Procrastination got the better of me and I'm exactly 4 months late in writing about the best trip of my life (Thank God I don't have deadlines or word limits!). Lemme put "testing my memory" as a feeble excuse for covering up the delay. Hope that works!
It was meant to be a "budget" trip where we were to travel by trains and local buses and stay at "budget" hotels - the illusion got stalled right at the planning stage. We started with a plane ride from Mumbai to Delhi. The word 'crazy' defined the trip from the word go. Irene was stopped at the check-in counter thrice for no apparent reason, the flight was delayed and delayed enough to have missed our connecting train to Kalka had the train in turn not been delayed by nearly 5 hrs!
Reaching Delhi at 9:30 pm, what struck us most were the staring eyes of all and sundry. At one point we wondered if we had 'zombie' written all over us! But after the initial "Delhi is strange, I miss my good old Mumbai" we warmed up to the food paradise. Also, it helped that most of the eyes staring at us belonged to extremely cute guys.The train was running so far behind it's schedule that we found time to make a short trip to the famous CP and savor greasy plates of Butter chicken, Tandoori chicken and dal makhani (It does sound like a Sindhi surname! Sorry I can't resist PJs)
With more than enough time to kill at the Old Delhi Station, we devised a game of weighing our backpacks and later ourselves (Ruchika and I couldn't take that disappointing step) at the weighing machine, which is a heritage fixture at most Railway stations.
Towards Shimla...
Finally the Kalka mail arrived at 2am. After a rather inconsequential ride, we reached Kalka in the morning and shared a cab with a doctor couple to reach Shimla in the afternoon. After a steep and tiring walk we located the Lonely Planet India Guide recommended Hotel Dalzeil. It was one of those quaint old-world-charm preserving heritage buildings. After haggling with the owners for some discount, we finally managed a two-double-bedded room with antique furniture in it, at a VERY REASONABLE rate.
After a rejuvenating hot shower, we headed out to the popular Mall Road in the hope of grabbing some lunch. Unfortunately it turned out Ruchika was a bad judge of eateries and took us to the Shimla Coffee House, which served noodles cooked in petrol (fine i'm exaggerating but only a little) and cold uttapam that was equally dismal. Seriously how can anyone go wrong with noodles! Fine the coffee was decent. They don't call it a Coffee house for no reason! Shopping followed the disastrous lunch. All three of them picked up shoes from a Chinese shoe shop in different colors (I still hung on to the ideals of a budget trip). But of course, a shopaholic can't resist the pull of new clothes for long, so yes I bought a trench coat and thermals, a while later. It started feeling like a real trip once we strolled down the Mall and gazed down at the valley below. To avenge our unfulfilled taste buds, we decided to find a good dining place. Find we did and good it was - The Embassy restaurant was peaceful, and warm with quotes of famous personalities covering the wooden walls. However, with a bill of 1k, we were not sure of a revisit, even though the food was really good.
On our way back to the hotel at 11 pm, considering it was a hill station and anything beyond 9 pm is considered unsafe, especially for women, we devised a plan-of-action against any "eve-teaser" (oh how much I hate this term). Each of us, being too influenced by the Bollywood way of life, decided to enact a mad woman and attack an offender (reference: Monjolika in the film Bhool Bhulaiya). We hoped to scare away even the hardest of criminals. We are glad we did not get to test it, because in case this failed we did not have a back-up plan.
Prachi had to return to Delhi, unfortunately she could not manage leave from work. So the rest of us, booked an Alto for the next 4 days to take us to Sarahan, Sangla, Chitkkul, Kalpa and higher (like the Creed song).
To be continued...
Okay so, crossing over the "patience threshold" in both my professional (stagnant) and love life (absolutely, completely miserable), the only respite I could think of was running away to the mountains. Naivety prompted me to attempt doing that alone, but the ever watchful Almighty sent my two ex-colleagues (Ruchika and Irene -they r awesome buddies too) and my childhood friend Prachi (who joined us in Delhi) as surprise companions. And till today I have not stop saying "I'm so glad we did it together"! By the way, we covered Eastern Himachal Pradesh (the tribal circuit), Chandigarh and Delhi in some ten days.
Prachi, Irene, Me, Ruchika (left to right)
It was meant to be a "budget" trip where we were to travel by trains and local buses and stay at "budget" hotels - the illusion got stalled right at the planning stage. We started with a plane ride from Mumbai to Delhi. The word 'crazy' defined the trip from the word go. Irene was stopped at the check-in counter thrice for no apparent reason, the flight was delayed and delayed enough to have missed our connecting train to Kalka had the train in turn not been delayed by nearly 5 hrs!
Reaching Delhi at 9:30 pm, what struck us most were the staring eyes of all and sundry. At one point we wondered if we had 'zombie' written all over us! But after the initial "Delhi is strange, I miss my good old Mumbai" we warmed up to the food paradise. Also, it helped that most of the eyes staring at us belonged to extremely cute guys.The train was running so far behind it's schedule that we found time to make a short trip to the famous CP and savor greasy plates of Butter chicken, Tandoori chicken and dal makhani (It does sound like a Sindhi surname! Sorry I can't resist PJs)
With more than enough time to kill at the Old Delhi Station, we devised a game of weighing our backpacks and later ourselves (Ruchika and I couldn't take that disappointing step) at the weighing machine, which is a heritage fixture at most Railway stations.
Towards Shimla...
Finally the Kalka mail arrived at 2am. After a rather inconsequential ride, we reached Kalka in the morning and shared a cab with a doctor couple to reach Shimla in the afternoon. After a steep and tiring walk we located the Lonely Planet India Guide recommended Hotel Dalzeil. It was one of those quaint old-world-charm preserving heritage buildings. After haggling with the owners for some discount, we finally managed a two-double-bedded room with antique furniture in it, at a VERY REASONABLE rate.
The Shimla Church
After a rejuvenating hot shower, we headed out to the popular Mall Road in the hope of grabbing some lunch. Unfortunately it turned out Ruchika was a bad judge of eateries and took us to the Shimla Coffee House, which served noodles cooked in petrol (fine i'm exaggerating but only a little) and cold uttapam that was equally dismal. Seriously how can anyone go wrong with noodles! Fine the coffee was decent. They don't call it a Coffee house for no reason! Shopping followed the disastrous lunch. All three of them picked up shoes from a Chinese shoe shop in different colors (I still hung on to the ideals of a budget trip). But of course, a shopaholic can't resist the pull of new clothes for long, so yes I bought a trench coat and thermals, a while later. It started feeling like a real trip once we strolled down the Mall and gazed down at the valley below. To avenge our unfulfilled taste buds, we decided to find a good dining place. Find we did and good it was - The Embassy restaurant was peaceful, and warm with quotes of famous personalities covering the wooden walls. However, with a bill of 1k, we were not sure of a revisit, even though the food was really good.
The Chinese shoe shop
The Mall
Shimla Town
The Queen of hills
On our way back to the hotel at 11 pm, considering it was a hill station and anything beyond 9 pm is considered unsafe, especially for women, we devised a plan-of-action against any "eve-teaser" (oh how much I hate this term). Each of us, being too influenced by the Bollywood way of life, decided to enact a mad woman and attack an offender (reference: Monjolika in the film Bhool Bhulaiya). We hoped to scare away even the hardest of criminals. We are glad we did not get to test it, because in case this failed we did not have a back-up plan.
Prachi had to return to Delhi, unfortunately she could not manage leave from work. So the rest of us, booked an Alto for the next 4 days to take us to Sarahan, Sangla, Chitkkul, Kalpa and higher (like the Creed song).
To be continued...
