Monday -

A fine monday morning at Aarohi OCampus, everyone cleaning up, setting up, making their beds, brooming, making breakfast, getting ready… Also tying the dogs up cause there were people coming to campus that morning and we didn’t want the dogs to run away! I really wanted to stay at campus that week but I also wanted to spend time with my parents on my father’s birthday so I was getting ready to go back to Bangalore that morning. I had bread and eggs for breakfast in a rush and left in the car with an Aarohi parent. I didn’t even have enough time to tell everyone goodbye. I plugged in my earphones and listened to music for a while, gently closing my eyes. I tried to stay awake but fell asleep because it made me very sleepy. My father came to pick me up on his bike. It was a sunny morning and it was lovely! Tabebuia trees pink on both the sides, flowers on the road, wind blowing in my ears and both of us were discussing what we would do for his birthday! A good start for the week!!! Getting back home, I started unpacking while talking to my parents about how my week went and about how much fun I had. Went about my day with my plan and then in the evening I went to play with my friends. We ended up just talking for 3 whole hours.

Tuesday -

All my time on Tuesday went away with doing daily chores and packing. I was kinda excited but also normal because it has been a long time since me and my parents had traveled or done something like this! In the evening I went to play and chill out with my friends, came back, did some more packing, had some dinner, put all our bags in one place and went to sleep.

Wednesday -

We wake up early in the morning, get ready, eat and put all the bags in the car. We start off at 9am and I’m still feeling sleepy! so I slept for some time in the car. Then my mom wakes me up and we’ve reached my aunt’s house so we briefly talk for a few minutes and then continue traveling. While we were going to my granny’s house from there there was a stretch maybe a few kilometers, at one part it was like a quiet forest with nothing really happening but it felt so lively, then we went deeper in and then all of sudden there were green hills! it felt like a secret valley, a magical place, there were many beautiful hills and a grassland kinda feeling, extremely pleasant and calm, I just loved that feeling. Then I see four small green hills in a semicircle next to each other and a big pond or a small lake (whatever you wanna call it), in the middle, with the sun’s rays shining on the water, flowers here and there… it was all quiet and my head was outside the window with the breeze in my hair…it was just like a dream! I pictured a small hut and a tree house right next to that lake(not too close but near it) and me living there. It also reminded me of one of the scenes in the anime movie, Howl’s Moving Castle where Howl’s castle goes to different places and it stops at places with all the hills, a lake and Sophie hangs out the laundry with markle outside…

It was a long car drive and then we finally reached my grandparent’s place to spend a day with them. My grandma was cooking my favourite dish and I was really hungry, so I was waiting for lunchtime to dig in. Lunch was spicy vadas, rice, sambar with desert! a big delicious meal! I immediately dug in and after that took a long nap, read, and then spent the rest of the time with my grandma.

Thursday -

after a good sleep I woke up sometime around 6am and my mom pushed me into the bathroom. After daily chores, I got dressed and helped put the luggage in the car. We left around 6:30am and We didn’t have any breakfast in the morning so we were discussing what to do about that. I was only half awake so I just said yes to everything. We thought of eating in a small shop but the closest one was 15 kilometers away and it was totally off the route we wanted to go in, so we chucked that plan. I fell asleep in no time. We finally reached the foot of the hill and my parents woke me up and my stomach was rumbling! My parents were also hungry. So we parked the car in a groove of shady Jamoon trees, over a carpet of crumbling dry leaves that they had already shed. We ate a few sandwiches we had, even though that was for us up the hill but there were plenty so yeah. Then we took 4 bags up the hill. I carried 2 bags and my parents one each. There was one huge and steep rock we had to climb up and after that there were a few steps carved in the rocks so we got up the steps, it was already pretty sunny and it was tiring So I gave the smaller bag that I was carrying to my father! Then there was a muddy path that we had to go up to and another big and steep rock. Then after that it was like a path but also a rock… ok well we took 1 and a half hours to go up and we were all really tired when we finally got up. When we got up there was a small structure that we were going to stay in. it was like a rectangle, it was made of rock and cement and it was painted all white. It didn’t look the best but it was ok. It was already really sunny so we went in and it was so nice and cold in there! There was also a lot of dust and dirt and a broom so we cleaned the place as best as we could and put all our bags in a corner. It was really dusty after we broomed it so we couldnt go in there for some time. Then we went to the temple that was on the hill. It was also built out of rock and also painted whilte. We Stayed there for some time and went back to the place we had put our bags in. We ate a few fruits that we had got and planned our evening. Our plan was to gather at 6pm and go to the temple once more, have a campfire and have dinner around it. So I went exploring, I looked down the hill and I could see many fields, flame of the forest trees, the flowers were so bright that I could see them from the top! The sky looked really beautiful, the sun was setting and it looked like a painting to me. my parents took a nap in the meantime and then I came back to the structure and my mom was still sleeping but my father wasn’t there my mom told me that he went looking for me! So then I went looking for him. And I found him on the other rock

It was a steep rock down and after that there were lots of plants and trees down there and then the other rock that I had to climb up again. So I planned to give it a try. I git down and the bed in that patch was a lot of leaf litter. It was actually a little deep. I was also a little worried that there would be snakes under the leaf litter, but I crossed it anyway. Then I climbed up on the other rock and then me and my father were talking for a while. Then we came back to the structure in the same way, Down a rock through a patch of green and then up back a rock. After a while I went to gather wood, sticks and tinder for the campfire. I found lots of dried leaves that were really pretty and couldn’t bear to burn! Just kidding, it was too hard to carry them in my hands and I didnt have a container. So I found some broom kinda stuff and got lots of it and it was also near the structure. There were also lots of sticks inside the structure so I didn’t have to get that.

It was already 6pm so we went to the temple and after that we went to another small stone structure and all three of us were just talking, then we set up the campfire and had dinner it was a really tiring day so all of us set our sleeping bags and blankets and fell asleep

Friday -

we woke up in the morning at 6am and got up folded all the blankets and sleeping bags, we brushed our teeth and packed our bags. This time there were 3 bags cause one of the other bags was food and we finished it all! So then we started trekking down and there were so many people trekking up the hill cause it was an auspicious day and the temple over there was famous so all the surrounding villagers were coming up. We trekked down the hill and while we were coming down we saw so much litter, plastic, and it was dirty it was really upsetting and it didn’t give any good vibes. There were small boys that were selling drinks and Ice-cream, there were old ladies wearing sarees trekking up early morning! So we got down and as soon as i got down I had lots of coconut water! It was really hot so yeah. Then we went to the car and had breakfast then we started going back to bangalore! So on the way back we went to my other grandparents house and I took a bath I was just chilling. Then we continued going back to bangalore we didnt have lunch so while we were coming back we had pizza!
We finally reached and we took all the luggage out if the car and just crashed our beds and slept!