My travelogue

Readers of this blog of mine are about to embark on a long journey really, really, long ....Just kindly hang on.... It was the evening of 26th Sept, 2009.Myself and a friend of mine took our flight to New Delhi by a "fly five star "airline. As the tagline suggests, it was really five star having good inflight entertainment, amiable hospitality. As I am some sort of aerophobic, I was getting slight jitters. But it was a surprisingly smooth ride except for a bit of turbulence for a few minutes. And in just 2 and 1/2 hours flat we reached Delhi. The Delhi airport seemed to be surprisingly glossy, the facilities have dramatically improved and in no time our baggages were cleared and we took a cab and checked into a hotel some where in Paharganj near ND railway station. On the way we saw Rajghat and the myriad no. of memorials around it, MP’s residences, and many old structures interspersed with new urban structures. I felt that city retained it's old world charm ------- but only in patches. Soon I was joined by some of my buddies from Bangalore. On 27th morning we took a tempo traveller and started our journey to visit The Taj -certainly one of the most awaited moments of my life. It was 4 hour journey and the TT zipped past the 4 lane highways and reached there around 11 pm. By that time sun was starting to have a say on our travel. It was scorching hot and whenever we saw a drinking water tap, for our parched throats it was like an oasis in a desert. I felt Agra was now, how it must have been centuries ago--- small bylanes, petty biryani shops, Muslim fakirs here and there. We took a guide who led us thru small lanes, thru the eastern gate towards the Taj. The sight which we saw something to behold. The architecture was so stunning and was definitely one of the finest examples of Islamic architecture in India. The intricate carvings, inlaid semiprecious stones which glowed when light falls on them, the imposing minarets all reminiscent of an advanced architecture and a glorious Indian civilisation.It is truly a symbol of love .No wonder all young couples were longing to take snaps ...........................Next let's go to Fatehpur Sikri-(Fateh means "Victory" Pur means "city")--The capital city of Akbar.It is another marvel in red sandstone. What left me absolutely floored was the city planning - a term irrelevant to Indian babus.... quarters for servants, queens quarters, discussion rooms, winter and summer palaces. Another striking thing was the religious tolerance of Akbar-- separate palaces for his Hindu, Muslim and Christian queens----something unheard of in those days. On 28th morning we started our trip to India gate-symbol of true sons of the soil. I felt really humbled before one the most admired and revered landmarks of India. No wonder people were clicking a lot of snaps .Then we went further down the Rajpath and had a glimpse of North block, South block, Parliament (corridors of power of Indian babus) and finally the imposing Rashtrapati bhavan ( some trivia about Rashtrapati bhavan :--No steel was used to construct Rashtrapati bhavan.--Biggest residence of any Head of the State in the world) All the above built by Sir Edwin Lutyens and Sir Herbert Baker (both British architects) -perfect fusion of different Indian styles (Mughal, Rajput etc.)------- examples of legacy of the British in India. And by the end of the day, sun wearied us down and did some local shopping and soon retired to our rooms. Now move over Delhi and Agra .Now join me in what I personally feel is going to be certainly one the toughest tours of my life(comparable to Indian cricket team touring Australia).Everyone's ultimate distant dream ---- visit the Himalayas( meaning "abode of snow") . [[To comprehend the enormous scale of this mountain range consider that Aconcagua, in the Andes, at 6,962 m (22,841 ft), is the highest peak outside Asia, whereas the Himalayan system includes over 100 mountains exceeding 7,200 metres (23,622 ft).[2] ]](source: Wikipedia). We started our journey from Delhi by Innova and Indigo. We soon started our journey to Chandigarh for our first 250 Kilometres. It was really a long time but we just breezed through the 250 Kms with our Innova touching 100 kms (at times peaking 110 kms) and the music blaring in our music player we found the journey quite a smooth one. The infrastructure has really improved in the past years and the roads were as smooth as a cheese. Soon we were in the land of five rivers. We had a break at a Punjabi Dhaba ---- had some lip smacking parathas, straight from the pan rotis, super thick curd and delicious cheese. Especially the way they made the rotis, which were flying like a flying saucer in the dhabawallas’s hands. Banta Singh may be a symbol of ridicule: But on the contrary I found Punjabis to be extremely hard working, super fit and someone who even might be a septuagenarian or and even an octogenarian was found to be handling a Enfy quite easily. The results of years of hard work seem to be showing in the State-- I found not an inch of land vacant, everywhere vast stretches of green fertile land--as far as my eye could see.
The Himalayas were soon in sight. The plains soon disappeared and the hills were in sight. High pine trees, pint sized houses soon were visible to us. The four lane roads soon narrowed down into a single stretch of road. At some places it was hardly a feet between our vehicle on either side. But the drivers seemed to know the roads like the back of their hand and manoeuvered the vehicle deftly. The atmosphere was totally opposite to our urban life-very tranquil, less pollution and above all a life in tune with nature. But an urban characteristic we could not escape was the horrendous traffic- a single vehicle holdup was enough to create a mile long traffic which took hours to clear.

We started the next morning and started continued to do some real adventures--- Rafting in the Beas. After some real good haggling with the Raft operator, for the first time in my life I had a feel of what real adventure sports mean. What seemed to be stream from a distance, felt like a deluge as we went near it. We had a real feel of adrenaline rushing through the body and felt our heart beats were at their peak speed. The water was absolutely nerve freezing, and the sceneries we saw throughout our 9 kms of rafting were just spellbounding.Then we proceeded towards our next destination - Hotsprings at Manikaran. We visited the Gurudwara where we were astonished by what we saw -people cooking in the hot springs in Gurudwara and the food being served freely to people there. Just dip the food in a hot spring and in 20 mins the food is
cooked!!!!! .Nature's another beauty --- The springs were boiling hot whereas the outside temperature was around 6 degrees. Now it's time to get chillier--We began for a grand finale our tour-The Rohtang La( Rohtang pass) ,situated at almost 13,000 feet above MSL .We started at 4.30 am in the morning we were advised that due to traffic hold up it might take upto 6 to 7 hrs also sometimes. It was chilly outside and the temperature outside showed it to be 6 degrees and the winds were already howling. It was pitch dark when we started but around 8 or 9am the Sun slowly appeared in the horizon after a long night’s sleep. The road was getting narrower as the altitude increased. But hats off!!! to the BRO for such a commendable job they have done in getting the roads laid and maintaining them superbly at such treacherous heights. The scenes we saw all along the hills seemed to be right out of a fairy tale. The backdrop behind us were getting increasingly dazing,...the mountains appeared like a row of elephants walking in a procession, the waterfalls which appeared like water flowing dripping out a pipe, clouds began which began to engulf us which looked like a scene from a Typical Indian mythological daily soap, cars lorries and trucks below us looked like play things of a small kid and the roads appeared serpentine like the one in a snakes and ladders game. The whole journey took us an unbelievable 5 hours for just 52 kms. Then the drivers dropped us at a govt.parking lot where a string of ponies were waiting for us. We had straight from the stove 2 mins. noodles which was selling like hot cakes. After much intense haggling with the pony operator, we settled for Rs.300/ person .We felt like Genghis Khan when we got on to the ponies. But we did not know that we were in for some back breaking and eye popping 2 hour experience. We felt as if we were riding on a tora-tora with the ponies swaying on both sides. It was really one of the toughest experiences of my life. Then finally we reached the snow clad peaks at Rohtang. . There we could see the valleys around us with rivers slowing flowing between them at a nearly 5k to 6k feet below us. We saw scenes which we had seen in only old Bollywood movies. By now, it was getting more chillier and we had a slight discomfort in breathing due to depleting oxygen levels which made our first hand small experience in hiking all the more difficult. The weather was manageably pleasant, but not as we expected .........we went anticipating snowfall and planned to do some skiing. But we were contented that the climate was really kind to us because the locals said that heavy snowfalls and avalanches were quite common there and we did not want them to spoil our party. The photographs we took there were countless, with cameras flashing from all sides which made us feel like silver screen hero walking the ramp. Soon we did not notice the time was running and it was half past 1'o clock in the afternoon. We had some dinner at the local Dhaba and soon started our return journey to Manali and reached there around 7 Pm. Since we were damn tired, our limbs and bones were pleading for rest, we had our dinner and were fast asleep in no time. Next early morning we did some local shopping as our hotel was right in middle of the mall road including some world famous Kullu Shawl and Sweaters, some dry fruits etc. As we were ready to leave for Delhi, we packed our luggage and soon checked out at 12pm. We felt like remaining at that place for the whole of life .Alas!!!! Life sometimes I feel is cruel to you and does not allow you to do that. With a heavy heart, we left the place. On the way we were saw the most important thing the Himachal stands for---Apples. We were shown acres and acres of apple orchards till the eye could see. We could not further resist the temptation, had a few morsels of apples and bought quite a few boxes for ourselves. This time around too our car had a few glitches but the drivers again showed all their experience and mended them in no time. We had 2 or 3 breaks throughout our return journey- one at Mandi, one again at Chandigarh and another in some roadside Dhaba. Since it was a overnight travel, we remained asleep throughout .When we woke up, we were in Delhi Nizamuddin RS to make our way back to Chennai .It was busy as usual with typical Indian RS scenes--scores of people lying down on platforms, chaiwalas, fruit vendors, stinking toilets, dogs everywhere around dozing around, etc. The train started around 6am in the morning .We had a typical Indian breakfast consisting of Upma and Dhal in the IRCTC pantry. It was a hot Indian summer till we reached Agra around 11 am. We felt right inside a frying pan and it was boiling hot. Then we had our lunch at 1 pm consisting of Veg.Pulav. and had a long sleep .By afternoon we had entered MP and saw Chambal ravines-- once the fortress of Phoolan Devi. Much to our relief it started to drizzle and the climate became much cooler. By evening 5pm we had reached Bhopal. We then engaged for a game of cards ,and some chitchatting .The time was running fast and only when the train attendant brought us the night dinner ,we realised it was 9pm in the night. Then again fell asleep around 10 pm and in the morning we had reached AP border. We reached Vijayawada around at 10.30pm. When we crossed Vijayawada junction, we felt that nature does shed its chocolate boy image sometimes. River Krishna was in full flow-Like Sachin at his best, unstoppable and destructive .Only when we saw that scene we got the news that it has been raining cats and dogs there for almost the last week. The picture was very grim: the water level was barely 8 to 10 feet below our bridge. Then we reached Gudur junction had a simple lunch of curd rice with some delicious Andhra pickles. Around 4 pm when Tamil signboards were in sight, we realized that we had entered TN border and around 6 pm reached Madras Egmore. As you travelled with me all along the journey, you must have realised that it must be a long and tough journey. But for me personally it has been one of the most satisfying tours of my life except for a few hiccups here and there. What we encountered was hills, hills and again hills..... nothing else for almost 4 days. But the experience of visiting Himalayas was entirely satisfying. But one truth I should not be hiding is that, I definitely ran out of words to express my experiences of the tour. The Himalayas can be related to every superlative that exists in English language-highest, tallest, shortest, longest etc Throughout the journey ,I could see the diverse landscapes the country has: from the sky touching Himalayas, the dry plains of UP and MP to the fertile lands of Andhra Pradesh. And equally diverse climates .from freezing temperatures in the Himalayas to the Super hot climate in Agra to a humid Chennai. As some locals we encountered said, the mountains call you back again because we have planned to raise the bar next time-We are planning to scale another peak next time--Khardung Pass (41 kms from Leh and a hair raising 500 kms from Manali).(As per today's records at 18000 feet, it is the highest motorable pass in the world.)Finally it reminds me of Robert Frost words," And miles to go before I sleep"