Traveling.
I always thought I'm also one of those people who love it, but never could really live up to the expectations of being a avid/passionate traveler. But in last couple of years, I'm starting to experience and appreciate the magic that traveling exposes you to with the wide range of emotions that go as the under-current. The combination of passion, energy, excitement, thrill and most importantly - curiosity, make up to a perfect break from routine life. There's so much to explore on our mother earth that one lifetime is not enough perhaps. But for a true traveler, that's a good news I would say because never in your life you can say - "I'm Done".
This traveling blog of mine - first of the many to follow I hope - is about my trip to Shimla. I mostly wrote this while still on the trip, capturing the events as they unfolded to make sure I didn't miss important little details.
December 27th 2011, Tuesday, 6 pm
Scene : HomeWe are packing in hurry. Radio Tuk-tuk is waiting outside to take us to HUDA city-center metro station. Mumma-papa are preparing carrots' juice and making sure we have it before we leave. My wife is preparing dinner for us to carry. I'm in-charge of packing! I pack everything that I had been provided but as one would expect I missed one of the most important things that one should carry when on a trip to a hill station and that too in winter - my woolen wear and my jacket!
Anyway, there was a good news also that perhaps made me too excited to remember the basics, and that was the confirmation SMS of our train ticket from Kalka to Shimla. It was on waiting sequence 39/40 when I booked it 3 days back but luckily found its way up to the confirmed list. Thanks to my colleague & friend Nivedita for her advice of going for this train despite of big waiting list. So good so far, we catch the auto and each metro station on-time. There's lot of rush but we manage to get a seat.
December 27th 2011, Tuesday, 7.30 pm
Scene : Inside Metro TrainWe are sitting comfortably on two corner seats in metro when two working 'professionals' board the train. Young, in mid-twenties, with hands-free ear-phones, goggles, bag on the back, happy go-lucky cool dudes - stood adjacent to a poll in front of us. But bad news is they started having a ball and start commenting on girls nearby including my wife. Also passing comments but trying to act smart as if they are super-cool heroes of mid-90s bollywood movies. We ignored them for a while but soon it became too much - for me at least. While we are on that point, I wonder why are girls in our society trained to ignore such jerks and not react. Words like patience and forgiveness are attached to whole of female fraternity to make it obvious that strong reaction from them would be a breach of the "patience-law". I only wish things change for better in my life-time.
Anyway, so far I had seen this in movies only, never so close and personal. I mean not these comments and eve-teasing (they are as common in India as girls are!) but rather a strong reaction to it. (Reaction would be from me by the way, unless that is already obvious). I started a little chit-chat with one of the "kewl" guys and asked him to stop doing what he was doing. His response was not unexpected but intensity of his reaction was. He said he wasn't doing anything and started blaming me & my wife for insulting him. Things started to go out of hand a little bit when he started commenting on my wife publicly. Soon my patience ran out, I stood up and told him that if he did say a single word for my wife again, I'll not spare him. But he was too rude & shameless and ignored my advice.. That was it! I held him by his neck and pushed him back, hit his face with the fist of my other hand. I remembered famous words of a not-so-famous writer : When in a fight, hit first and hit hard!!
That's precisely what I did. Hit him couple of punches more while still not letting go of his neck that was by now stuck on the other side-wall of metro. His friend and rest of the crowd became alive soon and brought us back to reality where compromise and forgiveness are bliss and it's 'bad' to fight. While they were pulling us both apart, my fellow-fighter got the opportunity to hit me on my forehead. But that was the extent of it, couple of more punches here & there from either side and we were separated. I'm glad I listened to crowd & my wife and let go of that person (crowd - because I would have lost their sympathy had I ignored them and wife - because, well, that's what husbands do :-)
Dude started bad-mouthing after he was made to taste the dust. I was done teaching him a lesson so stayed quite. His friend joined him and soon after both of them were loud enough for the people around, so they were shut-up forcibly by people and told to calm down.
Nothing eventful & exciting happened from there on till the time they got down on Rajiv Chowk and soon after we got down at Chandani Chowk. Although between Rajiv Chowk and Chandani Chowk, I met a theater-actor (a nice guy) working with a famous group in Delhi & we exchanged face-book IDs but that's not much exciting I suppose.
Two things last scene would have told you, I guess, are :-
(1) that it's not really a 'travel' blog (although I'd hope I don't encounter any non-travel stuff further in my journey) and,
(2) that sometimes it's necessary & important to park aside Gandi-ian principles of nonviolence and teach a quick lesson to people who prefer to learn it the hard-way.
December 27th 2011, Tuesday, 11.00 pm
Scene : Old-Delhi Railway StationKalka mail is now delayed by 2.5 hours and the wait is becoming endless. We are done visiting Seesganj Gurudwara which is quite close to the station and had couple of trips to Mc-Donalds which is on first platform inside the station (one shouldn't be surprised to see people preferring it over 1st class waiting-room!).
Now that it was clear the Delhi-Kalka train is running late by 2.5 hours, it was very difficult for it to cover-up for the delay & get to Kalka on time to allow people catch the connecting train to Shimla. So, we decided we should cancel our Kalka-Shimla toy-train booking & save few bucks. BlackBerry didn't prove to be friendly, so obvious thing was to call an actual friend. Following his own advise that :
कुछ दोस्त ऐसे होते हैं जिन्हें आप आधी रात को भी कॉल कर सकते हो..
और कुछ दोस्त ऐसे होते हैं जिन्हें आप आधी रात को ही कॉल कर सकते हो !!
I dialed his number. I didn't expect Sushil Dubey to be sleeping at 11 & he wasn't. He willingly agreed to help & cancel the ticket using my IRCTC log-in. In the meantime train came & we thanked heavens for that. Got a birth, made our beds and went to sleep even before train had started. Sushil had tough time fighting IRCTC website and I guess he could not cancel the ticket eventually. That turned out to be a good news instead since when we got down at Kalka station next morning, we saw Kalka-Shimla train waiting for us! (I was told later that it waits up to 3 hours for Delhi-Kalka train to arrive).
We got our confirmed seats in the toy-wonder and started enjoying the scenic views in the chilly winter morning. Within few moments in hills, we felt need of overcoats and this was the time, I realized my packing disaster :-(
Maneet wrote a shayari in no-time on this incident :
शिमला की वादियों में है काफी ठण्ड..
चाय की चुस्कियां और ब्रेअड-ओम्लेट हैं हमें पसंद..
खुशनसीब हैं हम जो इस जन्नत में आए..
पर कैसे काटेंगे रात दिन सर्दी में, हम अपनी जैकेट तो घर भूल आए ;-)
Nevertheless, very soon the sun was out and I was lost in breathtaking views of valleys & mountains & life in between. While Maneet is catching up on her sleep after we celebrated our ride in toy-train running on toy-tracks and passing through toy-tunnels & toy-stations, I decide to pen-down (rather thumbs-down!) my journey so far.. Sips of hot railway tea and taste of delicious omelets & cutlets are making our entry into hills a welcome one!
Maneet sums this up beautiful in her sher below :
एक ताज़ा एहसास है इन् सुन्दर फिजाओं में..
हलकी धूप की गर्माहट हैं इन् सर्द हवाओं में..
ज़िन्दगी की भाग दौड़ को पीछे छोड़..
खोने चला है दिल कुदरत की पनाहों में..!
Toy train was fun.. and the morning sun was making the moments even more enjoyable. When train stopped on a station on the way, we managed to bring our camera in action !
December 28th 2011, Wednesday
Day-1
Finally, after a five hours long run we reached Shimla.
We took a cab from outside the station which took us to our hotel in no time.. we ordered lunch in the room itself and relaxed for couple of hours. Hotel was appx. 5 KMs away from the city center (mall road) but it was a nice one. Very beautiful location on a small elevated hill and was surrounded by trees all around. On our request, they had given us a room on first floor that had the beautiful view of the front. Also the sunlight would come right in the room if we open the curtains off the huge glass windows.
We decided to go out to mall road at around 4 pm after taking a bit of rest. Hotel provided free-of-cost cab to and from mall-road only once per stay. Any cab needed over & above that was chargable. We thought of sparing the free cab for later time and decided to arrange cab/transport on our own and left the hotel. After walking only half a mile, we got a bus towards Mall Road and in half an hour we were walking on Lakkad Bazaar Road which was an extension of Mall Road. There was a group of local school kids coming across who perhaps found my cap too good to be left without its comparison to that of Dev-Anand. That made my day :)
Walking along the road we reached "The Ridge" which is right on the center of mall-road and is perhaps the most famous tourist place in whole of Shimla. It's a small flat ground situated on top of a hill and gives all round view of Shimla city. We roamed around a bit and had few snacks. There was a fries shop on mall road selling a variety of potato fries, i.e., french fries, smileys, potato wedges, potato nudges, etc. Smiley Fries looked very happy so we tried them :)
We took few snaps there to make the moments unforgettable!
We then happened to witness the strike by local municipal corporation employees who were agitating outside their office which is right in the middle of Mall Road.
Best scenic view of my entire stay in Shimla has to be following picure.. taken from Mall Road in the evening. It such an incredible feeling looking at the mountains hidden beneath Deodaar trees and few of the hut shaped homes giving it the look of a perfect fusion. I could easily sense something mystical about this place.. as if there was so much unknown that would remain so and perhaps should remain so as well.
For dinner, I somehow persuaded Maneet to go for Pizza.
Domin
os was very invitingly situated right in the middle of Mall Road. We placed the order and went upstrais.. Everything was pretty much like any other Dominos except that Cheesy Garlic Bread was bit different than what we have here in NCR.
When we came back to our hotel after enjoying a nice meal and hot Gulab-jaamuns for dessert it was 9 pm. Hotel was shining from a distance - thanks to beautiful lighting they had done to celebrate the peak season time and the upcoming new year. Hotel really looked fabulous with the lighting as if there was a wedding happening here.
December 29th 2011, Thursday
Day-2
Our commute from Hotel to City Center was a pleasant one in morning sun with cold breeze all around. I managed to capture couple of nice views of the city.
There was a HPTDC packaged tour to Kufri and Chail that we had booked for the day. Before we headed for that, we had a nice breakfast at 'Alfa' restaurant on Mall Road. Breakfast was nice but what made the moment special was a kid on the table next to us who was really sweet and innocent. Must be of 3-4 years of age and was talking non-stop about so many things.. he surely was loving his breakfast, as you can see in the image below..
Our trip to Kufri & Chail didn't make the day an extra-ordinary one.. To begin with, there was no hint of snow or snowfall.. and to add to that it was little too sunny during the day.
Nonetheless we had nice time with yarks , beautiful Green Valley and a 7-8 KMs ponny-ride.
From Kufri city to go further up on the top of the hills, you would need to hire ponny. That ride was the highlight of the day because it felt like we are Gladiators going for a war in groups.
In Chail, they have converted the old palace of King of Patiala into a tourism hotel. We had our lunch there.. nice food and good service. Plus the hotel was decorated very nicely. I think this is the best part about winters.. Right from Diwali till Holi, for around 6 months you can feel festivities and celebration in the air all over north India. And time around x-mas and new year is the best !
We came back very tired from a long day trip and rushed straight to the hotel. Had dinner at hotel only. It was really nice mushroom masala they had prepared.. Although I have never ever seen anyone in my entire life messing up with mushrooms. Or may be it's not possible.. :)
December 30th 2011, Friday
Day-3
Since we had a very tiring day on Thursday, we decided to spend the last day of our trip at leisure relaxing as much as we could.. To begin with we had our Breakfast on Mall Road only which was really nice as well.. Could not resist taking a picture of that for the records :)
Then while we were sitting in sun on busy mall road, we found a large group of police-men being addressed publically by some officer who was not in uniform. When I went closer and asked someone who he was, I was told he was Superintendent of Police, Shimla and was giving directions to his men in prepration for their duty on New Years' celebrations. It felt really nice to hear him speak.. young, dynamic.. talking proudly about values, responsibility and how important it was for police to stay vigilant & deal with bad elements in a tough manner while making sure that innocent locals and tourists are not ill-treated. It was very refreshing to see someone leading from the front..
After roaming around there for a while I had a weird idea to chill to the next level. I had seen a guy in a french movie "Priceless" getting drunk during the day and enjoying the vacation.. I am glad my idea wasn't shot down by my better half.. because the experience I had of drinking during the full blown day on a open terrace bar in a perfect weather, was amazing and indescribable.
Maneet's shaayari was ready as usual :-)
Decision about India's partition was taken in this building.. see image below.
Had I not been in love before.. I would definitely have called 'Deodaar' trees, my first love :-)
By the time we came back to Mall Road it was 5'O clock.. We still had few hours before we'd be off to catch our bus to Delhi.. We had spotted a Stage-Theater while having drinks earlier in the day.. We went there and much to our delight, we were told that a children's play was in progress. We decided to go in and enjoy the art..
Place was called "Gaiety Heritage Cultural Complex" and is one of the very few surviving theater of its kind that British had built in late 19th century. It's claim to fame in recent times is the shooting of few of the famous Bollywood songs there. "मैं निकला गड्डी ले के..." from movie Gadar is one such song was was filmed inside this theater.
They play was appropriately titled "छुट्टी" and was the outcome of a 3-months long theater workshop by school children. Having been part of one such workshop myself, in the past, I didn't want to miss on the oppotunity to be the audience and appreciate the hard-work that goes behind mnaking a theater production.
Kids did a fabulous job performing.. We had a very nice time and enjoyed the act thoroughly.
When we came out of the play, it was dark already and the Mall Road was full of tourists.. if it was an indication of what was in store for the 31st Dec night, I realized we were going to miss celerating the new year in Shimla amongst thousands of unknown fellow tourists. But there's always a next time they say.. and may be then there'll be snowfall too :-)
Still an hour with us, we went to a Himachal Tourism restaurant called Ashiaana for a quick snack and a hote coffeee..
As if it was written, we met a famous NDTV jounalist there.. Nidhi Razdaan .. Just to add I am huge fan of her anchoring (along with that of Barkha Dutt) and don't miss a chance to watch her show called "Left Right & Center".
Here are couple of links showing her pic.. just so that you know who am I talking about.
Nidhi Razdaan
Nidhi Razdaan
After a spicy hot & sour soup and very tasty manchurian, we headed towards Victory Tunnel where our Volvo Bus for Delhi was supposed to come. We said our final good-byes to Shimla with a delicious Walnut Brownie at a famous bakery on our way..
That was pretty much it.. Volvo Journey started at 8.30 and was not as comfortable as one would want it to be.. but anyway one would not expect it to be even comparable to that of a train. We reached Delhi by 5.30 am. We were greeted by a chilly and foggy morning in Delhi..
We reached home by 7.30 am and later in the day, we realized that it was less cold in Shimla that day as compared to Delhi !!
I always thought I'm also one of those people who love it, but never could really live up to the expectations of being a avid/passionate traveler. But in last couple of years, I'm starting to experience and appreciate the magic that traveling exposes you to with the wide range of emotions that go as the under-current. The combination of passion, energy, excitement, thrill and most importantly - curiosity, make up to a perfect break from routine life. There's so much to explore on our mother earth that one lifetime is not enough perhaps. But for a true traveler, that's a good news I would say because never in your life you can say - "I'm Done".
This traveling blog of mine - first of the many to follow I hope - is about my trip to Shimla. I mostly wrote this while still on the trip, capturing the events as they unfolded to make sure I didn't miss important little details.
December 27th 2011, Tuesday, 6 pm
Scene : HomeWe are packing in hurry. Radio Tuk-tuk is waiting outside to take us to HUDA city-center metro station. Mumma-papa are preparing carrots' juice and making sure we have it before we leave. My wife is preparing dinner for us to carry. I'm in-charge of packing! I pack everything that I had been provided but as one would expect I missed one of the most important things that one should carry when on a trip to a hill station and that too in winter - my woolen wear and my jacket!
Anyway, there was a good news also that perhaps made me too excited to remember the basics, and that was the confirmation SMS of our train ticket from Kalka to Shimla. It was on waiting sequence 39/40 when I booked it 3 days back but luckily found its way up to the confirmed list. Thanks to my colleague & friend Nivedita for her advice of going for this train despite of big waiting list. So good so far, we catch the auto and each metro station on-time. There's lot of rush but we manage to get a seat.
December 27th 2011, Tuesday, 7.30 pm
Scene : Inside Metro TrainWe are sitting comfortably on two corner seats in metro when two working 'professionals' board the train. Young, in mid-twenties, with hands-free ear-phones, goggles, bag on the back, happy go-lucky cool dudes - stood adjacent to a poll in front of us. But bad news is they started having a ball and start commenting on girls nearby including my wife. Also passing comments but trying to act smart as if they are super-cool heroes of mid-90s bollywood movies. We ignored them for a while but soon it became too much - for me at least. While we are on that point, I wonder why are girls in our society trained to ignore such jerks and not react. Words like patience and forgiveness are attached to whole of female fraternity to make it obvious that strong reaction from them would be a breach of the "patience-law". I only wish things change for better in my life-time.
Anyway, so far I had seen this in movies only, never so close and personal. I mean not these comments and eve-teasing (they are as common in India as girls are!) but rather a strong reaction to it. (Reaction would be from me by the way, unless that is already obvious). I started a little chit-chat with one of the "kewl" guys and asked him to stop doing what he was doing. His response was not unexpected but intensity of his reaction was. He said he wasn't doing anything and started blaming me & my wife for insulting him. Things started to go out of hand a little bit when he started commenting on my wife publicly. Soon my patience ran out, I stood up and told him that if he did say a single word for my wife again, I'll not spare him. But he was too rude & shameless and ignored my advice.. That was it! I held him by his neck and pushed him back, hit his face with the fist of my other hand. I remembered famous words of a not-so-famous writer : When in a fight, hit first and hit hard!!
That's precisely what I did. Hit him couple of punches more while still not letting go of his neck that was by now stuck on the other side-wall of metro. His friend and rest of the crowd became alive soon and brought us back to reality where compromise and forgiveness are bliss and it's 'bad' to fight. While they were pulling us both apart, my fellow-fighter got the opportunity to hit me on my forehead. But that was the extent of it, couple of more punches here & there from either side and we were separated. I'm glad I listened to crowd & my wife and let go of that person (crowd - because I would have lost their sympathy had I ignored them and wife - because, well, that's what husbands do :-)
Dude started bad-mouthing after he was made to taste the dust. I was done teaching him a lesson so stayed quite. His friend joined him and soon after both of them were loud enough for the people around, so they were shut-up forcibly by people and told to calm down.
Nothing eventful & exciting happened from there on till the time they got down on Rajiv Chowk and soon after we got down at Chandani Chowk. Although between Rajiv Chowk and Chandani Chowk, I met a theater-actor (a nice guy) working with a famous group in Delhi & we exchanged face-book IDs but that's not much exciting I suppose.
Two things last scene would have told you, I guess, are :-
(1) that it's not really a 'travel' blog (although I'd hope I don't encounter any non-travel stuff further in my journey) and,
(2) that sometimes it's necessary & important to park aside Gandi-ian principles of nonviolence and teach a quick lesson to people who prefer to learn it the hard-way.
December 27th 2011, Tuesday, 11.00 pm
Scene : Old-Delhi Railway StationKalka mail is now delayed by 2.5 hours and the wait is becoming endless. We are done visiting Seesganj Gurudwara which is quite close to the station and had couple of trips to Mc-Donalds which is on first platform inside the station (one shouldn't be surprised to see people preferring it over 1st class waiting-room!).
Now that it was clear the Delhi-Kalka train is running late by 2.5 hours, it was very difficult for it to cover-up for the delay & get to Kalka on time to allow people catch the connecting train to Shimla. So, we decided we should cancel our Kalka-Shimla toy-train booking & save few bucks. BlackBerry didn't prove to be friendly, so obvious thing was to call an actual friend. Following his own advise that :
कुछ दोस्त ऐसे होते हैं जिन्हें आप आधी रात को भी कॉल कर सकते हो..
और कुछ दोस्त ऐसे होते हैं जिन्हें आप आधी रात को ही कॉल कर सकते हो !!
I dialed his number. I didn't expect Sushil Dubey to be sleeping at 11 & he wasn't. He willingly agreed to help & cancel the ticket using my IRCTC log-in. In the meantime train came & we thanked heavens for that. Got a birth, made our beds and went to sleep even before train had started. Sushil had tough time fighting IRCTC website and I guess he could not cancel the ticket eventually. That turned out to be a good news instead since when we got down at Kalka station next morning, we saw Kalka-Shimla train waiting for us! (I was told later that it waits up to 3 hours for Delhi-Kalka train to arrive).
We got our confirmed seats in the toy-wonder and started enjoying the scenic views in the chilly winter morning. Within few moments in hills, we felt need of overcoats and this was the time, I realized my packing disaster :-(
Maneet wrote a shayari in no-time on this incident :
शिमला की वादियों में है काफी ठण्ड..
चाय की चुस्कियां और ब्रेअड-ओम्लेट हैं हमें पसंद..
खुशनसीब हैं हम जो इस जन्नत में आए..
पर कैसे काटेंगे रात दिन सर्दी में, हम अपनी जैकेट तो घर भूल आए ;-)
Nevertheless, very soon the sun was out and I was lost in breathtaking views of valleys & mountains & life in between. While Maneet is catching up on her sleep after we celebrated our ride in toy-train running on toy-tracks and passing through toy-tunnels & toy-stations, I decide to pen-down (rather thumbs-down!) my journey so far.. Sips of hot railway tea and taste of delicious omelets & cutlets are making our entry into hills a welcome one!
Maneet sums this up beautiful in her sher below :
एक ताज़ा एहसास है इन् सुन्दर फिजाओं में..
हलकी धूप की गर्माहट हैं इन् सर्द हवाओं में..
ज़िन्दगी की भाग दौड़ को पीछे छोड़..
खोने चला है दिल कुदरत की पनाहों में..!
Toy train was fun.. and the morning sun was making the moments even more enjoyable. When train stopped on a station on the way, we managed to bring our camera in action !December 28th 2011, Wednesday
Day-1
Finally, after a five hours long run we reached Shimla.
We took a cab from outside the station which took us to our hotel in no time.. we ordered lunch in the room itself and relaxed for couple of hours. Hotel was appx. 5 KMs away from the city center (mall road) but it was a nice one. Very beautiful location on a small elevated hill and was surrounded by trees all around. On our request, they had given us a room on first floor that had the beautiful view of the front. Also the sunlight would come right in the room if we open the curtains off the huge glass windows.
We decided to go out to mall road at around 4 pm after taking a bit of rest. Hotel provided free-of-cost cab to and from mall-road only once per stay. Any cab needed over & above that was chargable. We thought of sparing the free cab for later time and decided to arrange cab/transport on our own and left the hotel. After walking only half a mile, we got a bus towards Mall Road and in half an hour we were walking on Lakkad Bazaar Road which was an extension of Mall Road. There was a group of local school kids coming across who perhaps found my cap too good to be left without its comparison to that of Dev-Anand. That made my day :)Walking along the road we reached "The Ridge" which is right on the center of mall-road and is perhaps the most famous tourist place in whole of Shimla. It's a small flat ground situated on top of a hill and gives all round view of Shimla city. We roamed around a bit and had few snacks. There was a fries shop on mall road selling a variety of potato fries, i.e., french fries, smileys, potato wedges, potato nudges, etc. Smiley Fries looked very happy so we tried them :)
We took few snaps there to make the moments unforgettable!
We then happened to witness the strike by local municipal corporation employees who were agitating outside their office which is right in the middle of Mall Road.
Best scenic view of my entire stay in Shimla has to be following picure.. taken from Mall Road in the evening. It such an incredible feeling looking at the mountains hidden beneath Deodaar trees and few of the hut shaped homes giving it the look of a perfect fusion. I could easily sense something mystical about this place.. as if there was so much unknown that would remain so and perhaps should remain so as well.
For dinner, I somehow persuaded Maneet to go for Pizza.
Domin
os was very invitingly situated right in the middle of Mall Road. We placed the order and went upstrais.. Everything was pretty much like any other Dominos except that Cheesy Garlic Bread was bit different than what we have here in NCR.When we came back to our hotel after enjoying a nice meal and hot Gulab-jaamuns for dessert it was 9 pm. Hotel was shining from a distance - thanks to beautiful lighting they had done to celebrate the peak season time and the upcoming new year. Hotel really looked fabulous with the lighting as if there was a wedding happening here.
December 29th 2011, ThursdayDay-2
Our commute from Hotel to City Center was a pleasant one in morning sun with cold breeze all around. I managed to capture couple of nice views of the city.
There was a HPTDC packaged tour to Kufri and Chail that we had booked for the day. Before we headed for that, we had a nice breakfast at 'Alfa' restaurant on Mall Road. Breakfast was nice but what made the moment special was a kid on the table next to us who was really sweet and innocent. Must be of 3-4 years of age and was talking non-stop about so many things.. he surely was loving his breakfast, as you can see in the image below..
Our trip to Kufri & Chail didn't make the day an extra-ordinary one.. To begin with, there was no hint of snow or snowfall.. and to add to that it was little too sunny during the day.
Nonetheless we had nice time with yarks , beautiful Green Valley and a 7-8 KMs ponny-ride.
From Kufri city to go further up on the top of the hills, you would need to hire ponny. That ride was the highlight of the day because it felt like we are Gladiators going for a war in groups.
In Chail, they have converted the old palace of King of Patiala into a tourism hotel. We had our lunch there.. nice food and good service. Plus the hotel was decorated very nicely. I think this is the best part about winters.. Right from Diwali till Holi, for around 6 months you can feel festivities and celebration in the air all over north India. And time around x-mas and new year is the best !
We came back very tired from a long day trip and rushed straight to the hotel. Had dinner at hotel only. It was really nice mushroom masala they had prepared.. Although I have never ever seen anyone in my entire life messing up with mushrooms. Or may be it's not possible.. :)
December 30th 2011, Friday
Day-3
Since we had a very tiring day on Thursday, we decided to spend the last day of our trip at leisure relaxing as much as we could.. To begin with we had our Breakfast on Mall Road only which was really nice as well.. Could not resist taking a picture of that for the records :)
Then while we were sitting in sun on busy mall road, we found a large group of police-men being addressed publically by some officer who was not in uniform. When I went closer and asked someone who he was, I was told he was Superintendent of Police, Shimla and was giving directions to his men in prepration for their duty on New Years' celebrations. It felt really nice to hear him speak.. young, dynamic.. talking proudly about values, responsibility and how important it was for police to stay vigilant & deal with bad elements in a tough manner while making sure that innocent locals and tourists are not ill-treated. It was very refreshing to see someone leading from the front..
After roaming around there for a while I had a weird idea to chill to the next level. I had seen a guy in a french movie "Priceless" getting drunk during the day and enjoying the vacation.. I am glad my idea wasn't shot down by my better half.. because the experience I had of drinking during the full blown day on a open terrace bar in a perfect weather, was amazing and indescribable.
Maneet's shaayari was ready as usual :-)
मजबूर किया हमें इस मौसम के सुरूर ने
कहती हैं ये वादियाँ कुछ अपने ही गुरूर में
हैं अलग सा मज़ा इन् जानशीन फिजाओं में
मीठी सी एक खुशबू इन् चंचल हवाओं में
जाम हो हाथों में तो महफ़िल में रंग जमता है
यह है वो नशा जो धीरे धीरे चदता है
We decided to skip the lunch and on the recommendation of a friend thought of going to Indian Institue of Advanced Studies that was some 5-6 miles away. Amongst several other things for which this building is famous, we were told that decision of India's partition was taken here.. In one of the images below you can see Congress & Muslim League leaders sitting across the table with Viceroy Lord Mountbatten.Decision about India's partition was taken in this building.. see image below.
Had I not been in love before.. I would definitely have called 'Deodaar' trees, my first love :-)
By the time we came back to Mall Road it was 5'O clock.. We still had few hours before we'd be off to catch our bus to Delhi.. We had spotted a Stage-Theater while having drinks earlier in the day.. We went there and much to our delight, we were told that a children's play was in progress. We decided to go in and enjoy the art..
Place was called "Gaiety Heritage Cultural Complex" and is one of the very few surviving theater of its kind that British had built in late 19th century. It's claim to fame in recent times is the shooting of few of the famous Bollywood songs there. "मैं निकला गड्डी ले के..." from movie Gadar is one such song was was filmed inside this theater.
They play was appropriately titled "छुट्टी" and was the outcome of a 3-months long theater workshop by school children. Having been part of one such workshop myself, in the past, I didn't want to miss on the oppotunity to be the audience and appreciate the hard-work that goes behind mnaking a theater production.
Kids did a fabulous job performing.. We had a very nice time and enjoyed the act thoroughly.When we came out of the play, it was dark already and the Mall Road was full of tourists.. if it was an indication of what was in store for the 31st Dec night, I realized we were going to miss celerating the new year in Shimla amongst thousands of unknown fellow tourists. But there's always a next time they say.. and may be then there'll be snowfall too :-)
Still an hour with us, we went to a Himachal Tourism restaurant called Ashiaana for a quick snack and a hote coffeee..
As if it was written, we met a famous NDTV jounalist there.. Nidhi Razdaan .. Just to add I am huge fan of her anchoring (along with that of Barkha Dutt) and don't miss a chance to watch her show called "Left Right & Center".
Here are couple of links showing her pic.. just so that you know who am I talking about.
Nidhi Razdaan
Nidhi Razdaan
After a spicy hot & sour soup and very tasty manchurian, we headed towards Victory Tunnel where our Volvo Bus for Delhi was supposed to come. We said our final good-byes to Shimla with a delicious Walnut Brownie at a famous bakery on our way..
That was pretty much it.. Volvo Journey started at 8.30 and was not as comfortable as one would want it to be.. but anyway one would not expect it to be even comparable to that of a train. We reached Delhi by 5.30 am. We were greeted by a chilly and foggy morning in Delhi..
We reached home by 7.30 am and later in the day, we realized that it was less cold in Shimla that day as compared to Delhi !!
