Page 19 - Seniors Today - May21 Issue

Travel
Call of the
Mountains
Ajay Kanoria takes us to the mountains… far from the madding crowds,
away from the touristy hill stations, with day-long walks, crisp mornings
and fireside nights. Enjoy.
The call of the mountains has been in my
DNA. From the time I was a toddler, we
used to spend every summer in Pahalgam in
Kashmir, wandering freely on our horses and
our two legs through the day and occasionally
overnight through the peaks and dales
surrounding Pahalgam, bathing in the Lidder
shivering away to glory, rolling down the
snowy mountains on our sleds, backsides and
tumbling away, skiing in the cold waters of the
beautiful Nageen lakes of Srinagar.
The cold clear crisp air in the lap of nature
with everything green and white, as far as one
could see was a breathless sight as we opened
our eyes and got out of bed to peek out of the
windows.
At some point of time, Kashmir was lost and
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #23 | MAY 2021
foreign destinations for holidays beckoned
and became the norm. Apart from occasional
forays to the mountains and beaches, cities
became the destinations of choice. Rivers,
mountains, lakes, the sea, walks in the wild,
and on horses, were replaced with museums,
architecture, restaurants, shopswalks in the
parks and strolls in the older parts of cities.
Somehow, the call of the mountains and the
wild never left me and I decided to go back
to doing what I loved most: walking in the
mountains and the wild, albeit by myself. And
so, the passion was rekindled.
I found that one could combine visits to small
cities, with basic to luxury accommodation
and simple to gourmet food with five to eight
hours of hiking every day, going up five to
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