From here, we walked through dense oak forests carpeted with dried leaves which always gives me a feeling that I am lost somewhere in the wild. The ground is covered with carpet of dried leaves which chirp as you walk along and the air is cool enough which makes you forget your pains. Everywhere around us was a dense foliage of green and the seductive smell of moist earth lingering around.
At the end of the forest, where the tree cover thins, a vast rolling meadow was spread in front of us which indicated that we reached Ali bugyal. It's beauty is unparalleled as it a high-altitude meadow and gazes across the valley. The path to Bedni bugyal is along a ridge covered by lush green grass with wild beautiful flowers popping out. The ridge is bordered by moss laden oak trees on right side and the valley on the left. It may be the largest and greenest rolling meadow and it's length may be a few kms. I felt that this may be the place where gods and goddess spend their time whenever they visit earth. All tiredness forgotten by the nature's beauty, we didn't want to move from there. It was mesmerizing to walk along the ridge. I don't know before how heaven will look like, but now I can enjoy it by treating my eyes with the landscapes around. One has to see the landscapes here to enjoy them as words are not sufficient to describe them.
As we walked more, we could see mules grazing across the meadow. Most of the photos we took here were suitable for desktop wallpapers. Even I could take some macro photos of the wild flowers blooming on the lush green meadows. We got some initial views of snow-capped mountains where it was raining heavily. The entire scenery remembered me of a scene in LOTR where in the far-off distance the sky is covered with black clouds and the tall mountains piercing through them. From here, the path is along a zig-zag route to Bedni bugyal and one can easily trace them. It was so cold here that we have to cover ourselves with jackets and start trekking. As it was a long walk, I could see frustration mounting on some of our guys.
At around 4.00 PM we reached Bedni bugyal, another Himalayan alpine meadow overlooking a valley on the northern side. Bugyal means meadow and the place where we were is called Bedni.It looked like a very small village with two small temples, a tea house and a small playground. As far as I could remember, this has got to be one of the most romantic spots in the Himalayas for camping. From our guide, we got to know we can have a clear view of mount Nandghunti, Trishul and choukumba from here but there were dense clouds and both these peaks were hidden away from us the whole time. From the net, we got to know that we can view mirror images of Trishul and Nandghunti on BedniKund (Kund: lake) waters but to our displeasure the lake was dry as it was summer.
We went to the tea house to order some maggi and omelet. After having dal and rice as our daily meal for so many days, we found omelet as a luxury one for us. We were fighting for it with each one of us saying that they are the one to have it first as they are the one to come first. As we were sipping hot tea, it started raining and it was a hailstorm. It subdued after some time and the clouds started clearing. Now we were able to view both Nandghunti and Trishul peaks in all their glory.
As the sun started shining again, all of us went for a stroll around to explore the campsite and this was where Karthik had some crazy ideas for photo shoots and started experimenting on us. Meanwhile, Raghu along with our porters and guide joined the local team to play volleyball. In the evening, as the sky was clear, we were able to witness the Sun setting across the cascaded valleys which was quite a captivating view.
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