Namaste 🙏
It was day two of our week long journey to the inner Himalayas and we were staying at Bethar Dhar camp. After taking a quick nap in the afternoon, we woke up at evening to find out that the weather was completely changed.
Clouds started to come out of nowhere and started to cover the mountains. Sun was about to set below high Dhauladhar Himalayan range.
It was a mesmerising sight and people living around the camp were capturing this moment. Tot Ram dhaba was looking like a heavenly place.
It was around 6:30 PM and the sun was down for the Kullu valley below us. The people living in the valley were probably seeing the clouds in the sky. We had another hour of sunshine because we were on the top of the mountain and clouds were below us.
We knew that it was going to be super cold as soon as we run out of sunlight.
Mr. Tot Ram was aware of this more than us and so he was already working on starting the fire and his assistant was off to gather water from nearby stream.
It was sunset already and temperature dropped down dramatically. We were feeling cold so we wore multiple layers of clothing.
Weather started to clear up slowly and now we were able to see the high mountain ranges behind the clouds.
While we were layering up, our friend Tommy came to say hi!
Mr. Tot Ram was preparing food for us inside the camp. He told us that he was preparing Rajma and Chawal for dinner. We were already feeling hungry as it was already 5 hours we had our last meal.
As the food was getting prepared, Mr. Tot Ram came out of his camp to smoke hukka. He was looking like a movie character and the scene was also movie like.
It was about to get dark now and our camps were looking amazing in the dim light.
As we were feeling cold, we now went to Mr. Tot Ram’s camp to sit around the fire. It was a moment of its own! He told us a lot of stories about his life in high mountains.
He told us how bears and leopards killed some of his sheep and how he saved him and his family from close encounters from wild animals.
Meanwhile the food was ready. We enjoyed the Rajma Chawal right out of the cooker and it tasted great.
By the time we had dinner, the weather cleared up. Now the sky was super clear and we were exited to see the starts.
Stargazing and astrophotography—
As soon as we came out of the camp, we were stunned to see the sky. Sky was full of starts. We could even see the Milky Way from our naked eyes. It was truly an out of world experience that we will never forget.
There was a lot of light pollution that was coming from the nearby town of Manali and so we couldn’t capture the Milky Way towards that side. In spite of that, I got some really cool photos of my friends.
Capturing the Milky Way-
To the other side of Manali, we could clearly see the Milky Way. I turned my camera to the other side and captured these stunning photos over a long shutter of 30-40 seconds.
The photograph below is my personal favourite of all the photos I’ve captured. In this, a satellite or a shooting star is also captured with stunning details.
We felt like we were in space at that time because of the clearly of the night sky. I’ve never experienced such thing before in my life.
Capturing Hanuman Tibba and Dhauladhar Range-
After capturing long exposure photographs of the Milky Way, now my focus moved to the mighty mountains in front of me. Mt. Hanuman Tibba and the Friendship Peak were standing there in full glory.
I was really proud of myself after capturing these beautiful pictures with my iPhone 14. I sometimes wonder how advanced we’ve become that a mobile phone is able to capture such stunning photographs which only expensive cameras worth thousands of dollars were able to capture before 10-15 years.
After shooting long exposures for a couple hours, we went to sleep as we had another adventure coming up the next day.
