Trip to Shimla

It was 3 pm Friday afternoon after the lunch I sat on the system and doing some work. Suddenly one of my friend’s message popped up asking what is the plan for weekend. I replied “no plans”, instant message came “chalega kya shimla hamare saath” in other words “will you come with us to Shimla”. We bunch of people are working with Quark, Chandigarh and since it is a small town so there are not much things to explore but we keep doing something. Sometimes we go for river rafting in Sukhna Lake nearby or sometimes to places nearby like Patiala; this time the destination was Shimla which was just 120 km away from Chandigarh.

And it was decided that we will be meeting at 6 pm in front of office & going to Shimla on our own bikes not on any public transport. 7 of us gathered as per the scheduled time and interestingly this time girls also joined and we all took off by 6.30 pm. It took us almost 4 hrs to reach Shimla from Chandigarh, as girls were with us so we decided to go on a normal speed and in evening traffic was also there. Reaching Shimla we went to hotel ridge view, one of my colleagues already been there and it was his suggestion to go there and after reaching there, seeing at the tariff and amenities we thought that it was a good suggestion he gave and good decision we took. Since there were 3 girls so they decided to adjust in 1 double bed room, we asked the guy at reception for extra bed and on extra 100/- rupees he agreed. We took 3 double bed rooms which costed us 400/- each, since it was a tiring non-stop journey so we decided to have our dinner in the hotel itself hence we ordered per our likes, I must say food quantity and price was pretty reasonable & economical. It all depends in which season you are visiting a hill station, if you visiting in a peak season you will get hotel rooms in high rates and infact everything goes up because this is a time where they make good profit and if you go in off-season probably you will get hotels in a pretty affordable rates and you don’t have to book the hotel room in advance but in peak season, it is preferable to get a hotel booking done in advance otherwise you will end up paying more.

Next fine day we all were ready by 10 am after having our breakfast at hotel we left for sight seeing and thinking of a beautiful day ahead. I must say girls are girls, they insisted us to start a day with good thing like visiting a temple after 10-15 min of discussion finally they won and we decided to go to temple first, there is a beautiful temple of hanuman ji on Jakhoo. Jakhoo is a hill and on its top where this temple is located and to reach there one has to go via trekking or hire ponies, we decided to go on our own bikes but our colleague told that is a narrow way so it is not feasible to take bike there hence decision was taken to go via trekking. We started for that, although trekking was tiring but same way it was exciting as well. I think we would have trekked about 2-3 km to reach that temple. Once we were on the top the view was overwhelming. We can see the whole view of Shimla; it must look beautiful if you see in night. There were lot of monkeys so after doing the pooja we buied some eatables for them and offered them, happily they accepted. After spending some time there and taking rest for a while we came down and went to enjoy Chhadwick waterfall which was located in forest nearby. The forest by name glen was about 4.5-5 km from the city and after reaching there, honestly speaking girls were scared as it is quite dense forest and after giving them courage we happily walked in with holding there hands, good moments and soon we were at our place of bath, Chhadwick waterfalls. We saw lot of people enjoying there bath so wasting no time we all changed and jumped in that small pool and enjoyed the water falling right on our heads. It was awesome and we enjoyed every moment and stored them as well in our cameras. After having good time in the stream we headed for good lunch although it was evening snacks time but all of us were feeling very hungry, in Shimla there are lots of good restaurants but my friend loves having food at Combermeree hotel which was located on the mall road. We hopped in there and have good food, after food we had tea there but it was not good. Our colleague told us about a very famous old tea shop in ram bazar, immediately we all agreed and wasting no time we left the hotel. Reaching ram bazar he took us to a small shop and order 7 cups of tea, tea was mind-blowing.

One who is coming to Shimla must come here to have this. It was almost 6 pm when I looked at my watch, time was running fast, after tea it was decided not do any more sight seeing and we went to mall road, it’s a good shopping and freaking out place and we enjoyed our evening walking down the mall road, enjoying cigarettes. Around 9 or 9.30 we came back to hotel had our dinner and start chit chatting and it went up to 1 am in night when we went for sleep. Again tomorrow morning by 10 am we all were ready for our other destinations.

In our group one girl was christan and on every Sunday she used to go to church, since it was Sunday so she spoke to us about that and we all agreed to visit church first and then move ahead. While roaming on mall road the other day we saw the church on mall road itself so we went there, from inside as well as from outside also the church is beautiful with all the glass windows around, it shows how good our ancient engineers were. We all went inside and did the prayer, and after that we headed towards scandal point to do some more shopping. Scandal point is a also a freaking out place like mall road. In shimla there are couple of places like ram bazar, scandal point, mall road, and lower bazar, where one can do good shopping and can have good food as well. And like others after shopping we had our lunch there only by that time it was 1 pm, most of the people decided to take off from shimla because after reaching to chandigarh we have to take good rest also. As decided we all started back for Chandigarh and on the way back to Chandigarh we visited lord hanuman’s temple by the name sankat mochann and in another 2-3 hrs we were in Chandigarh and disbursed.