At 5 am, the sky was mauve with the morning light. I woke to a cuckoo clock. It was, in fact, the bird that inspires the contraption -- a Eurasian Cuckoo.
After a breakfast for champions -- two calorie-packed energy bars apiece -- we set out. Our heavy luggage -- rations, tents, sleeping bags, stove and cooking utensils -- travelled on four mules.
We descended to the settlement of Kuling from where we began a gruelling two-hour climb to our night's halt at Didana. Halfway, we stopped for 'lunch' -- hors d'oeuvres of dry fruit and a main course of sattu -- roasted chickpea flour moistened with water and sweetened with jaggery.
Fields of spring wheat and mustard flowers welcomed us to Didana, a hamlet of scattered houses at over 7,000 feet.
We camped in a clearing beside an oak forest that skirted a stream. Our vantage offered a ringside view of towering mountains. Skylights opened in the cruddy roof of the sky, pouring down sunbeams at breathtaking angles.
Devidutt, who expected more from a bunch of well-heeled city bumpkins, sauntered by to ask us where to pitch the 'kitchen tent'. He was crestfallen when we assured him there was none. Reeking of country liquor from his Rs 300 advance (which he had pocketed under the pretext of buying fodder for the mules), he got down to work reluctantly and treated us to the first fruit of his labour -- bland tea that he made by improvising a stove in a tree hollow.
In the evening, a mild hailstorm greeted us -- only a taste of things to come. The sky cleared to usher in a chilly dusk, and we were thankful for our down-lined sleeping bags.
Also see: Macleodganj: Love at first sight
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