Following 7 images clicked by 
This happened today, just 3 hours ago. My friend and I planned to go to Balabhadra Mountain, which is also known as Bauhinia vahlii (Camel's Foot climbers). This tree bears a pod called taati in Garhwali, and this tree is called the Malu tree. So, after lunch, we left at 3 o'clock to make our Sunday fun.
We left home on our scooter. First, we had to go to the base of Balabhadra Mountain, after which we had to walk the entire distance. The scooter covered a total of 6 km on the road, which took about 30 minutes. We had visited this mountain earlier this year and saw some Malu trees, so now that the season has arrived, we're sure we'll find taati on these trees.
With this thought in mind, we parked the scooter in a safe place. We could have gone a little further, but this year's monsoon was very dangerous, causing the bridge to collapse. So, we parked the scooter before the broken bridge, put our helmet in the trunk, and set off for our destination, where we don't even know.
Since we won't be going to the top of Balabhadra Hill today, and our goal is to find the Malu trees, we'll need to use less effort and more brainpower in the forest. We spend the first half kilometer crossing a residential area. Until a year ago, there were no houses here, but now some houses have been built, and people are living there. These houses are very close to the forest, and the people living there may encounter wild animals.
Before entering the forest, we come to the Shepherd Camp, where Shepard lives with his family and their animals. Speaking of these animals, he has cows, buffaloes, dogs, and a few goats. Shepherd's source of water is the mountain. He has connected thin water pipes to every part of the mountain, ensuring he has plenty of water. Upon crossing the water source, we suddenly enter the forest.
In the forest, the noise of roads, cars, and people completely ceases. Now, the only noise is that of birds, crickets, and the wind, which I always enjoy listening to. We already have an idea of the route we trekked before, and last time we spotted Malu trees while walking on this trail, so this time we followed the same trail. The forest is filled with tall trees, striving to touch the sky and soaking their leaves in the sunlight.
After hiking about a kilometer and a half, we spot a Malu tree at one point. We slowly move off the trail to inspect it, and luckily, we see some twigs stuck to the tree, which we easily manage to break. There are monkeys in the forest who eat this tati, so there are a lot of broken tati lying under the tree.
My partner and I manage to find and pluck about 8-10 tati from the tree. Upon completing our mission, we both unanimously say, "Let's go back, because sunset is about to set, and we don't want to get caught in the darkness of the forest." We manage to descend at the same slow speed at which we came. On our return, we witness a beautiful sunset.
We also collect some malu leaves from the malu tree; these leaves are used to make plates in mountain villages. We will also eat food on these leaves at home and remember the old days. Upon reaching the scooter, we put the leaves and tati in the trunk, turn the scooter back and return home. So, one lesson we learned after returning home is that the dried tati we picked up from under the tree is bitter.
And the ones we picked from the tree are good, so next time we'll pick them right from the tree and not the ones below. When we brought them home, we opened the taati and ate it with salt. The old taste was refreshed and it was a real pleasure. We'll go again next Sunday. Have you ever eaten taati from a malu tree?
Disclaimer: This post is originally written in Hindi and I have used Google Translator to translate the Hindi text in English. All the photos have been clicked by me from one plus 13r, and post thumbnail created in adobe photoshop.
My posts cannot be reshared or posted on any other platform by anyone without my permission.
[//]:# (!worldmappin 30.34266 lat 78.09837 long Hiked Balabhadra Mountain and ate local fruit picked from the tree (Uttarakhand, INDIA) d3scr)