It's not what the eyes witness, it's what the heart feels
That smile on my face
It's not my face smiling but my heart singing all those songs which I had dreamt of singing with every single post that I had either read or seen about Rohtang pass. For a person who had never seen snow in her life it was almost magical to experience that enchanting blanket of glaciers.
The reason I can never get over Rohtang valley is not only because I had encountered these white clad mountains for the first time but also because the journey to it,which almost turned unforgettable.
So unlike the usuals - my family which is known for leaving late from hotel for sightseeing we continued our legacy and left at 11am from our hotel in full confidence for rohtang where the other families had already left at 7 in the morning. Just before gulaba post there was a long queue of vehicles which was expected as I had read a lot of articles about Rohtang. I thought it to be the usual one but as I stepped out of the car to my surprise the queue was right till the top of the valley where my eyes could reach. Finally as we started after 3hrs we elated with joy and prayed for no more of these relentless games but just after a drive of 10mins we again stopped and there goes the whole army cantonment passing from the other side and the waiting games started again. We later learnt from others that because of bad weather these trucks were stuck for almost a 3days up there including other huge trucks so obviously they were allowed to go first but look at our fate these trucks just kept coming and as far as I'd counted there were 40 trucks but I am sure there're a lot more. We were delighted as we moved again at 4:45pm from knowing that nothing can stop us anymore to be there, But god and his plans you see we were moving at a tortoises speed as there was a huge carrier truck moving right ahead of our car. After a drive of just half an hour where I had started seeing snow and had started playing those songs in my head which I will be singing once I'll be in snow. We were stopped again, all these while we were confident that we will be able to see Rohtang but at this very moment we were skeptical almost heartbroken and contemplating whether we'll get to see our dream place or not because the next day we were leaving for Amritsar. Suddenly after 10 mins the army personel allowed our car and our happiness has no bounds. To add to our surprise as we moved a little ahead we realized there were no vehicle behind us , they were all sent back because of late timings and safety reasons.
That day I thanked all possible Almighties for letting us be the last and the lucky one to be there. As we finally reached Rohtang it was already 5.45pm and we barely had 20-25mins of sunlight to enjoy as it had started getting dark and obviously freezing cold.
P. S I was almost breathless at this point shown in the picture because I was just wearing a thin white tee with a jeans jacket but i purposely never took that overall jacket because I wanted to have my own moment there.
You know why I love to travel or anyone who talks about visiting places and seeing sights which are almost supernatural because...
"It's not what the eyes witness, it's what the heart feels "
Written by: Nisha Singh (@pahadonwaliladki)
©2019 Humans of Himachal
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