and people were allowed to travel to some parts of the country. Since the rules were still being eased down slowly, I decided to wait till my birthday (which is in March) for travels to get back on track but I had already started planning my trip to Kasol & Tosh. But sometimes, things don’t always go as per our plan and due to numerous reasons, I had to cancel my initial plan to visit the mountains…
Was I heartbroken? Heartbroken is an understatement. I was miserable. Mountains had kept me sane for a year and when I was unable to visit the mountains despite coming so close to it, I was afraid of losing my sanity. I needed to be in the mountains to feel the peace, the calmness and the purity of nature.
After another one-year-long painful wait, I finally visited the mountains and there are so many things I experienced, felt and learnt about myself. Oh btw, I am an ocean person. I feel a different kind of connection to the ocean, a special kind that can never be replaced. Somehow being in the mountains taught me to appreciate my privileges a little more, it made me realise how deep my love for the ocean is, it made me realise how much I am going to get addicted to the mountains because they taught me things that no place, no person and no book could ever manage to teach me.
Welcome to my birthday travel series. My motive behind writing this blog is to share travel in its true form and that is in the form of stories. You may not find any top tourist attractions listed for you in this blog, you may not find hotel recommendations. You’ll find something that is far more precious than all of the above, stories! This series will be divided into parts based on each section of my 12 days travel.
With every chapter in this series, I will take you with me to these beautiful cities and villages. You’ll meet some of the sweetest, most humble and kind people through my stories here. You’ll witness kindness that will feel in your heart with a sweet ache to meet these people again just like I do. To help you follow my journey easier, here are the names of places I visited along with the number of days I’ve spent there.
- Delhi — 2 days
- Rishikesh — 3 days
- Mukteshwar — 4 days
- Haridwar — 1 day
- Rishikesh — 2 days
I am excited to take you on this journey! Trust me, it’s going to be a good one!
