Hike 30km and visit the 4000-year-old Vasishtha temple

After 22 days, I welcome myself on hive. It is a different matter that I visit hive every day and read amazing posts, comment and upvote. The only reason for not writing for so many days is that the festival season has arrived in India and I have enjoyed a lot from Navratri to today's Guru Nanak Jayanti. Due to the festivals, I could not take out time to write on hive.

Well, last month I did a very long trip which was in Solang Valley of Himachal Pradesh, India. While traveling here, I visited many amazing places, saw many snowy peaks and felt the experience of being above the tree line. I visited high altitude places like Bhrigu Lake and Patalsu Peak, whose height is 4250 meters above sea level.

I woke up at 7 am, had breakfast and walked along the banks of the Beas River. By now the sun had come out and the mountains were shining clearly due to clear weather. The blue sky was shining like a crown on the green deodar trees, seeing which my eyes got a lot of peace. While roaming in Solang, I went to the paragliding landing side from where I roamed on the trail of Anjani Mahadev. Saw the tourists and admired the paragliders flying in the sky.

While going from Solang to Kothi village, I bid goodbye to the sunflowers and said that I will return by evening and then we will sit and talk. Kothi is about 5-6 km from Solang by road. It is sunny and the traffic of vehicles is very less, so it is a lot of fun to walk. Being alone, I am able to think about myself. While thinking, I realize that it has been a long time since I went to Vashishtha temple where there is a hot water pond. So let's go to Vashishtha temple.

Before getting down from Kothi, I look at the valley and click a photo. Here in the valley, there are apple trees everywhere and nowadays all the trees have apples. I could have covered the distance of about 13 km by car or bus but I thought it better to walk. There is some traffic towards Palchan which I cut through by walking fast and looking at the fast vehicles passing by with mischievous eyes.

After walking for about two and a half hours I reach Vasistha temple. The height of this temple is 2850 meters and this temple is famous because of Rishi Vasistha. This temple is just 3.6 km away from the famous hill station Manali. This temple is mentioned in ancient Hindu scriptures, so the age of this temple is considered to be 4000 years. This temple not only has religious importance but due to the presence of a hot water pond here, it also has medicinal importance. It is believed that bathing in the water here cures extreme diseases.

Since I had come wandering without any plan, I did not bathe in the pond. Entering the temple, I see the idols of Sage Vasistha, Lord Shiva and Ram. After taking blessings from the Lord, I see the hot water pond where I really want to take a bath but since I have not brought clothes, I do not take a bath and start walking back towards Solang valley. On my way back, I go from Goshal village to Barua village from where I reach Solang directly and complete the day.

Today, while walking, I walked 31.64 km, in which there was an elevation gain of 1057 meters and the time taken to do this walk was 08:30 hours. In the evening, when I was climbing the stairs of the hotel, I realized that I had done something too crazy today.

Disclaimer: This post is originally written in Hindi and I have used Google Translator to translate the Hindi text in English. All the photos have been clicked by me from POCO F1 android smartphone and edited in deskstop software adobe lightroom. Thumbnail created adobe photoshop.