I love adventure, travelling and exploring novelty, be it experiences, places or anything else in life and I dream to serve in the army someday :P
So here I was planning to do a water sports course in a place called Pong Dam, Himachal Pradesh. Its a 15 day course conducted by ABVIMAS (Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Mountaineering and allied sports) in December. Once I reached a day before the course was scheduled to start, an unexpected rare thing happened. The lake where the course had to take place was half frozen !! The instructors there blamed global warming and the erratic weather for the circumstances and hence the course got cancelled :( . Disappointed I was but there was an opportunity for an adventure here :) This is where the adventure/unexpectedness/fun part started. I didnt want to go back home just then. I had a budget of 7k for the 15 days. Given the budget constraint, I thought of covering as many "popular" places as I could, "one place(city) per day" deal :P
December chilly winds made it more enduring. First destination on my "unplanned" list was Chandigarh, the city of peace, coz it was the major nearest city to Pong Dam. A 5 hr bus ride from Talwara town(pong dam) took me to my destination. Chandigarh is an awesumly planned city with "sectors" everywhere. Made a halt for a day there at the sector 43 ISBT(Inter state bus station), got on this hop on hop off tourism bus which takes around the city. Rock garden , Sukhna Lake and the art museum were worth visiting there. One more thing which impressed me was that the roads there have a separate lane for cyclists :) ... Some evening tp roaming around sectors nearby the bus station ate my time.
A little research and some pooch-taach suggested me to choose Delhi as my next destination. An almost overnight bus journey from Chandigarh and I hence reached Delhi at around 3 in the morning. Infy chilly shivery weather it was!! A costly rickshaw ride to a lodge nearby was truely freezing ! A 6 hr rest at the lodge, then a Delhi darshan bus in the morning. Delhi is infy secured everywhere. Houses of VIPs, police vans, sirened vehicles spanned the streets of Delhi. Places I got to visit were the Birla Mandir, India Gate, Rashtrapati Bhavan area, Indira Gandhi House (now turned into a museum... but worth seeing ! awesum it is seriosly !), Lotus temple meditation center (calm peaceful place for meditation for all religions...a nice concept, reminded me of the Pagoda in Gorai, Borivali), Gandhi Samadhi, Red Fort, Chandni Chowk market area for some evening tp. To end, some chaat on the streets of Chandni Chowk then had to think about my next city :P ... I had 2 options here: Amritsar coz I wanted to visit The Golden Temple, and Jaipur. Then budget suggested me to go to Jaipur coz Amritsar is north of Delhi and I had to complete my circle bak to Mumbai hence chose south of Delhi, hence Jaipur \m/.
An overnight 7 hr sleeper bus journey from Delhi to Jaipur, The Pink City, and I was there. Some freshening up at a lodge near the bus station and a roadside "chatpata" poha started my day in Jaipur :) Again a hop on hop off tourism bus helped me roam around Jaipur. Jantar Mantar's architecture, Hawa Mahal, City Palace are worth a watch. The breath-taking view of the city from the top of the Fort/Palace is awesum ! The streets of Jaipur have a peculiar design unique to Jaipur and I must say it has an awesum feel. Got to see a lot of camels too :P . The hop on hop off bus had this awesum rajasthani folk music goin on .. this added to the "feel" !
After Jaipur, I thought of going to Ajmer but budget constraint didnt let me do so :P ... hence after some tourist's suggestions, I decided Udaipur to be my next location. Udaipur is on the south border of Rajasthan so that I wud be a step closer to Mumbai .. turned out to b a gud choice. Again a 6-7 hr bus journey from Jaipur got me to Udaipur. Udaipur, the white city, by the look of it, is awesum... resembles a town with lakes, forts and a palace. I missed the tourism bus in Udaipur, hence took an autorickshaw to roam around the city. The City Palace is worth seeing. The whole palace took me 3 hrs, its THAT huge !! Infy foreign tourists there. Theres a temple on top of a mountain and a cable car ride which takes you there, the view from the the temple apex is cool !!
Then there are museums and a lake in the city the area surrounding the lake seemed a nice chill out place. Maharana Pratap and Chetak memorial reminded me of the history in school and Chetak's bravery \m/ ... A brave horse indeed !!
The buses from Udaipur to Mumbai are infy long.. abt 13-14 hrs or so. Hence I needed a halt in between. There were 3 options I had which were at a 7 hr distance from Udaipur... Ahmedabad, Surat and Kota... Kota ditch coz JEE wud b the only "sight seeing" there :P .... Ahmedabad ditch too coz its a commercial city nothin much to roam around and see.... So Surat it was finally... A sleeper bus ride to Surat got me there. Awesumly cheap sharing rickshaws in Surat. Got into the railway station waiting room, dumped the luggage in a locker and freshened up. After all the chilly weather for 6 days, a breather atlast .. phew! got to remove my sweater :P... ate some jalebi and papdi as a popular breakfast there and boarded bus no. 128 to Dumas chowpatty from the station. A 14 rs ticket one way and a 45 min ride to a calm peaceful so called beach was worth it. Then a Gandhi Baug on my way bak to the station was nice too... To end the day , some tp on ring road, pan and a falooda to top it all \m/ ... A final bus journey from Surat to Bombay to seal this awesum journey !
An adventurous thrilling journey thus came to an end. Roaming around in India is quite easy :P ... thoda paisa, thodi chah aur thoda tym... bas ghoomne ke liye aur kuch nhi chahiye... so all the travel-addicts out there, pack a bag, choose ur destination and set off for a journey of a lifetym \m/ excitement is out there waiting for u ... It will be soon bfore I set out on such a journey but with a companion next tym :P
