Trip to Palampur

It was mid of May when I came to Delhi to meet my uncle and soon after reaching Delhi I was welcomed by hot summer and windy hot air, in Patiala also where I was doing my engineering, summers are hot but no comparison by Delhi so far. Although I came to my uncle’s house for two weeks but after reaching my uncle’s house I always preferred to stay at home even I don’t like stepping out in evening because in evening also temperature used to hot enough.

I remember it was Friday afternoon, I had my lunch and soon after that my aunty came to me and asked me to pack my luggage as we are going out for some short vacations. On continuously asking her she didn’t said anything, left with no option I did the packing and helped my aunty in rest of the packing. Evening around 5:45 pm my uncle was back home, I asked him also but he also didn’t said anything about the trip. At around 8.15 pm we left the house which was in Gole Market, near Connaught Place. In next 20 minutes we were at railway station and looking for the platform where training was expected. Soon we were at the Platform No. 10 and as soon as train came with name “Jammu Mail”, it was clear that we were going to some hill station.

Filled with full excitement and happiness I boarded in and crabbed my window seat even faster then my uncle’s son. It was 9.20 pm when train left the station and soon after the dinner we were off to bed. 7 am in the morning my aunty woke me up and asked me to get ready and at around 7.45 am train hit the station, as soon as I stepped out with excitement I saw the station name on board as “Palampur”. Immediately I recollected the hindi movie named “Raja Hindustani” was shooted here only. We went out and the hotel car was waiting for us, looks like my uncle made full trip arrangements and that too without letting me know, good.

The cab took us to a hotel named Nitika Guest House and with warm welcome we were in our rooms. It was a small guest house but rooms were quite clean including toilets. With rupees 350/- per day I think my uncle cracked a good deal. Soon we all got ready and decided to have our breakfast in the guest house itself, it was a wise decision, the food was significantly good - Stuffed parathas as per your choice with mango pickle and with curd and with hot strong cup of tea or coffee, what else one can think of in good breakfast and that too on a very reasonable amount like the stuff parathas was 15/- each, cup of curd 10/- each, tea in 6/- and coffee in 9/- each.

We were almost done with our breakfast when my uncle told us that whatever we will do but firstly we will be starting up with Baijnath’s temple visit. On asking my uncle told me that Baijanth is Lord Shiva temple which is more than 1000 yrs old and it is having one of the 12 jyotilings of Lord Shiva and because of this it attracts thousands of people during shiv ratri. It was around 20 km from Palampur, and there are other places which were there in my uncle’s list to be visited so he hired a taxi, again good deal – around 400/- per day for 8 hrs. We started for Baijnath temple and in 40 minutes were we in front of temple, the temple structure was amazing although it was not very big but it was eye catching. We were done with our pooja and we were ready for our tour although it was sunny day but there was some thing in the air which was not letting us feel hot and the climate was very moderate, ideal to freak around.

After the pooja we headed to see India’s one of the biggest hydro electric project which was in some Jogindernagar, what was weird place name. I don’t know how our Indian government agrees for such kind of names. In half an hour we were at hydro electric project, wow it was huge, we spent sometime there and the cab driver took us to a place nearby named “Bassi”, frankly speaking I didn’t enjoyed that place but my aunty along her son enjoyed to the limits. Actually that place is famous of giving food to fishes, once we reached there lot of sellers came to us and insisting us to buy food for fishes, and my aunty buied couple of different packs in enthu. and in the same enthu she along with her son enjoyed feeding the fishes. It was afternoon and we had our lunch in Bassi itself, the cab driver only took us to a small but good restaurant nearby and again pretty reasonable, in 120/- including tip we were done with our lunch.

After taking some rest we decided to move to our next place, it was a beautiful park near river Neogal but suddenly while playing my cousin fell from stairs and he started bleeding. Thank god the medical shop was nearby and we immediately got his first aid but kids are kids, one starts crying never ends up and my cousin was also from the same breed. So we decided to go back to hotel get some rest and come back again, agreeing with my aunty decision we headed back for the guest house. It was 4.45 pm when we reached guest house but my cousin on the way back only slept in the car and on reaching guest house we put him on bed. I decided to take a short nap meanwhile but it was long enough.

It was 6:45 pm when I waked up and started cursing myself on not waking up early. Looking at this my uncle took us to the same park; the park was very near and named after the river “Neogle”. It was very clam and relaxing and there one can hear the voice of river. Wow what is relaxing place, I sat there quite and started enjoying the moment, and on the other hand my uncle was busy with my aunty and there son. Lately we went back to hotel and enjoyed good north Indian food, then off to our bed. Next we all were ready by 10 am and all set to visit gardens of tea. As usual the cab came and we headed towards gardens, the place name was “Bir” where these gardens were located. We went to see the gardens but we came to know that there are Buddhist monasteries also located near by along with there typical market where they sell there items. After enjoying the gardens and Buddhist market, the cab driver showed us all the places where the shooting of “Raja Hindustani” took place, it was worth watching and after seeing all the places we were back to hotel by 3:45 and we starting doing over packing as we were having the same train back to Delhi by 6.40 pm. Per the schedule time we left the hotel and headed back for Delhi.