First visit to Bir - for the most awaited Paragliding

Day 1

Gurugram

We boarded the train from Jodhpur railway station for Gurugram on 18th June 2019. The next day on 19th, we reached Gurugram in the morning and headed towards our friend's place to keep the luggage & have some rest.

We roamed around Gurugram, watched a movie and stepped on the bus to Palampur, Himachal Pradesh.

Note - Ram Dalal Holidays gave us the best experience of an AC SemiSleeper Volvo bus. Recommended bus service!

Day 2

Palampur

We clicked some photographs capturing the essence of NCR region and now it was the time for some mountains. We reached Palampur, the next morning. It is a serene beautiful place with not much rush, no crowd, no honking horns. Nature is beautiful and the people are very, very friendly. It is a small residential town with a railway connectivity from different states of India. So it is easy to reach by two different transport mediums.

We stayed at Him Drish Homestay where we were treated so well by the family. A father and his son operates the homestay. Homestays are the better option to have an accomodation in these kinds of places. You can engage with the local family, get to know more about the place through them. Palampur is the home for Tea Plantation in Kangra Valley of Himachal Pradesh. Large tea fields can be seen everywhere with 24 hours flowing water through the fields.

Day 3

Bir

The next morning, on 21st June, we boarded a local bus to reach Bir. The most awaited adventure sport of our life till now, Paragliding, was there. Bus dropped us at Chaugan bus stop in Bir. We decided to stay at a hostel, so we stayed at Hipostel which was at a 5 minutes walking distance from the stop. It is a real hippie stay for solo travellers and creative artists. The best thing about staying at a hostel is that, you become a part of a community of strangers, who make you feel alive at the end of the journey.

Paragliding

After a half hour rest, we headed towards the Paragliding site which was 18 km up from where we were. The location is known as Billing. Paragliding is really a great adventure sport. We took off with a parachute from a height of 7500 ft. It was an amazing experience. One should definitely experience it once in his/her life. During the flight, the whole Bir can be seen in a single sight. The view of the mountains were to die for. The pilot makes you handle a GoPro Hero camera for the whole flight video. It was some real adventure, yeah but I was a little scared during the take-off, but after that it was all beautiful.

We were lucky to have the last slot of paragliding as there was a rescue operation going on to find a person behind the mountains who got lost a week ago. So the Indian Air Force helicopter was was on the rescue.

Musafir Cafe

We had our breakfast and dinner at the Musafir - A Traveler's Cafe. I must say, delicious food. Everything we ordered was great from Lemon Ice tea to the Main course. Recommended!!! (now shifted to a different location)

As it was a Friday night, we enjoyed the bonfire at our hostel with other travelers. Those moments were mesmerizing doing a bonfire experiencing a little cold wind under the starry night sky.

After saying Goodbye to the Hipostel fellows, we boarded the local bus to Dharamshala on 22nd June. It was 2 and half hours journey from Bir to Dharamshala. From Dharamshala bus station, we took a bus to McLeodGanj which is 13 km from Dharamshala.

McLeodGanj

After reaching McLeod Ganj, we felt that we were there at the wrong time because it was very much crowded, and we were stuck in traffic jam for an hour before reaching there. If you are interactive, you can make friends. We met a boy from Germany and a girl from Spain, and after a short conversation we all settled in the same homestay.

Mr. Siladitya is the host of Anandam Homestay in McLeod Ganj. This place is a little far from the hustle of the main market and this was the best thing about it. You can book this homestay on Airbnb app/website.

Day 4

Illiterati Cafe

After some rest, we were headed to the main market. First, we had an amazing lunch at a cafe named Illiterati. I had one of the best pizzas ever at that cafe and the Kashmiri Kahwa was exotic. This cafe has an awesome & elegant vibe with a great view of mountains. You can read books, play guitar, play piano and chat with strangers and build a community here. (This cafe is now closed since October 2021, due to some location reasons).

McLeodGanj is full of tourism. There was so much crowd, that we didn't have that much fun roaming around as we expected and the sun was set as we were late that day, so we rented a scooter and headed back to the home-stay. We shot a star trail long exposure shot. It was marvelous, just brilliant.

Day 5

Next day, on 23rd June, we checked out of the stay, and made it to our bucket list locations like Dal Lake, Naddi View Point, Tibetan Museum, etc.

Dharamshala

Then we headed to Dharamshala again to board our bus towards Delhi from the bus station. We had a burger and fries for the lunch and roamed around the city.

Note - CityLand Travels bus service is very bad. Never book a ticket with that travel service.

Day 6

Gurugram

I played my one of fav sports, Bowling at Pitstop on Gurugram. We had fun on beer and some food.

Pitstop Bowling & More

We boarded our final train from Gurugram station back to Jodhpur.

One odd thing I experienced this time, is that, the restaurants enroute delhi to Himachal Pradesh have started a buffet system for food. Personally I think it is not good for the travelers, specially for the bus travelers, neither for the journey nor cost efficient.

Hope to be back here with another amazing journey.

Checkout more about Bir in our other blog.