Himachal Diaries March 2016:Day 5: Kalpa, 0814 hours, 9th March 2016

Woke up at 6.05 am to catch the sun rising across the Kinner Kailash range. Meanwhile, Pankaj the Inner Tukpa hotel’s caretaker-cum-cook-cum-housekeeping-cum-waiter, had immersed a water-heating immersion rod in a bucket of water.

After freezing on the open terrace for 35 minutes, clicking photographs and watching the sun rays inch their way up, I finally took half a bucket of hot water to have a bath. The bath lasted three and a half minutes, after I spent the first minute learning that the hot water has to be poured uniformly and very quickly over the whole body else it feels like you are in an iceberg freezing quickly to icicleness.

Learning for the day: Hot water becomes instantly cold on an arm since the rest of the body and the cold air gleefully devour the warmth in nano-seconds. So the optimal process is:

1. 3 rapid mugs of hot water over the body,
2. Quick and rapid soaping
3. 6 mugs of hot water over the body with rapid washing
4. Followed by 6 mugs of hot water – and it feels great by this time to the point where you start believing you are having a luxurious bath
5. And then another 5 mugs of hot water follows and then the icy coldness hits you immediately since the hot water is over
6. And after a flurry of efficient towelling
7. Get into your cold clothes (and this has to be achieved in 2 minutes or less without any drops of water left unsupervised).
8. Once your shoes are on, go straight to the balcony or terrace and let the sun do its bit.
9. After a minute, you start feeling great and ready for the day.