14 best mountain experiences in India for the summer

Summer is beginning to kick in. The sun is shining brighter, the breeze is getting warmer and the mountains are calling a little louder. And while the rolling hills and their clean air remain alluring year round, each season adds its own colour to the experience of mountain living. This summer, experience the best of the ghats and mountains in India by trying these 14 best mountain experiences:

🌸 Enjoy a sky full of stars

In 2022, 1,073km of area around the Indian Astronomical Observatory was formally notified as the Hanle Dark Sky Reserve. In this area–made up of six hamlets in the village of Hanle, Ladakh–light is managed to keep light pollution at bay so that the night sky is visible in its purest possible form. The atmosphere is already cold and dry, lending the perfect setting for unobstructed stargazing. The area is now peppered with local villagers armed with telescopes, offering astro-tourists a stunning nocturnal experience at their homestays–that’s where you’d want to stay. Visit between March and October, when the skies remain clear and the temperatures are bearable. At a lower altitude, Starscapes has set up stargazing observatories in locations such as Kausani, Bhimtal and Ooty. You can sign up for their special astronomy events that are currently on in Mukteshwar in celebration of International Dark Sky Week (15-22 April).

🌸Live the shepherd’s life in Tons Valley

Tons Trails is a social enterprise promoting sustainable immersive tourism in Uttarakhand’s Tons Valley. They take two trails every summer on which you can witness the simplistic beauty of nomadic life. You can take the Nomad Trail (batches from April to November every year), on which days are spent foraging for food or making cheese from goat milk. One the High Altitude Nomad Retreat (batches from July to August every year), travellers follow shepherds as they graze their sheep in the high grasslands of the region, visit quiet mountain villages and spend days in mountain homes listening to mountain lore. Sounds idyllic, right?

🌸Trek the many flower valleys

As the winter begins to wane, carpets of fresh blooms cover up the Himalayas. Begin with the rhododendron trail at Barsey Rhododendron Sanctuary, Sikkim, and spend the next few months walking through the many flower valleys of India. Watch the flower carpets of Kaas Plateau in Maharashtra change colours every 15 days from June to October; trek through Uttarakhand’s Valley of Flowers for its poppies, daisies, primulas, calendulas and other alpine flora (from July to September); and visit Nagaland’s Dzüko Valley (June to September) for the unique Dzüko Valley lily, which grows only in this pocket behind the Japfu mountain range.

🌸Go tea picking in lush green estates

India sure loves its tea, and does a damn good job of producing it in its own lap. From Kangra to Munnar, hill stations across the length and breadth of the country boast undulating hills covered in bright green tea leaves. And a few tea estates and heritage bungalows at these destinations let travellers live like tea planters themselves. In Darjeeling, you can pick tea under the full moon at Makaibari Estate, or have a field day of learning how the leaf reaches from the field to the cup at Glenburn Tea Estate. Down south, you can enjoy sweeping views of Coonoor’s tea plantations from your vantage point at Teanest, a 19th-century bungalow that was once an international tea school. Think crackling fires, horse rides through lush green estates, and of course, a hot cup of tea to keep you constant company.

🌸Heal in quietude of the Himalayas

Across the Himalayas, several yoga retreats and wellness centres offer a range of healing therapies in the lap of nature. Rishikesh is the birthplace of yoga, and here, Ananda in the Himalayas offers yoga, Ayurveda and vedanta programmes. You can enrol for a course, or undergo personalised treatment at the sprawling retreat against views of the Ganges valley. Dehradun’s Six Senses Vana also offers natural healing therapies. Professionals help plan your day with activities in line with your wellness goals. With the weather always beautiful in the Himalayan foothills, it’s never a bad time to book yourself a retreat.

🌸Chase the glow of the Western Ghats

When monsoon showers begin to drench the Western Ghats, forestial secrets begin to reveal themselves. Wander deep into the evergreen forests at this time, and you will spot rotting bark and twigs emitting a blue or green glow. These are bioluminescent fungi and mushrooms, which generally grow in tropical climates and only along the Western Ghats in India. Trek along Goa’s Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary and Chorla Ghats, or go exploring the forests of Shri Bhimashankar Jyotirlinga Wildlife Reserve in Maharashtra. An overnight hiking trip will be worth it here, with the neon colours showing you the way and the sunrise over the Sahyadri marking the end of the night.

🌸Ride the toy train

The Himalayan Queen trundles along the steepest rise in altitude in the world from 656m to 2,075m–a feat the toy train holds a world record for. Why not hop on the joy ride as it takes you through 800 bridges from Kalka to Shimla? As the train chugs along at 22kmph, you can soak in the sylvan beauty of the Himalayas with pines and deodars within an arm’s length. And at an altitude of 2000m, the Darjeeling toy train runs from Jalpaiguri to Darjeeling in West Bengal. With cool wind in your hair, tea plantations all around and the breathtaking Mt Kanchenjunga greeting you from a distance, this experience is the stuff of dreams.

🌸Raft through the currents

If you’re the adventurous kind, rafting is a great way to hype things up. There are many places to witness the fury of a river–Rishikesh and Devprayag are some of the most popular ones, and there’s also Beas river in Kullu-Manali, Teesta river in Sikkim, Zanskar and more. Here, you can zing across the foamy rapids with mountains towering all around you. You’ll find the banks teeming with operators, but a few good ones to check out are Red Chilli Adventure and Paddle India. Seasons for rafting vary across locations, with destinations like Goa also attracting tourists during monsoons.

🌸Paraglide over mountain valleys

There’s no feeling like flying free over a mountain valley. Bir and Billing in Himachal Pradesh have become something of a paragliding capital in India, with the takeoff site at Billing offering 360-degree views of the Dhauladhar range. You can take a flight any time around the year–except during monsoon season, when paragliding remains shut. A flight usually lasts around 10 minutes (under highly favourable conditions). Several other hill stations in India offer paragliding as well. You can head to southern destinations like Vagamon and Munnar, where the ride to the takeoff point takes you through hills covered in wild greenery; or to destinations such as Gangtok, Rohtang La and Lahaul and Spiti to soar above snow-clad peaks.

🌸Try the world’s highest bungee jumping

In 2022, Ladakh got its first bungee jumping experience in Tsogtsi village. Touted as the world’s highest natural bungee jump, it offers a diveoff a cliff right above the Zanskar river. The jumping site itself offers an intriguing view of the region. The activity is open to people above 18 years of age, as long as they meet a certain weight requirement. Jumpers are allowed to drop till upto 190ft above the ground, in a jump that lasts from three to four minutes.

🌸Live, learn and share in Ladakh

If you’re looking for a longer retreat this summer, spend your time mingling with locals while making an impact as a voluntourist. 17,000ft offers 10-day, 16-day and one-month programmes in Ladakh that let you put up in off-the-track villages and work in local schools and institutions. Based on your skillset, you can devote your time to teaching young students, exposing them to art or even building places where schools can run. Meanwhile, you go through orientation sessions, travel to remote locations and put up in local homestays. The experience is two-way, with you leaving a part of you in the mountains and taking back lessons on the Ladakhi way of living.

🌸Get the 360-degree Himalayan experience

When a sultry summer takes over the plains, most of us begin to crave the cool beauty of the mountains. Luckily, there are boutique retreats that allow you to completely immerse in that stunning undulating landscape. Shakti Kumaon (Doubles from Rs3,05,500 including all meals, a guide and car transfers from the nearest airport/railway station) organises Kumaon tours during which you can live the mountain life by putting up in village houses renovated and run by Shakti. The itinerary ends with a stay at Shakti 360 Leti–a Himalayan lodge in Bageshwar otherwise accessible only by a private charter or an overnight train journey. Floor-to-ceiling windows replace walls here, and open to views of the Ramganga valley. Lunch is served under a shamiana, and dinner by a candle light under the open skies. At The Goat Village (doubles from Rs5,000) near Nag Tibba, modest mud cottages feature similar huge windows. The views are phenomenal; the meals, wholesome and local. And GlampEco Stays in Manali (doubles from Rs12,000) offer unique stays in geodesic domes. At a height of 2600m, the domes stand at the edge of a cliff with panoramic windows looking out to the Dhauladhar range.

🌸Spot elusive wildlife

The Himalayas are home to some great wild species you can’t spot anywhere else in India. Every summer, black necked cranes fly into Ladakh from neighbouring countries. The big birds–some three feet in size–are a sight to behold. They’re in for the breeding season from March to May, and put up stunning courting displays during this time. The birds can be spotted near lakes and marshes in Tso Kar, Hanle and Pangong. Six months later, they fly to Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh for the winter. Deep within the forests of Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and West Bengal, red pandas roam the eastern Himalayas. Spotting them becomes easier during the summers, which is when the feral animals come out for their breeding season and vegetative growth too remains low.

🌸Try the Himachali dham

Himachal Pradesh is home to the dham–a saatvik vegetarian thali with fabled origins and a culturally heavy significance (more on that here). Back in its day, the dham was a royal experience through and through, and while the tedious tradition is served in simpler iterations around India now, you can savour the authentic dham experience at Rakkh Resort in Palampur. Upon request, Boti chefs are contracted for the intensive 12-hour preparation of Kangri Dham here. No vegetables are used in the preparation, and copper pots are placed in fire pits in the ground to slow-cook lentils and pulses. When ready, the feast is served in a pattal or pattlu leaves plate to people sitting in rows on the ground. It’s an occasion in itself, to be experienced at least once in your life.

Cre: cntraveller

Đăng bởi: Huyền Mật Ong