Peeps, remember the #BlindRide posts? If not, do read them here.
To read the first post, click here.
For second post, click here.

The last week of every year is full of joy for everyone. Similar case is with us. We, same people from #BlindRide, reached Manali after the stroke of midnight now. It’s around -3 degrees Celsius and blankets are all around me.

Today’s trip from Shimla to Manali was awesome yet interesting and had every bit of spice added to it. To just update you, we came to Delhi and stayed there in a hotel at night & then left for Shimla in the morning.

The night at Shimla was great because we roamed the streets for local food and there were couples everywhere as it’s a paradise for honeymooners 😀

I always get distracted. Let’s not talk about that. Yes, the journey from Shimla to Manali. We went to kurfi(a place 20 km from Shimla). The scenery there was heaven and the weather was chill and people were all having fun & the crowd was there too.

There’s a rule, “If you come to Shimla, you gotta visit Kufri.” And the rule is written by me. You guys are the witness to it 😛

Then we resumed our journey to Manali with some obstructions and difficulties because our driver was also visiting Shimla/Manali for the first time. So, I would say, we all were on the way to serious fun. Let’s make it all fun and no seriousness 😉

On the way we came across some kids playing cricket. One thing to note is I mentioned “kids” because we didn’t wanted to play the game and wanted to just enjoy the game and be audience to that game.

We all climbed a tree and also captured some moments 😉

It was past lunch time but we couldn’t find a good place due to the less frequent hotels and only vegetarian hotels. Finally we found a good hotel and had bellyful lunch.

And sorry to take so much time of yours but the main fun began now. We decided not to make any stop and go straight 250+ km to reach the destination.

Had some topsy turvy times but all was smooth. We were almost 100 km down the road and the road got all curvy and jerky. It was okay in the beginning. Okay, we added fuel of Rs. 500 in the morning after leaving Shimla.

Unfortunately, we were low on fuel and the car was moving in reserve and we really wanted to reach a petrol pump. We couldn’t find it for the next 1 hour. The journey for that 1 hour was all uphill and topsy turvy(as mentioned above) 😉

The driver was in a hurry to reach any petrol pump & with the road not being that co-operative, he had to drive the car in the first or second gear, which was resulting in drastic decrease in the reserved fuel.

The road was also so narrow with more turns than the number of stars in our galaxy. We managed to find a petrol pump & all were relieved because if we would not had reached there then troubles would had been our friend for a long time.

We survived that patch of trip. Then as per Google maps we continued and just when we saw a more narrow bridge ahead of us than the road, shit became real.

How did Google assume that we can drive through on the bridge? It was written SUITABLE FOR LIGHT VEHICLES and we 6 people will be considered light with the car’s weight, we decided to move ahead.

Trust me, the width of the bridge was the width of the car and 4 fingers, 2 on each side. We had to pull in the side mirrors of the car. Slowly and steadily, the car moved ahead. All our hearts were literally on our mouths. No one was showing the fear.

There was a river under the bridge. We weren’t much scared of the water but the cold state of the water. The water is so cold here. Better to keep as many feet from water. The bridge was seeming to narrow down further as we moved ahead.

And we saw that the other side of the bridge was not open, when we were halfway on the bridge. Thankfully no other car was behind or in front of us. We managed to get off from the bridge and felt a sigh of relief. But..

There’s always a but. The road ahead was like 50 degrees uphill and it ain’t possible for a car with 6 people to go at one chance. 3 of us got down and tried to push the car ahead and after some consecutive failures were able to help the car go ahead and then the car moved ahead for some metres as they waited for us.

On reaching to the car we 3 realized that the car didn’t actually wait for us. It couldn’t again move uphill and hence the other 2 friends also got down and helped the driver to take the car up.

We 3 also pitched in and together we were able to move the car with 50 degrees uphill. This calls for some serious fun because we all were panting after this and sat at a roadside to relax.

Talking to the driver, he said, “Bhai ji, meri b lag gayi thi ki gadi upar jayegi ya nahi..”
*Brother I was also scared with the uphill and was not sure whether this would work or not*
And I was like, “Chalo agaye upar, ab bas aram karlo.. Ab thoda aur rasta baki hai” 😀
*Let’s not wait much here because we have still some way to cover”

The driver didn’t say much about his hunger & dinner and was dedicated on reaching Manali asap. He did that successfully. It was after the stroke of midnight that we checked in and went to have dinner outside. We had delicious food and after fun times and talking, inside blankets.

All my friends are asleep as they plan to wake @ 6 am to watch the sunrise. It’s 4:15 am and I am awake. God help me!

I assure you that I can’t write everything about the trip but I will try my best to share things with you.

Pictures will keep on coming.

Stay blessed and enjoy holidays.

The view from the hotel is fantastic. Will share the sunrise pics, if I wake up.

Goodnight.

I am sleepy. Let me add some previous images 🙂

P.S. : Today’s pick is Count on me of Bruno Mars. Our driver is a big fan of Bruno and it’s fun talking to him & knowing things about his life and people of North. Most of these pics are captured by a great friend of mine, so all the due credits to him, I don’t have any photographic skills 😀