Our Shimla Trip

Winters were approaching and we were planning our trip that winter. Few options were there for us and hottest was GOA. After checking the availability of hotels finally we fixed for SHIMLA and day was Thursday 12th Jan’07 and we left for Shimla. Shimla is at almost 2200 mts height. We (Me, Chuck, Anuradha and Balneet) left office by 8:30PM. We had out train at 10:50PM up to Kalka. Everybody reached Old Delhi Railways Station on time and train was also on time (that rarely happens in India). Though our seats we not conjugative, but we managed to sit together as that compartment was almost empty. We had great fun in the train and hardly anybody slept that day. We reached Kalka at 5:00 Am, from where we had one more train to go to Shimla. Name of train was “Shivalik Express”; yes the famous Toy train of Shimla.

The train “Shivalik Express” was really beautiful and clean. In one compartment there were 18 seats and one person to attend passengers. We had our breakfast in the train itself. The track of the train is also very small and because of hills sometimes it bends on a sharp curve and we get to see it engine and last coach all together. The journey from Kalka to Shimla was of almost 90KM that was supposed to be done in 5 hours by this train and everybody was highly excited about toy train journey.

The journey was full of natural scenes and beauty. At the start of this journey we get to see the lightning city Chandigarh and it looks damn good. It looks like stars shinning on the earth rather than being on sky. Main attraction of this train is that it goes through 103 tunnels. This longest tunnel is Tunnel No 33 and that is almost 1174 mts and the name of station is “Badog”. When we were on the way we had sun rise and that is one of the beautiful sun raises scenes in India. We took a number of photographs of this sun rise. At certain numbers of times the train becomes parallel to the road and hardy 1 or 2 heights is the difference between the two. If you can run a little fast so no big deal for you to get down from the running train and to catch it back. But better don’t show this adventure as security is the primary concern.

Enjoy few of the pics of shimla(Non of these clicked by me.)http://www.flickr.com/photos/7410683@N03/
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............... Hope you enjoyed the pics.

By 10:15 Am 13’Th Jan’06 we reached Shimla and were really excited. Two taxies were there to drop us to our hotel. In almost 25 minutes we were in hotel and had a welcome from the staff. Then we got divided to share rooms and we were supposed to get ready as soon as possible as we needed to go out to visit Mall Road. Me, Nitin and Anuj, we three were sharing t he same room. We had a balcony in our room and the view outside was really attractive, full of greenery.

We all got ready on time and left for Mall Road. We went to a place locally named a LIFT there we saw an almost 90% angle elevated small hill to reach Mall Road. First we reached “Sher-e-Punjab” restaurant to have our lunch. After grabbing our lunch we started roaming around The Mall Road. It was beautiful; especially it was full of couples and beautiful cheeks, cheeks of Shimla. Mall Road is along the side of a beautiful valley there. One of the main attractions of Mall road was it cleanness. It was really clean and nobody was allowed to throw anything there.

In Shimla there a very old and famous church. This church is again on Mall Road. We did not go inside the church, but we found it beautiful from outside itself and took few snaps of it. After roaming around the Mall for quite some time we started back for hotel. Since it was the day of ‘Lohri”. We had already told the manger to arrange for Boon Fire and some drinks. That was a full moon night and we all were sitting around the boon fire singing and making fun that time. After having fun for some time we came to respective rooms and slept.

Next morning was not that good as Nitin was not feeling well as he had some food poising and we called doctor for him. After the check up we left for “Kufri” another good place to visit and see snow. Kufri is almost 400 mts height from Shimla. It took almost 30 minutes by car to reach the place from where we got the mules to reach kufri. We took shoes to walk to snow and started on mules. It was a thrilling experience as mules were walking at the corner of valley and it was scaring us. We hardly controlled our breathes and reached Kufri.

Kufri was supposed to be full of snow but we did not find that much snow there but it was sufficient to have fun. I went deep down in valley and found more snow there. From Kufri we can see mountains full of snow and we can see China border as well. Everybody was excited and was playing in snow. They were throwing snow balls on each other. We did not spend much time there and came back to hotel.

After having our food we again went to Mall road and did shopping. I bought a number of things. I got something or the other for everyone at home. I bought a Bhagat Singh style hat there and that became an attraction there. Everyone took one’s snap in that hat. After some time we all came back and got some drinks there in hotel and had out dinner.Since Chuck was going back to US; we had a plan to give him a farewell there so we (especially Gagandeep from EA) prepared a huge grating card for him on which we captured his photographs, which were taken on different occasions. That card was very beautiful and was full of good wishes for him. We all had fun and went to our bed rooms. No doubt, everybody was sad because Chuck was going. No doubt is a nice human being and we admire him.

That was our second and last night in Shimla and around 1 AM our phone rang. Aakash was on line and he asked us to come done to be there in open area we had boon fire. When we reached there we say everybody was there and were standing silent and sad there. Then he told us that Imran was no more and his body was lying in the room. We were told to go inside the room and to see him as police was supposed to come soon. When I entered in the room I could smell something unusual, but I did not show it out. Finally when I remove the sheet from Irman’s face he opened his eyes and tried scaring. As I was expecting that so I did not scare but few of our team mates got badly scared. Rajesh was capturing all that in his camera. This was a great fun that showed in spite of lots of responsibilities we know how to enjoy in free time.

Next day we went for skating; but unfortunately it started raining and we could not do skating. Finally we came back to hotel and had our breakfast and left for Delhi. We came to Kalka by car and on the way we stopped to see Timber Trail resort. It is famous for a trail/ trolley that goes up to a good height and it goes on an elevation. Few of us went to enjoy this and some were down there only.

We reached station about 1/2 hour before the time. There we had our reservation back to Delhi by “Shatabadi Express”. There we found one exciting thing and that was joining of bogies with engine. Rajesh and Chuck shot a full video of this moment. We had our dinner in the train itself. It was 9:50 PM 15th Jan’06 and we were at Delhi railway station. By 11:30 PM I reached my home in gurgaon.

Really this was a wonderful trip and I am sure none of us can ever forget this