Travel log to Chandigarh,Shimla and Kufri

Hello everyone..a very happy new year to all of you. With the inception of this new year I thought of resuming my blogging after almost an aeon.

This Blog is actually a travel log to my visit to Panchkula,Chandigarh,shimla and kufri where I spent my new years eve 2011.It all revolves around 3 protagonist states (Punjab,Haryana and HP) and 1 UT(of course chandigarh).My brother stays down in panchkula(in Haryana) and that’s where it all began.
 

On the first day of my trip, we went on to visit Chandigarh city. The city is good enough in terms of catering rustic needs of aristocratic class people like roads are tidy as well as broad enough to make your SUV gallop around in the city. The people are pretty and cooperative enough to channel you through all the ways around. For some the Guns n Roses song “Paradise city”  holds a meaning  to this city as the grass is green and the girls are pretty .Just the poor thing is that you won’t find that great food out there(as apparently Punjab side is famous for ) like lassi and sarso da sag. There are not much restaurants around,so if u are a fast food fanatic..there you go.Places like Sukhna Lake and Rock Garden are worth a visit. You can enjoy boating in sukhna lake with the scenic beauties around like the horizons along the lake and a closed windmill located at the left side center of the lake.In rock garden you will find a judicious usage of your home made garbage like pottery,broken tiles etc into small canopies and hut like structures. If you are not an atheist kind,there is a mansa mata temple in panchkula as well as a well known gurudwara and another shiv temple(famous for majestic veracious appearance of shiv ling back in the medieval ages). All 3 derive their fame for sending your wish to god. Besides that pubs and discs are also good enough to visit in the main city of chandigarh. That was the end of the first day of our trip.

At the break of the dawn on the next day, around 6.30 AM we set off to our adventurous excursion to Shimla(and not stipulated kufri).It was hell cold and I sincerely recommend you to wear gloves and nice gripping pair of shoes(which most of us dint). And ya if you can’t get along with the motions of your SUV, do take recommendations from your family doctor because the roads are too curvaceous and zig zag. The road to shimla was expected to take around 3 hours max(too paradoxical as it actually took us 5 hours). It traversed from Haryana then Punjab and finally HP. I should mention that December to mid February is the best time to visit shimla and places around as you would be able to see the snow fall. During our journey we could see snowflakes on our way 15 kms before shimla itself. Houses looked magnificent with foots of snow resting over them blushing in the daylight. Continuing with the way you can either stay and have a look around at shimla but we chose to go up further as we had anticipated more of snow and ice around at kufri(40kms from shimla). The roads were blocked half by snow and rest half by queues of cars being channeled by policemen there. But the scenic beauties of the formidable nature could be seen from inside your vehicle. Trees and forests around could be seen spattered with flakes of snow. We actually felt that this was the crux of our trip but there was more (adventure) to come. As we ascended towards kufri , all of a sudden our car skidded on a small block of ice on the road while turning and the car rotated 180 degrees and thumped a fence on the diversion which saved us from falling straight from the cliff. We had bluffed death by just a millimeter. We thanked god for not fixing our tryst with death and giving such an edge because the roads were very risky and that’s where we realized that why KUFRI isn’t that famous instead of being far better place than shimla. We then continued ascending after recovering from that sudden shock. Cars in the queue drifted very slowly. So now when our vehicle was stuck in the jam, we started our waddling gait up and getting some pics clicked with the wonderful ambience around. Now we were at that place where the real fun starts. There is a 2km path reaming with snow and you either need to hire a horse or ramble enjoying each and everything around which seemed no less than some paradise. We chose to walk to the top where we found much astounding things like the apple gardens and skiing. Those were the extreme pure apples there, which are even exported from India but we dint dare to grab any of them may be because of paucity of stamina after walking hard on the snow ridden paths. There were restaurants and dhabas on the road side there which charged ridiculously high for even a cup of Maggie. That spot had a great vista of Himalayan range which was fully covered with snow all over and seemed like a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Some people involved themselves in skiing there and some relished watching them. We preferred the former. The key thing was not to be impertinent to nature else you get castigated severely by her. By then it was almost 4 PM and there was not even a somber ray of sunlight overhead. We decided to return back then as some of the group members were exhausted and attrite. The way back was worse than way up. It was a road jam of about 2 hours till shimla and that again was followed by another road jam in shimla of 1 hour. It was darn cold our way back and lots of cars stuck on our way covered with foots of snow by the road side .We took a detour which lead us to Haryana from the outskirts of the city itself. We then stopped by a restaurant on our way home to have our supper. Finally the day ended with having some scotch to escape the austere climate.