Got up early in the morning, having finishing breakfast we five people left my cousin's house to catch Karnataka Sampark Kranti express to Delhi. From Begumpet station took a MMTS train hardly Rs. 10 ticket for 20 km journey! My parents and my brother had already boarded train from Bangalore aunty and Mama. So now were 10 people sitting in 4 different coaches due to delays in reservation in tickets. So we were all split up!!.But had amazing travel companions.
My co passenger was trained pilot from Kolkata!. And another was a student from Bidar, another woman was from Dehradun!!!This is best part of Indian railways, total mix up of Indian culture .train was nonstop literally from Nagpur to Bhopal for 450 km and covered in 6 hours flat .....hats off to loco pilots!. But next day we reached late Nizamuddin by three hours due to congestion in tracks!
We were picked by taxi to Saraswat Bhavan in new Rajinder Nagar, really good place to stay at reasonable rates. Good food also. Evening we made trip to Akshardham on metro. Amazing piece of architecture!. Unfortunately no photography allowed otherwise anyone could have easily shot some 100 photos!...that night we left to Kathgodam by Ranikhet Express. Delhi had become little better from previous visits due to metro....we were picked up by taxis booked by us from Bangalore. We were taken to tourist rest house in Nainital with lake view which was amazing...the rooms were clean and well maintained. Nainital is beautiful place. We got ready and started for local sight seeing.
First we went to cave garden and it was garden of caves with porcupine cave, tiger cave, panther cave and many more caves!!. We ventured into caves to have first hand experience in dens of those animals...then we went to snow point for an amazing view of Himalayan peaks. Then went to lake view where one can see mango shaped lake in bird's eye view amazing! Then we went to lover's point god knows why it is called so it was sealed because some mad fellow committed suicide by diving from there!. Then we went to Khurpa Tal which is in shape of khurpa (knife) and then to small waterfall, clean and unspoiled .water there was very tasty.
We proceeded to Nainital rope way for Rs.300 per head. At peak there we had another Himalayan view and we tried our shooting skills using air rifle there shooting the plastic bottles hanging from a tree and saw clear view of Himalaya with binocular there.
And we ended the day with boating in Nainital Lake it’s a nice experience boating in chilly weather. Had dinner in local restaurant and slept with two razais and room heater .my hands were frozen in few minutes after i removed my gloves!!!.
Next day was rather relaxed day drivers told that they would be coming at 10 for sightseeing of other lakes such as Sat Tal (they say there are seven lakes in one place) Bhimtal, Naukuchiatal. We also went to Vaishno Devi temple and Naina Devi temple good places to visit. We did boating again at Sat Tal.
The houses there are mainly in the farms far from cities totally cut off from cities and god knows how people lead their lives!. Anyways we shopped for candles in Nainital the candles are amazing and at very low prices. And that night for photo shoot on the banks of the lake. The view was just too good!!!. That was last day in Nainital so we saw it till our satisfaction.....
Next day we went to Binsar national park with coniferous forest quite a lot of animals . on the way, we went to Kainchi Ashram (which locals believe a lot) and in Almora our driver (Almora was his hometown) took us to sweet shop for local delicacy i.e Bal Mithai, but Singori (another sweet made from milk) was amazing had lot of it. Binsar forest is big one therefore guide should be taken for a walk in Jungle. In Binsar we didn’t see any animals but had amazing view of Himalayas. We proceeded to Kausani for night halt in tourist rest house.
Next morning we were surprised to see the mighty Himalayas in front of our room just as we opened the doors, amazing!!everyone in the hotel were awake early in the morning to see famous sunrise of Kausani,the way color of Himalayas change in change in position of sun is amazing and is out of words to explain. After the sunrise we got ready and went to Gandhi ashram where Gandhi stayed in 1914 when he came there. And proceeded to tea estate and factory owned by Bangalore based Giria's family. There were all varieties of tea starting from 100rs/kilo to a whopping 15000 rs/kilo.!!!!!!From there we went to Ranikhet, the headquarters of Ranikhet regiment.
First it was the Ranikhet golf ground which is used by army people .beside it is Durga Devi temple maintained by group of old women!.We went army's shop(built and maintained by army) for shopping of woolen goods which were prepared by widows of Army Jawans and their children. And then went to military museum, only of a kind in India. It has interesting collection of all articles of enemies captured by army in previous wars it was explained interestingly by an Army Jawan, everything from first world war to operation Vijay (Kargil war).all articles used by Cariappa and how a small pocket dairy saved a major's life, worth Going! First time I saw place where Pakistan's flag was put upside down to humiliate them on their defeat!!!
The tourist rest house was amazing again with Himalayan view and there was thick forest in front of our rooms. Next day we went to Ramnagar where Jim Corbett national park is situated .the drive was scary as there were lot of landslide on the way and condition of road was very bad. We could see groups of children walking kilometers together to go to their schools! With no one to take care of them in such a hilly terrain!
We went to holiday home by Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam. The place was amazing with thick forest on one side and river on the other side and we were given tents with just threads as latches for doors made of clothes!.the kitchen staff were very good and cooperative they prepared whatever we asked for. That afternoon we went to safari for around 1800rs per jeep in two jeeps. We were welcomed by a black languor in the forest. My mother and my aunt were very scared as it was open jeep and they tiger could attack them any side!!!!.We also traced pug marks of tiger but no tiger sadly. We saw peacocks ,spotted deer, barking deer, wild pig .and we returned after three hours. But tragic news was waiting for us!!
Just half km from our tent a local woman who was in forest for collecting firewood was killed by a tiger in broad daylight just by side of the road at 4:30 in evening.!!!! Everybody were scared now....a tiger is roaming around you and you are only in a tent with no tight doors and compounds!!.Everybody was scared to move in dark after evening and hence we arranged for campfire.
Thinking that fire would scare away tiger. Manager was friendly guy told us not to worry and he would be looking after the gate whole night. We somehow spent that night and next morning we got ready for another safari this time with different entrance and different route.
We took a guide this time and that guide was sleeping most of the time!!!!There was lot of fog in jungle and we couldn’t spot any animal till sun was out properly. We got track of pug marks and followed it for nearly 750 meters and we also got place where tiger had lied down to take rest and sadly no tiger again !....our driver saying that jungle was so silent that day that he thought that jungle has emptied!!!.No alarm calls or any call of any animal. We were going in some route suddenly we heard barking of Kakar (barking deer) behind us, warning the animals nearby the presence of tiger and that it is on move and immediately we took a reverse turn and started racing towards it as we were approaching the place a there was a loud sound of tractor coming, spilling water on all our hopes!!!!....and that was end of tiger search and tiger would be nowhere nearby now ....we returned back with sightings of spotted and beautiful pair of peacocks to tent house to leave for Shimla that afternoon.
From Ramnagar we went to Moradabad station in a passenger train. We were surprised to see how they transport milk in the train all the milk cans hanging out of the windows throughout the length of train. In a small station there was crossing of opposite train a man got down from that train to our coach and it seems he had pick pocketed lot of purses in that train and he was sharing that to his friend showing him all the purses he had!!!!As we approached the Moradabad station, our train was waiting outside for entry signal. Everything was calm for some time until people heard horn of a goods train coming. The locality was of slum people.
Suddenly there were shouting "koyla ka train hai", train is carrying coal!..that train was also moving very slowly due to signal problem and suddenly few kids very small might be around 8 to 10 years old immediately climbed the slowly moving goods wagons and started throwing the coal out of the wagon!!!!.The engine driver was helpless the kids seem to be very experienced at this thing. My mind was still fresh of watching " slumdog millionaire", I had no option but to accept the reality. In Moradabad station there were again lot of kids roaming around in the station again Slumdog Millionaire straight from screens as 1 boy was caught by police for stealing but was left after negotiations as i think he was regular guest!!!!!Moradabad is famous for bronze articles and there were lot of bronze articles available for cheap rates .our train to Ambala was late by 1 hour .finally train came it was full with local commuters traveling to a place 1 hour from Moradabad.
Again big confusion in the train the train was of 81 seater but during reservations seats were allotted as if it was a 72 seater, again everything settled down only when they came and convinced every body!.We reached Ambala by 12 am and had bath in station waiting room. Our train to kalka, kalka mail was on right time and arrived at 02:30 am, we reached Kalka at 4 :30 and kept our luggage in cloak room and proceeded to board the Shivalik deluxe express(toy shatabdi).beside it was very cute looking deluxe rail car which has seating capacity of only 10 people per train!!!
In the end moment we realized that we had forgotten the ticket for Shimla sightseeing trip which was in bag in cloak room, but train already ten minutes late and guard said that he cant wait but my father somehow ran got the ticket!....this was one of the slowest train on the Indian railways with speed of about 15 kmph!!!the narrow gauge train passes through 100 tunnels ,900 Bridges and 900 curves and longest tunnel being barog tunnel which is a kilometer long, there is an tragedy with this tunnel. during building of this tunnel the tunnel engineer made a mistake in alignment and hence ends of the tunnel did meet and British government fined him for 1 rupee!!!!.He couldn’t take the humiliation and hence he committed suicide!!!.his body is buried just beside the tunnel!.
Breakfast was served on board .we reached Shimla at 11 in morning and HPTDC bus was waiting for us for local sightseeing .we saw this green valley an amazing valley of trees. Next proceeded to Kufri .we went to peak of Kufri by horse .the terrain was very rocky and we should be very careful with keeping our body weight, unequal distribution of weight can make you fall from horse as one of aunts fell down. As there was no snow there was no skiing. There's temple over there and a view point. Our horses dropped us at Chini bungalow which was used by maharaja of Patiala to keep his princess.
There were yaks here ,we took some photos from there we went to palace hotel ,which showed of erstwhile maharajas passing through sadhu phul (god knows why is it called so),which is just a normal bridge we were dropped at Kandaghat, below the railway station. As soon we got down there we saw toy train going to Kalka on the other side of mountain, so now we had to take a bus to kalka reached kalka at 7 in evening and took a hotel there to spend a night just near the station.
Next morning at 6 in morning we took Kalka Shatabdi to New Delhi. Amazing journey with amazing speeds, today we were on one of fastest trains of Indian Railways. Reached Delhi at 10 in morning 300 kms covered in just three and half hours!.a taxi took us to Palika Bazar for some shopping, which famous amazing bargains it offers, just imagine a shopkeeper gave us a amazing pant with MRP as 5000 to just Rs. 1500!.The bhel puri outside the underground shopping complex was just too good!
After some two hours of shopping we went to Saraswat Bhavan for lunch ans went to Mughal Gardens, the private gardens of the president of India! This is kept open for public only for 15 days in a year, which was very good and had good varieties of plants and flowers. After quick visit to Birla Mandir we were dropped to Nizamuddin station to travel to Bangalore in most prestigious trains of India "RAJDHANI EXPRESS".
Train started on time from station at 20:50 and started its journey. Dinner was served on train, which was a three course dinner and was pretty good. Another part of group was sitting in another coach as they would be getting down at Raichur, and in that coach a mother and daughter got into train .at around 10 in morning they came crying to our group that man in front of them was harassing them and they wanted shift from there and they told to us as there were few ladies in our group.so we exchanged our seats in coach b2 to coach b8.they were really frightened and can’t imagine of such incidents on Rajdhani express! Finally at 6 30 in evening my cousin from Hyderabad came to meet us .that night all my aunts and uncles got down at Raichur at 11 40 in night,
Next day morning we were in Namma Bengaluru and 6 45 in mornings...what a journey it had been! That was end of phase 2 of my journey…
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