Shimla
Travel Blog
16-18
September 2005
By
Akhilesh &
Alpana
Table of Content
Page 1
Start from Home
Page
2
Shimla
Page
3
Kufri
Page
4
Indira Tourist Park
Page
5
Institute of Advance
Studies
Page
6
Back to Hotel
Page
1
Start from Home
Table of Content
Started from
home
[0500 16Sept2005]
Reached
Himalayan
Queen Starting
from
Indian Railways
Himalayan Queen is day journey train,
and we had the chair
car compartment. Reached Kalka via various Haryana towns including its
capital
Toy Train
[1220
16Sept2005]
Kalka – Simla Himalayan Queen
Took 6 hours to reach Shimla
(Note: Indian Railways still use the term Simla, rather than Shimla. Shimla was called Simla at the time of British Rule. Railways are still adhering to the same. Similar to this is Baleshwar, that the railways term as Balasore)
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| Toy Train Video in 3gp format | Alpana in toy train | Train View |
97Km Distance of journey
1.5Km Upward Distance - from 640m
(2100 feet) Kalka to 2130m
(6988 feet) Shimla
103 Tunnels
Longest: 1150 meters (3225 feet)
2nd longest:
700 meters (2296 feet)
Speed 20 – 25 kmph (12-15
mph)
Water bottles were not available on Kalka Station, as plastic bottles and bags are banned over there. But they were available on the en route stations.
The most abundant tree that you will find after leaving Kalka, and till some time before Shimla is Pine. It is almost ubiquitous and will find them all along the route.
Train
Breaking Down
Train broke down loosing its full pulling power. Its driver has come down to put some gravel below the wheels to increase the friction. We traveled like this for more than half an hour, with slope came down the driver with the gravel. Slope coupled with turn made it even worse and used to take some 5-10 minutes to negotiate such place.
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| Approaching station after the breakdown |
Once we reached to higher altitude a new type of tree started emerging on the scene. This was the Devdaar tree. It can be seen everywhere on that height, and the pine tree was nowhere to be seen.
Bends,
Loops, Bridges
and Tunnels
The train journey included 103 tunnels and many bridges, bends and loops. It was fascinating to see such a piece of engineering.
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| One of the bridge | Approaching a station. The upper part is engulfed by the clouds |
Page 2
Shimla
Table of
Content
Reached
Shimla [1800
16Sept2005]
The Mall
The Mall was around 100 meters distant from us, upwards. We had to walk up to reach the place. Initially it was tiring but we got used to it. The market had all types of shops, the one that we find in our Noida city. All major banks and their ATMs were there, Dominos was there, and even ICH was there. Since it is a cool place many outlets of hot drinks were present. Soup and coffee were abundant, but the one I will not forget for long was Bournvita vending machine.
We went to tour the city. Arranged a taxi to take us around the city.
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| On way to Kufri in our Taxi |
Found
from my mother back at
home in Noida that there was a severe storm that had swept many parts
of the
Approx 10km from Shimla on the
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| Green Valley. Devdaar trees are on the left | Green valley: One of the thickest pine tree forest in Asia |
Helipad
At the height of 8000feets, big plain ground for landing and takeoffs of choppers. Good view from three sides. It was all cloud over there and we used to get the view only when the clouds parted a bit. Rain was still coming down, though not heavy. So most of our snaps are in umbrella over here!
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| The H of Helipad | A view of the mountains hidden partially behind the clouds |
Just after the Helipad was a Laddakh Handloom shop. This shop gave quiet pleasant results to my credit card company.
Page 3
Kufri
Table of
Content
Kufri
This place is around 15KM from Shimla, known for it ski slopes is at 8600feets height. Horses are there to take you to the top, if you want. In rains the slope becomes bit slippery due to muddy path, and you have extra fun time on the horse. The two horses came at around for Rs750 for the last peak and return.
We took a horse couple (named Neeli and Laali – Laali was red, but Neeli was, well, white) Learned the trick of horse riding a bit. You need to kneel down when the horse goes up the slope and push yourself back when it is going down. In sum maintain the gravity center for balance. It was extra effort as we also had to hold the umbrella, and not to drop it even once, as Ramesh – the horse guide told us, it will terrorize the horses and they will drop us and run. So we held the umbrellas very tightly as if our sole existence was dependent on it.
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| Mahasu Peak. Ramesh who guided the horses and took us to the top. |
Ramesh was a native who lived some where near to Shimla. He told us all about the horses, how they are trained, how they live and how the two horse-wala unions divide their days for work.
It was raining and as we came to the
open place cold wind
also started hitting us. It was chilling, and I cursed the moment I had
decided
to go without the sweater (
The most tiring part on horse riding is for the legs. They are hanging and gets tired quickly. And what the cold adds to we were to experience this very soon.
We got from the horse at the first stoppage after galloping some 15-20 mins. Mostly which was up hill, and little bit of down hill.
The first extra natural beast (of course only for the urbane me) we encountered was Yak. It was lot like a Bhaisa (and you may expect Yana Gupta sitting on it). It comes in at least two colours (black and white) and it was very calm, and was over there for the sole purpose of photography. The owner of the yak charged some 20 bucks for getting us photographed on it. In few respects it was better than the horse - it was smaller and remained calm even after we were on top of it trying Mexican.
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| On the Yak | Close up of a Yak |
Shri Shesh Naag Mandir
After that we climbed up a bit to visit a unique mandir. It was a temple for Shesh Nag Devta. Partially under construction, they were collecting money to construct a Dharamshala.
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| Shri Shesh Naag Mandir. Notice the Shesh Naag murti. | Outside view of the Shesh Naag Mandir. People tie Chunri over here. |
Photography
A great place it was, for the chai ki tapri. Well nothing better than an adrakh-ki-chai in a drizzling and frigid place like that. Got our self relaxed a bit as we gulped the hot sanjeevini. After that we got back down to the plain. There were photographers who take snaps in Traditional Laddkhi costumes. They charged exorbitantly, some 60 bucks a snap with minimum of ten snaps. Aaaarrghhh, some how got the person down to three snaps. But the $#^%$^ was shrewd and clicked five snaps until we could realize. Any way we got dressed in the traditional and then got shot in the photographer directed poses. After the clicking was over I protested for the extra snaps and bargained down the price a bit. But in all this I forgot that the snaps will be delivered only to our hotel and not now. And in all my stupidity paid up all the money to the &%$&&^%, later to realize that the photos never turned up at my hotel. Booo Hooooo. The only good part was the snaps were also clicked from my camera, other wise would have been a bigger loss. Any way, afterwards we decided to think it up as the rent for the traditional dress.
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| We in the traditional laddakhi dress | Another snap in the tradiational Ladakhi dress | Closeup |
Further
We started back on the horse to move further. Now the popular area was over and this was the route less taken. It went thru the small Kufri village, along with the hill where you can see the valley. The scene was just fantastic. You could see the step plantation to your right side that was nysnyd (now-you-see-now-you-don’t) due to the clouds that happen to be all around us. Chilled air and rain was attaching us from all the sides. We kept on moving along the Devdaar tree filled valley until we reached Deshu Mandir at the bottom of a hill.
We were exhausted sitting on Neeli and Laali. And were also feeling very cold. Ramesh told us the temple is at the top of the hill and is around 10-15 minutes climb. The cold air was doing well and so were the rains. Then another group descended down the hill, and immediately called for a taxi. Apparently they were hit by the cold escalated by climbing up/down hill. We immediately changed our plans (if any we had) to climb up the hill. We prayed from the bottom of the hill and were quickly back on the horse and way back.
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| The Devdaar jungle on way towards Deshu Mandir | If not the Mandir, its sign board will do... | Neeli and Laali |
Back
to the Taxi
Back journey was mostly pleasant, Rain stopped momentarily and wind speed was also gone down. Neeli and Laali speeded down the hill. We stopped at one place to take a couple of snaps, then stopped no where till the starting point.
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| See the step plantation behind the trees | Near the Kufri village | Looking down from Kufri |
All in all we were out for around 3 hours, most of which was spend on the horse back. It was a terrific experience.
When getting down from the horse, I jumped to the ground, there came the big shock. My lower half leg was almost anesthetic due to the cold. Due to this I was not able to fold my legs properly to absorb the shock, and the shock wave literally traveled from my legs to the head. Whew!
After taking some snaps over there we woke up our driver to take us to our next destination…
Page 4
Indira Tourist Park
Table of
Content
Garden (
This was a botanical garden type of place with few varieties of native flowers blooming. Entry was Rs5 per person. A restaurant was also there and few coffee vending shops. Monkeys were abundant near that and you could observe all the family affairs of the species from there.
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| Flowers at Indira Tourist Park | A Bunched flower. There is flower in flower - you can call it recursion if you like :D | Wild mountain flower |
That
reminds me, yesterday [1300 29Sept05] a monkey (a regular visitor)
visited our
house. Our back door was open and he simply came in finding the place
deserted.
Mummy was also out. He saw the refrigerator, and very elegantly opened
its door
to find something to eat.
After spending some time there we moved on to the zoo which is located nearby.
Zoo (
Priced at Rs10 per person, the zoo is quiet big and houses some of the animals and birds found locally over there. Mostly the zoo was empty with very few people around. And it was a big place to roam around.
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| There are machaans in the zoo, where you can climb and take the view of the mountains and the big cages filled with animals |
One thing we noticed about was that the animals were quiet hungry. Most of them turned towards the humans in expectation of food. Though prohibited we fed a couple of chocolates to some of the animals :)
Sambhar
Dear
There were lots of them. Peculiar characteristics was that they were very curious kind, and when any humans come they also stared at them – as if we are the animals in the zoo!
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| Sambhar Deer |
Barking
Dear
These bears barks like a dog, though we didn’t hear them barking. They ignored humans like anything and were mostly shy.
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| Meri Photo Lo. This sambhar deer was very curious and followd us along the cage |
Black
Bear
These were the normal black bear that we find every where. Look good only behind the cage only. There was a hungry kid bear looking just like a teddy bear. Very naughty type. When he was fed normal chapatti he ate like anything, but when given the thick chapatti then he didn’t eat it at all. We secretly fed it some chocolates, and it was more than happy about it. It was asking for more. Looked as if they were not fed very well.
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| This is the Mr Baby Hungry bear (a.k.a Teddy Bear). Very naughty. Like chocolates | This bear eat lot of chocolates |
Brown
Bear
Saw one brown bear. This was something new that we saw.
Wolf
Had never seen wolf up this close. Was very hungry and thought we were bringing their lunch. One of them was brave and followed us expectedly. We gave it chocolate, but it didn’t eat. Well I guess I should have given them some Chicken Lollypops! One of the wolf was hungry but very shy. It looked at us very expectedly, but as soon as we took a step it ran away. I guess this will be my closest experience with this animal.
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| Bediya | In its classic howling pose (though not howling in this snap). |
Local
species of Birds and Chickens found at high
altitudes
Apart from this there were lots some verity of birds, that we glanced thru quickly as it was getting late.
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| Some mountain Birds (related to chicken) | Some of the interesting landscaping at the zoo. This is one of the bridges over a cage. |
Once zoo was done with we got back into our taxi and quickly headed back towards Shimla. There were more avenues to cover.
Page 5
Institute of Advance
Studies
Table of
Content
This
is situated in Shimla and is
a tourist attraction due to the heritage building of
British construction. It is a feast for an architecture lover (whatever
philxxxxx it is), but we reached there bit
late (after
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| Indian Institute of Advance Studies | Sunset at Indian Institute of Advance Studies | Another view of the sun set | Indian Institute of Advance Studies, The Main Entrance |
Skipped
By
the time we out of the Institute
of Advanced studies, it was already late (1830Hrs). We wanted to go to
the
famous Lakkar Bazaar of Shimla, and since Shimla closes early at night
we
skipped our visit to Sankat Mochan temple. We directed our driver to
head back
to the hotel.
Hotel by
[1900
17Sept2005]
We were back to our hotel by 7 in the evening, some what still wet and tried, but not exhausted. We changed quickly and were on the way to the Mall.
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| Out Hotel Room @ Hotel Brightland |
The Ridge -
Lakkar
Bazaar –
We quickly climbed to the top, skipping The Mall climbed further up to reach The Ridge. It is a big open space on top where you can see the nearby mountains (we could see the lights from the houses on the nearby mountains). In day time this gives a very good view of the mountain ranges.
St.
Micheal's Cathedral is situated
over there that was built in 1857, and is the second oldest church in
north
We moved on to the Lakkar Bazaar where there were lot of articles made up of wood. Huge spoon and forks were present, animals of wood were there. Wood purses (which eventfully Alpana fancied a lot) were abundant and so were many wooden gift articles. We roamed around a lot, doing a lot of window shopping and little bit of actual shopping.
Finally when we got tired we headed back looking for a diner. Alpana wanted some South Indian, so we had to search a lot for such restaurant. Eventually we found one!
We
headed back to hotel by around
Page
6
Back to Hotel
Table of
Content
Hotel [2215
17Sept2005]
We reach hotel, and then started to pack for the morning. We readied every thing for the morning, as our train was in the morning at around 1030. It rained heavily in the night and we could hear the rains all night outside the hotel window.
Got up in the morning to find that
rains were gone, but
clouds were still present. We
started
for the Shimla Station by around
One interesting thing to see near the station was the huge circular disk on the railway track that was present to reverse the train engine without using much of space. The engine used to come on the disk, and the whole disk rotated 180 degrees to reverse the train direction. Unfortunately we were not able to see this thing in action.
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| Its all cloud in the background at the Shimla Station | The diesel engine of the Himalayan Queen | History of Shimla Station |
Toy Train,
revisited [1030
18Sept2005]
Took the Himalayan Queen back to Kalka. It was another fantastic journey back that took six hours to reach Kalka. This time also there were couple of foreigners in our train including a seven foot huge one and a couple comprising an Indian husband and an Irish wife.
As the track is a single track only one train can go in a direction. So to make this work in both directions one of the trains has to wait on a station till the other train coming from the other direction passes. Then only the train will move further. Interestingly this route demonstrated one of our text book network protocols where a token was issues to each network node ion turn, and only on getting the token the node could transmit the data. Here also similar mechanism was employed. An unique ring was used as the token. The train passing the station was given that ring, and only the train having that ring could go on the track. This was the other train coming from the opposite direction will have to wait till the first train passes the station and give the ring to the other train. This was collision was avoided without using much of signals. (Of course the network protocol is the one which learned from this system).
The reason for this short lesson I wrote was that we also waited long for the train coming from opposite direction on one of the stations. Finally after a full 45 minutes our wait was over, and when we got the ring we moved further. While waiting on the station we saw some Bottle Brush trees growing over there with its red colour brushes.
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| Look at the clouds | One of the 100 Tunnels on the way | Sleep Time |
With another 103 tunnels and countless curves, bends, bridges and crystal clear views we reached Kalka at around 1620 Hrs. All the mountains were distant now and only plain was looking in front of us.
We boarded the Kalka Delhi Himalayan
Queen to take us back
to
Back home at
Noida
[2330 18Sept2005]
We were back home by late night.
| End of Blog |
Table of Content |
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Note: For seeing more Photos follow this link...
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Lonely Planet guide I found to be the most reliable book around. Each budget hotel and mode of travel to Shimla was given with up-to-date train timings and Hotel fare. It is a must if you travel a lot. |