My trip to Simla.

After having the final look at the packings and luggages, I reached the railway station to start my journey, the journey of fun, the journey of adventure and the journey of peace.

The train was in time, and that caught me by surprise. It was a second class sleeper coach, the place where you would find all types of creatures belonging to the comminuty called human beings. We four, me and my three friends settled at our seats and had a good time together. We talked, played and had a good look at the so called ‘humsafars’ in our safar to Delhi. After having our dinner in the train we, in particular I, thought of going to sleep early. Most of the Rajasthan including the major towns like Ajmer and Jaipur passed by in out deep sleep and our morning started with the Rajasthan-Haryana border. Slowly and steadily (and I mean really slowly) we reached to our destination. We hired an auto rickshaw and went to Noida (home of our friend Sandeep Pati).

Delhi is famous for producing the biggest cheats and frauds and we started out trip on a perfect hit. The autowala took away double amount on money from us than normal. It was one of those rare occassions when someone succeeded in taking away money from us-me and hardik.

Sandeep’s home was located in such a place that we felt like winning the game after finding it. The address given by him was infact very straight and simple, but our autowala-our team’s captain, made it look like a giant maze.

After reaching at Sandy’s place, we were relaxed. The heat there was no different from what we left behind in Ahmedabad. Had our lunch and slept for some time. In the evening we took a bus and went to the centerstage mall. It was huge, nealy five times bigger than the FR (quite big one in Ahmedabad) . And the crowd!!!! Though it was a weekday, but still the sight was awesome. And more exciting was the shop named Punk. It was a nice theme shop but we need to sell our own self to buy even one wrist band ;-). So we came down and went to another market named Atta where everything seemed down to earth.

We returned to our base camp, Sandy’s place, had our dinner and got everything ready since our traing to Simla was leaving early in the morning. At night we had few games of table tennis before going to sleep.

It was 5:30 in the morning when Sandy came to wake us all. I was the last one to get ready by 6:30 (quite unusual for me too being late…). Then we all went to the station.

There we met Ganesh and we six people then started our journey to Simla. It was an AC chair car where we were served very good and healthy food. We reached Kalka (the base of Simla) and from there we settled in the Himalayan Queen, a small train that passes through the beautiful Himalayan ranges. We passed through more than 100 small and big tunnels and the views were mind blowing. As we reached the heights, the heat went down.

We moved around in the city for more than an hour in search of a hotel. Finally, doing all the climbing and descending on the inclined roads of Simla, we found a hotel (its name also amused me - “ Rajdoot ”- reminded me of that Dharmendra’s ad.). We reached our hotel at 7 pm and went to the famous Mall road for wandering. No doubt the city was crowded as it was vacation time. The atmosphere was cool and so was the crowd. We had our dinner at the mall road itself and moved around for some time with an ice-cream in hands. After a long journey of nearly 10 hrs by train and then the trekking in the city, we all were exhausted. Played cards for some time and then went to a deep sleep.

Next day belonged to the Simla darshan. We hired a taxi and visited the well-known spots in the town. Our first stop was the Green Valley. The view was soothing the eyes since the entire valley was wearing the green covering over it. There after we went to Kufri. The entire experience of Kufri was inexplicable.

We took 6 horses and had the greatest horse ride ever. The path was hardly sufficient for one horse to walk over and we were like 2-3 horses competing for the lead. We were all shouting, screaming and yelling like any thing. It was fun (now I can say that but that time…. huh). After spending around 4 hrs there, we went to the wild life park. It had those black and brown bears, wolves and the white leopard. At 5 it became cloudy and strong breeze started its own journey. Was seriously chilling (for me at least).

Our return trip to the hotel that day was full of thrill. Our driver was driving the car as if he was an F1 racer. We even named him Fernando Alonso. Seriously, it was the worst possible driving anyone could ever imagine. No brakes at all. And the mountain roads. Who knows whats coming from front. He was on the roll and there was pin drop silence in the car. Each of us was holding anything they can cling to and I don’t think there was any God of any religion who was not offered a prayer by me. Its was worse than a roller coaster ride. I was at the back seats in the car (it was a sumo so the back seats are vertical) and could not hold to one particular thing. Twice or thrice I fell off the seat and was sitting on the spare wheel placed between the two seats. It was in a true sense- mind blowing.

Finally we went to a very beautiful Hanuman temple (whom we remembered like anything and for whom we were chanting the chalissa too). The entire city was visible from the open terrace of the temple. It got really darker in the evening and so we went to the hotel and had our dinner there itself. Then after praying to the god, we went to a peaceful sleep.

Our second day at Simla was dedicated to a place called Tatta-pani (meaning place where there is a hot water stream). It is nearly 60 kms from Simla and to our luck (good or bad) we got the same old Alonso as our driver. But this time, somehow we saw a milder version of the F1 champ. Thank God!!! ( our prayers really worked that day)

First we went to a place called Shiv Gufa (a cave located on the other side of a mountain. We had to climb up the hill and then descend on the other side to reach the gufa.)which was around 6 kms from Tatta-Pani. We were totally in the laps of mother nature and the water flowing near that Gufa made us mad. We (me,Sandy and Hardik) explored the river and went walking along the flow. We were surrounded by the mountains all over. It was simply the best moment of the trip.

At Tatta-Pani we had a bath in the chilling waters of the river.there was a hot water strream due to the sulphur present in the soil. We spent nearly 2 hrs there and again only the three of us (as mentioned above) went to take the bath in the river. It was freezing and I mean it. We had our lunch in some restaurant there only and started our journey back to Simla. Our Alonso made a pitt stop near a golf course where we rested for few minutes. Again it became cloudy and it rained really hard that evening. We got stuck up in a traffic jam due to heavy rain and reached our rooms a bit late than expected.

We planned to take rest on the third day and move around in the town. But in the end it happened to be the day on which we had the maximum physical stress. We walked and walked and walked.we covered nearly the whole of Simla under our feet. First we went to the famous lift of Simla (nearly 2 kms from our hotel) that takes you two floors above, where the heart ot city-the mall road, is situated. Then we walked to one end of the mall road (another 2 kms) where we started our journey to the famous Jakhu temple (another Hanuman temple where it is said that Hanumanji went to Himalays for the Sanjeevani medicine via this place. He was adviced by some saint about the medicine.) the roads were inclined upto 50 degrees and the path was too steep.slowly and steadily we climbed up the mountain (another 3-4 kms). Actually there is another way to reach the temple by car directly, but we courageous six decided to climb from the other side. At last we reached the temple where the monkeys are famous all around for taking away things from you. We took our glasses,goggles and other belongings away from the sight of those little mischievous thieves. Then we came down the hill and reached the most crowded place of the mall road (another 3 kms). There was a church at the center of the place but to our bad luck, it was getting rennovated and so we could not get into it. We took our lunch near that church at 3. then we started moving along the road. There is a museum located at the extreme end of the mall road (6-7 kms from where we were) and we thought of visiting it. It was 4 in the evening. We started walking along the mall road. It was really stressful but the desire of seeing the museum gave us the courage. Finally we reached the museum at 5:45. Guess what, the museum closes at 5 pm everyday. This is what happens when you start your journey without knowing every single inch about the destination. We turned back and came back to the place from where we started (another 6-7 kms). we sat at the steps of a building and watched people around. The crowd was beyond imagination.then we went to some shops for little bit of shopping, had some cotton candies on the way for time pass and moved here and there (another 2 kms). then we went from restaurant to restaurant for proper dinner (hmmm, the menu cards should not be having the column showing the prices). Finally our final eve at Simla came to an end with a walk to some fare like exhibition (1 km only) from the restaurant and then we came back to our rooms (final 2 kms). If you sum up the total walking we did that day, then it comes out to be 25-27 kms only. But yes, the main thing, the main fun part was during our dinner when Ganesh was under severe attack by other 5 (Sandy,Alpesh,Falgun,Hardik and Me). That was too personal so I cant write it here, if in case anyone is interested in knowing what happened, you can surely contact me. We went to our rooms then and packed our bags since our train was leaving Simla at 10:30 in the morning.

The next morning was the check out time and we left the hotel at 9.we walked to the station and waited for the train. Now was the main problem in our return journey to Kalka. We six people had our seats distributed among three boggies. Somehow we managed to shuffle few people around and settles down in one boggie. We reached Kalka and from there it was a relief since we had reservations in the AC chair car. We were again served good snacks and dinner. Since it was an AC train, we couldn’t easily notice the temperature difference that was occuring from Kalka to delhi. But once we reached Delhi, we were like burning from everywhere. We walked over 12 plateforms and came out of the station ( which turned out to be the opposite end since we were supposed to come out from the plateform where our train landed. But Sandy- the local hero’s confidence compelled us all to follow his steps and in the end we landed up at the wrong end). We took the bus to the main market (the cannaught cirle) and from there we were supposed to take a bus that goes directly to Sandy’s place. It was 10 in the night and we were standing amidst the closed market and the only people we came across were those drunk ones. Then somehow we managed to catch a bus (supposing that it would go to Sandy’s place). We settled in that bus with all our luggages. It was full of Those Ones (the drunk ones ofcourse). And the ambience was also mind blowing (it literally blew off our minds). The entire bus was lighten up with those blue, green and purple dim lights and the radio stations were also on the mood of playing those old melodies (“bindiya chamkegi…” types). We felt as if we were in some chandni bar. Adding to our feelings, the guy sitting next to me was in full swing- laughing, shaking his body and dancing on the songs (esp. the “bindiya chamkegi” song). We even had two of Those Ones quarreling and shouting on top of their voices in sheer anger for no reason. The conductor then vacated the entire bus in the middle only telling that it won’t go further. Lucky we!!! We got another bus on the way and finally reached Noida at 12:30 in the night. We slept peacefully then.