Day 1, Part 2. Exploring.

Pritam da Dabha

So time passed till about 4pm, when our hunger for a satisfying meal couldn't be kept any more at bay. We decided against going to Kullu again, after so many bus rides; instead, we'd walk along the road towards Manali and surely we'd come across a cafe of some sort.

We walked.

We walked and walked and walked. We came across a juice bar, a handloom house and a strange mystic selling grotesque figurines carved out of 'driftwood' - but no chicken. It was hot, pretty soon there was nothing in sight except for a winding road. We decided to ask some locals, finally. The only catch was, that because there was such a dearth of non-veg cafes, it was possible that most locals are vegetarian, and strictly so at that. With this in mind, we approached this oldish gentleman.

After listening to our query, he said he'll actually take us to one such place. Puzzled, we followed him. Turned out, he owned such a dabha. His name was Pritam Singh.

Having a chicken meal at such a dabha is different from others. Firstly you pay the cook to actually cut a fresh chicken. You pay per kg, of course. Then you give an additional amount for the meal to be cooked.

We had to wait for about an hour. No problem, it was a cafe, Naveen KC and I wiled away the time chit chatting.

The meal. It was fantastic.
We had found our food source. Satiated, and that too for only about 60 rupees per person. Chicken and 6 rotis each.

Once back, we hung around, had tea, and did general timepass till dinner, which, while it was nothing by Pritam's standard, it had to do. I ate a sweetdish called 'boondi', which looked like the small sweet-balls which ladoos are made of, with a few rotis. Of course I ignored their rice, vegetables and dal.

There was this thing called 'Camp-fire'. Camp Fire is an activity unique to YHAI in principle. Every group has to contribute some sort of cultural programme for the assumed entertainment/benefit of the whole gang. Every day a new group reports at the base camp, and at any given moment there are three groups present at the camp. Our group, was SK-12, and this was our first day. So we were spectators, and we were supposed to 'perform' the next day.

The camp-fire was total timpass, and I remember drifting off to sleep pretty easily.
End of day 1.