Story of a Long weekend.

Happy Holidays.

Hello, I hope you are doing well.

Long weekends excite me so much probably because they are so few in an year. The excitement is as much as it used to be for summer vacations as a kid.

I have loved looking at the days marked in red on the official Calendars in the office, indicating the all the holidays in an year. They symbolise hope and mystery for me, of the days where I see endless possibilities of all the things that I can do and more importantly I would want to do.

This year April has been quite a blessing with two back to back long weekends that have allowed I’m sure everyone who had a chance to enjoy and rejuvenate.

This week I finished reading the book called “Sister of my Heart” by Chitra Divakurani, that I enjoyed so much so that I have picked another book by the same author for the coming week as well. Although I have read most of her recent work and truly enjoyed all of her writings but now I plan on reading the lesser popular of her works. I like the way her stories revolve around strong female characters and all the character building that goes into creating the protagonists of her stories. I also like the fact that almost all of these stories have been either set or have links to Bengal for I truly love that state.

This year I read another of her book called “Independence”, of which I was so excited that initially I had wanted to read the hard cover copy but due to my over excitement I ended up buying the kindle version. Still, Im probably going to pick up the hard cover as well from the next book store where I find it because of the beautiful cover page alone.

This year, I have replaced my Netflix time with fiction books, I haven’t seen anything on any of the OTT platforms in the past 3 months. This has also been due to the fact that I have been a little pressed for time because of work and an infant and so I think this has been a good bargain-books over screen time.

And thanks to some long weekends I have been able to keep up with the reading as well.

This weekend I had got the opportunity to visit Bir-Billing. And though I have been staying around this place for the past one year and have crossed it so many times, I never got a chance to actually be touristy and visit this particular place. It’s a very popular tourist destination of Himachal Pradesh and more so because of the Paragliding events that it hosts.

Most of the Hill Stations are over crowded with Hotels, but this place still had less of constructions and was more green than I had imagined it to be.

Bir has come up with some really cool homestays with good facilities and an extremely authentic Himachali experience which one should definitely opt for over Hotel stays in my opinion.

The place where we stayed was a Homestay that was actually a old renovated and refurbished Himachali house. It is tastefully done and the hosts were so welcoming. Since the house is in the middle of a village and at quite a height, it offers a splendid view. It really had the most charming sunsets that I have seen in a while, as was promised by the owner.

And since I was at Bir , I didn’t want to miss my chance at Paragliding at Billing.

The way to Billing was full of rhododendrons. It’s actually a surreal feeling when you  see somethings of which you have only read in books. The mountains had patches of red wherever the flowers were blooming.

Fun fact is that people in Himachal make all sort of chutney, jams and drinks of rhododendron flowers that are lush red, giving the dishes a red hue, it is known to have a very high medicinal value.

Paragliding was a really divine experience. Most of us always have a desire to fly and I think it was as near to flying as I could get. The bird tattoo my hand was definitely happy about my feat and I think I did check one of my bucket lists, for sure.

The wind pressure that day ,was thankfully by our side. And the pilot/flier was an experienced person who was also serving as a guide, helping me spot the various districts and important places from the sky. I was elated, although a little thrilled and scared at the same time. I wanted to be in the sky a little bit longer.

He told me about how some people who fly for 7/8 hours and travel to other districts as well. I was truly surprised and admired the adventure spirit of such people. May be some day I would also want to do it. Maybe.

You should add this place in your to-visit place, if you happen to make a trip to Himachal this summer.

Now, I think better revisit my bucket list and start considering checking the other items on the list as well, time is so precious after all.

Happy Holidays to you!