Day 7 : Diaries from Summer Vacation 2019

We took an awesome and memorable 10 day road trip (17th May 2019 - 27th May 2019) from Chandigarh to Amritsar via Himachal Pradesh. These are the notes taken every night from that vacation. I will publish them one day at a time for the next 10 days

23rd May 2019 Day 7 

As we woke up in Bir today, both me and Richa were looking forward to paragliding experience. We had asked the Oyo Holiday Inn (the hotel we stayed overnight), Bir to make a booking for us. We had asked for 8.30 and they were at our door at 8.15 AM. Earlier plan was that Richa would go first as I wanted to sleep more and then I would follow, however they had given us a 600 Rs. discount thinking that both of us would go together and they can save 600Rs. on the cab charges. 

So on midst of all the confusion I decided to go first. The plan was that I would then drive Richa to take off site in our rental car and this way they still save 600 on the cab.

As we (The driver, pilot and me) drove to Billing, which is around 18 km from Bir and is the take off site at 8000-9000 ft above sea level, the anticipation made me a bit nervous.  

I was fairly confident but waiting made the hands sweat. I decided to have a word with my pilot and driver. The name of the pilot was Happy and he had been flying since last 12 years. He has a wife and a 4 year old son. He did take off and land 3-4 times a day and I was fairly confident in his abilities now. I thought that what is a one off for me is a routine for him, so it can't be as dangerous or difficult. As we reached the top Happy explained how he needs wind for take off. The wind was quite low, we had to change our take off spot once and finally we had wind support. I was asked if I want to take a video, the charges were 500 Rs. I politely declined as I am not the one who would ever watch that video again. Happy tied the harnesses to the seat and told me that I should run till the pressure from wind pushes me back and makes the seat like a basket to hold me. He said I shouldn't worry and just keep running. We were at the edge of the cliff and I asked him that how far can I really run as we might fall off. He said that it's enough distance. I was probably 20 strides away from where I would fall off. Anyways he held me and asked me to run, I ran for like a few seconds and were in the air. 

We had Dhauladhar range covered in snow on our right and we could see the landing site on our right as well. We could see the wheat fields below and Happy told me that they would now sow the next crop. We could also see the XUV parked near our hotel. As we flew on the glider Happy told me that we could see Palpung Monastery as well. I wasn't sure where it was but I just agreed with him. Suddenly I saw a glider rolling down very fast, I thought it's an accident, but it was a passenger asking for aerobatic flying to his pilot. Happy offered to do that for me as well, however I declined politely. He did it once anyways and it was a bit scary due to the sound it makes and I felt dizzy very quickly. 

We landed in Bir soon and it was time for Richa to go for her flight. It took a total of 1 hour 20 minutes from Hotel to landing and it was an awesome experience. 

Richa went for her flight in a cab. We decided to pay extra for her cab as it will save Reyansh from going up to Billing. The drive is quite rough and has too many curves which could have  triggered his motion sickness. In the meantime, me and Reyansh checked out and Reyansh had his brunch. We then went to landing site to pick Richa up.

As we reached the site, Richa had already landed. She decided to make a video as well. After we settled the accounts , we decided to visit a cafe nearby for Richa to have her brunch. 

At the cafe I found that they also teach paragliding and one can fly his first solo from Billing to Bir within 7 days. I am excited about it and it may go to my bucket list. You can find more info on www.paragliding.guru .

Once we were done with snacks it was already raining. Our agent had hurried us up in the morning citing weather conditions being bad in the later part of the day and we were now thankful as it saved us from missing this experience. 

We then visited Palpung Monastery. This is the second time Google maps confused us due to wrong map and we learnt our lesson by heart to not trust the map completely in Himalayas. The monastery is located at a very quiet scenic hill near Bir. We are now becoming quite comfortable in asking about Buddhist traditions and monasteries in general to the monks and we have found them eager to help us. They had a 3 hour prayer going on in the temple and Richa sat in it for almost 10 minutes enjoying the traditional Pooja. 

After that we had a quick visit to Baijnath temple and then started towards  Mcleodganj. The GPS again took us to a bad road which I chose to turn back from (after a km or so) and then we took the main highway to Dharamshala and then to Mcleodganj. On the way we had Palampur where we saw some tea gardens a d even had a tea of Wah brand, right in front of their gardens. 

The whole drive had Dhauladhar range running on the right and we loved the snow capped mountains all through. 

Signing Off Day 7

Day 6 : Diaries from Summer Vacation 2019

We took an awesome and memorable 10 day road trip (17th May 2019 - 27th May 2019) from Chandigarh to Amritsar via Himachal Pradesh. These are the notes taken every night from that vacation. I will publish them one day at a time for the next 10 days. 

22nd May 2019 Day 6 : (Written today)

I missed taking any notes on Day 6 and I realise this today as I was tracking my emails to check out my notes. 

From what I remember we woke up in Kulu today and most of the day was spent driving towards Bir. We had 2 options, to drive to Bir via shortest path or drive via Pandoh dam. We were told by locals that Pandoh dam is just a bridge from where you can see water and doesn't have much, however we chose that route anyways as it was a national highway. 

Over our drive we saw a lot of tunnels being constructed through the mountains, and one can only imagine the economic impact the faster connectivity will bring to this part of India. The drives which are through the mountainous route of 30 km today may end up becoming a straight tunnel of approximately 10-12 kms in a few years. The construction work going on in all of Himachal forces you to keep the windows of your car closed as the fine dirt can cause real problem for your health. 

We had lunch on the way and we were near Bir by 4.00 PM. We had a lot of time on hand so decided to take a detour to Barot. It had beautiful valleys and is still has less tourists going over there. Halfway through Barot we realised that we should go back Bir as we might be too late otherwise, so we headed back and made it to Bir by 9.30 PM. We had quick dinner, asked the Oyo Holiday Inn reception to arrange paragliding for us. We wanted to do that first thing in the morning after. 

Signing off Day 6 

Day 5 : Diaries from Summer Vacation 2019

We took an awesome and memorable 10 day road trip (17th May 2019 - 27th May 2019) from Chandigarh to Amritsar via Himachal Pradesh. These are the notes taken every night from that vacation. I will publish them one day at a time for the next 10 days. 

21st May 2019 Day 5 : 

As we woke up in Manali, we knew that way to Rohtang pass and even Marhi is closed. So the place we can go is Gulaba tourist spot and Solang Valley.

After breakfast we decided to go to Gulaba first. The google maps shows a Gulaba viewpoint and Gulaba tourist spot separately. It was confusing so we decided that we will keep driving till we hit the barrier where they check permits for Marhi and Rohtang pass. We were told that the barrier will be closed today as it's a tuesday and Border Roads Organization will be doing weekly maintenance work on the road.

We got out of Manali and there are stores on both sides of highway giving away dress and boots to play in the snow. We chose to not take it as we were told by hotel reception that there is no snow in Gulaba.

As we drove to Gulaba the views on both sides were spectacular. The traffic was sparse, which was confusing, as Mall road was jam packed yesterday night. We were wondering as to where are all the tourists, that we saw in Manali the last night.

After a couple of stops near waterfalls and To see the snow capped mountains, we reached Gulaba tourist spot. The drive was fairly easy and we went at luxurious pace soaking in the beauty.

Richa and Reyansh took a horse ride to the spot which was 1.5 km away while I chose to walk. The horse owner said there is still a bit of snow. Once we reached the spot, we realised that the snow was almost ice and very very dirty. Reyansh touched the snow but we couldn’t go in as we didn’t have shoes to negotiate icy snow and honestly it was just too dirty. We came back to our car and drove till the barrier. Finally at the barrier there was clarity that the permits to Rohtang are issued on hpkullu.nic.in. So if anyone ever wants to take a self drive, that's the place to get permit from.

We had a few Maggie noodles on a shop for which we were the only customers. The views were breathtaking and the air was fresh. 

After that we decided to visit Solang valley. Reyansh had to take medicine for motion sickness, and he fell asleep. Once we entered the valley we realised its a mess as all the tourists from Manali were there. They have activities like paragliding, all terrain vehicles, cable cars etc. Reyansh was asleep and we were not interested in joining such a huge crowd so we drive right back and moved towards Kullu. 

As one drives towards Kullu the highway is in parallel to BEAS river and one can sign up for zip lines across beas, or for water rafting on the spot. We decided against rafting as they won’t allow Reyansh on the raft due to his age. They had paragliding going on as well, but we wanted to do paragliding in Bir. So, We went to Dhakpo Shedrupling Monastery. 

After the monastery we decided to visit Kullu market as we had taken a bypass from Kullu on the way to Manali. Once in Kullu we decided to get the car cleaned as all the dust from highways had made the cabin unbelievable by dirty. Richa visited Tibetan market but it wasn’t as good. Me and Reyansh got the car cleaned. There was a walnut tree in the yard and Reyansh plucked a couple of them.

We then had dinner and decided to sleep in Kullu for the night. We need to now drive to Bir tomorrow morning and hope to be there in time to visit the local monastery and also do the paragliding.

Signing off Day 5.

Day 4 : Diaries from Summer Vacation 2019

We took an awesome and memorable 10 day road trip (17th May 2019 - 27th May 2019) from Chandigarh to Amritsar via Himachal Pradesh. These are the notes taken every night from that vacation. I will publish them one day at a time for the next 10 days. 

20th May 2019 Day 4 : 

We woke up to a cold morning 10 kms before Manali, at least cold by Indian standards in May. We had a nice breakfast at the hotel and then started our drive towards Manali. The jam which we avoided yesterday was still there , however we were well rested so didn't mind it as much. As we waited in a long queue of vehicles, it was frustrating to see private cars and sometimes even cabs running past us on the right lane, which has to be used by vehicles from the other side. It is frustrating to see how everyone across India has 2 qualities which are same. First is that we are in a hurry on the road and second, we are always late for any appointment :). The wait was made bearable by the river flowing along the highway on the right and some waterfalls on the left. 

After negotiating the jam which was caused by a  landslide(Nature trumps engineering after all), we reached Manali. The weather got a bit bad and it started drizzling. Manali is a small town which has grown because of tourists however walking on the congested roads, one is inhaling more kerosene and diesel fumes and less of the fresh air one wants to inhale, while visiting mountains. 

There is hardly any landmark worth visiting. We visited Hadimba (She was Bheema's wife from Mahabharata) temple but it was really a temple which is a tourist spot because there is no other spots.

We wanted to visit Rohtang pass but it is open only till Marhi and that too couldn't be visited today as we were late to arrive. Tomorrow is Tuesday and Rohtang is closed for maintenance. We are told that we may be able to go till Gulaba tomorrow. People believe we can drive till Gulaba in the XUV we have rented and there is no need to take a local cab. We will try that tomorrow.

We checked in to hotel Sringeri Regency early evening and after a quick tea walked towards Mall road. The drizzle was gone and it was a good 10 degrees ... Perfect weather for a stroll. Richa did some shopping from Mall road. Reyansh enjoyed strawberry and  cherries which are abundantly available. He missed mangos so we asked a juice shop to cut a couple of mangos for him. He may have enjoyed that more than the berries . At 8.30 pm we decided to return to the hotel. The auto Walas in Manali are no better as compared to Bangalore auto wallas and they wanted 100 Rs. For 1.5 kms. After walking a while we found one who agreed for 70 Rs. 

We came back and took a glass of milk before hitting the bed. 

Tomorrow if all goes well , we plan to visit Gulaba and Solang and sleep in Bhuntar. Before heading to Bir ...

Signing off Day 4

Day 3 : Diaries from Summer Vacation 2019

We took an awesome and memorable 10 day road trip (17th May 2019 - 27th May 2019) from Chandigarh to Amritsar via Himachal Pradesh. These are the notes taken every night from that vacation. I will publish them one day at a time for the next 10 days. 

19th May 2019 Day 3 :

We got up a bit late and hungry . So after finishing 3 parathas and a sandwich, we started for Kullu via Prashar lake.

However, Reyansh had a thorn in his feet, and we wanted to buy a forcep to get rid of the thorn. However today was Loksabha voting day in this region so most medical stores were closed. as we drove past a few closed stores, we saw a hospital and decided to visit the emergency room. The doctor and the staff were very helpful and removed the thorn. Jury is still out on if the doctor managed to remove the thorn or not. I believe he did and Richa says that she can still see the thorn. Reyansh is not complaining of pain. So we need to recheck tomorrow. 

We started our drive towards Prashar lake. As we were driving, the fact that Himalaya is a range of mountains dawned upon me, once gain after 11 years. For Richa and Reyansh it was a first experience, where you climb a mountain ... Get down and then climb the next one. Or just when you thought that we are on the peak of a tall mountain...the taller one emerges on the next turn. Himalayas are beautiful and one needs to be focus to avoid any mishaps while driving. 

As we closed in towards the peak of the mountain which hosts Prashar lake, Reyansh had symptoms of motion sickness. Our trip to Yercaud had surfaced this for the first time and we were thankfully better prepared. We gave him medicine and stopped for a quick break which turned out to be lunch break. We had some jeera rice and dal. All 3 of us were full in one portion.   

Finally we were at Prashar lake. It's really a beautiful lake with a temple of Prashar muni and is frequented by the locals who use it as a picnic spot. 

We had a stroll around the lake and then started our drive to Kullu at 2.30 pm. Reyansh fell asleep immediately and we drove in mountains. It was a narrow and curvy road. So we were slow and steady. 

Finally we reached near Kullu by 5.30 PM. we decided to have snacks which turned out to be dinner for me. Richa spoke to the kind lady on  reception who told us that there isn't much to do in Kullu except shopping, rafting and visiting sarabai monastery. We immediately went to Sarabai monastery. We reached there around 6.45 and closing prayers for the day were going on. I spoke to a kid monk, who told us that he is studying in class 5. He wasn't participating in the prayers as it was his year of service. He is supposed to serve all the monks who are praying with tea, snacks etc. for the whole year. He came from Manali to study there. The monastery teaches them sanskrit, english, Hindi and Tibetan . They teach students till class 8th post which he wasn't sure what they do. But be wants to become a big man once he grows up. He visits his parents on his own...whenever he wished ..though he needed to apply leave for it. 

After visiting the monastery we decided to drive to Manali as we felt we still had energy. The road to Manali from Kullu is as good as you get in the plains, you don't feel that you are driving in Himalayas (though you are) and engineers have done a good job on design. However, 10km before Manali we were stuck in a huge Jam. It was adding at least 40 mins of delay. After waiting for 20 mins We decided to make a U turn. Having no plan turned a blessing. We found a hotel 1.5 km behind us. Richa negotiated a 25% discount and we checked in to crash for the night.  

Signing off Day 3

Day 2 : Diaries from Summer Vacation 2019

We took an awesome and memorable 10 day road trip (17th May 2019 - 27th May 2019) from Chandigarh to Amritsar via Himachal Pradesh. These are the notes taken every night from that vacation. I will publish them one day at a time for the next 10 days. 

18th May 2019 Day 2 : 

The hotel we stayed over last night had a huge window and it opened towards a government school. As I was mentioned yesterday the infrastructure at Chandigarh is amazing. Here is a picture of that school. 

I haven't seen such open spaces   in some of the privately funded schools of Bangalore, which charge a high fee. The first and the only planned city of India is something to be proud of and needs to be emulated across. 

The objective for today was to visit Rock Garden and then reach Mandi before sunset. That would have given us ample rest before we drive to Kulu via Prashar Lake. After breakfast we landed in Rock Garden and it is one of the most amazing places we have seen in India. It was very clean and has amazing collection of things made from rocks. It is one man's creation (Nek Chand) and I can only imagine what would have happened to him had he not found some support from a city like Chandigarh. The garden is world class. It could be a bit more well maintained (the signs and audio guides are missing.) And has the potential of becoming a much more popular tourist spot. 

After rock garden, we decided against visiting the lake in Chandigarh and drove towards Kirtarpur Sahib. Pradeep (our zoomcar ground executive) had suggested that if we drive towards Mandi then that's the city from which we should cross over to Himachal, as we would easily spot the RTO office of Himachal where we will have to pay the road tax.

On the way to Kirtarpur Sahib it was almost time for lunch. We did Google around a bit and figured that there are a lot of Gurudwaras in Anandpur Sahib. It adds a bit of drive for us but then we can see a nice Gurudwara, have Prasad in Langar. We also saw that there is a highly reviewed and rated museum called Virasat-e-Khalsa. We visited Gurudwara Kila Sri Anandgarh Sahib and had our lunch over in langar. Post that we visited Virasat-e-Khalsa which is an amazing museum. The entry is free and the structure is clean and has an imposing presence. The exhibits inside were very well maintained and planned. We ended up spending a good amount of time in these 2 places. And that meant we were going to be driving late. 

We started from this place around 4.15 PM and the question in our head was, do we want to visit Bhakra dam as it could be a life time experience. We decided against it as it would have added a couple of hours of drive time and another hour of visiting time.We wouldn't have made there during the sunny hours and visit would have been out of question.

We started to drive towards Mandi. On the way we had dinner around 7 pm. It was good chapati (got them after 2 days as all we got in Chandigarh was tandoori rotis) with dal and Potatoes. 

We kept driving and finally halted for night in a Oyo around 10 kms before Mandi. 

We want to visit Prashar Lake and land in Kulu by sunset tomorrow. Let's see how it pans out. 

Signing off day 2

Day 1 : Diaries from Summer Vacation 2019

We took an awesome and memorable 10 day road trip (17th May 2019 - 27th May 2019) from Chandigarh to Amritsar via Himachal Pradesh. These are the notes taken every night from that vacation. I will publish them one day at a time for the next 10 days. 

17th May 2019 Day 1 : 

This is our second summer vacation with Reyansh. Last year we had gone to Singapore however this year we decided to keep it within India. Whilst planning this vacation all we could agree on was that we land on Chandigarh and take off from Amritsar. We could never agree or deliberate on what to do for the days in between. 

As we kept postponing to plan the plan, the date to take off came very near, and so we decided to make the best use of this unplanned trip. We decided to make it an impromptu road trip where we will decide the night halt and next days plan on the go. 

Here starts the day 1 of this trip.  

We took a cab from our home to Bangalore airport. The cab was booked through MakeMyTrip and the cost of Rs. 789 is a steal for us. Halfway through we realised that Reyansh is feeling sick. Is it due to motion sickness ?(happened in our last trip to Yercaud and Maheshwar) or is it because of some bad food he had ? We still don't have the answer. But we are worried as we do have a rough idea that we will go to Himachal on between Chandigarh and Amritsar. We have approximately 10 days!!!.

As we reached airport, the flight or Chandigarh is a non stop air Asia flight. Reyansh slept for an hour in between while me and Richa couldn't. The funny part was that Reyansh had a couple of glasses of water before he went to sleep, he got up as the cabin was being prepared for touchdown. As soon he got up he wanted to pee and cabin crew refused to allow us to leave seats due to turbulence and aircraft was preparing to land. This is the first time he could control his urge to pee, successfully for 15 mins, and he went to restroom as soon as we landed. I was prepared mentally, to clean up the seats after he wets his pants but it never came to it :). 

After we landed in Chandigarh we took a cab to pick our rental car from Chandigarh railway station. We had booked a Ford EcoSport as it's a new model and were looking forward to take it for our trip. However as soon as we landed in Chandigarh , Zoomcar executives called us to inform that they don't have the EcoSport available as it needs some maintenance and they can offer a scorpio or a swift hatchback. We chose scorpio as it sounded like an upgrade. However once we reached the pickup site we realised it was an old scorpio which was already driven for more then 85000 kms and the driving experience was not the best. As we prepared to accept our fate, Richa saw an EcoSport and asked the onsite Zoomcar executive as to why we aren't offered that as we had booked an EcoSport. The exec on ground asked us to call the call centre. When we called them they couldn't offer it as it was booked by 3-4  people in next 7 days and they didn't want to apologise to all of them. I asked them if they could offer something else, I can also see some XUVs there . Finally they offered us with XUV W5 version. It had closed 908 kms before we took it. 

It was a good upgrade for us. 

We then drove to international dolls museum which was established in 1985. The museum has dolls which look like brides from various states in India, they also have dolls which represent culture of different countries. However the museum needs upkeep and a way to make the tour interesting. The souvenir shop didn't have any dolls on offer, which is surprising.

Next we went to Zakir Hussain Rose Garden which is spread over 40 acres and has almost 800+ variety of roses. The roses weren't blooming but Reyansh enjoyed running in open spaces. 

In the evening we roamed around in the city and had dinner at a pure veg restaurant (Sindhi Sweets) in sector 17. The food was good and Richa also did some shopping . 

I loved Chandigarh city, it's planned and can compete with any city in the world in terms of infrastructure. Can't understand why we can't simply copy the best practices from a city like this and make whole of India like this. 

With this ...signing off from day 1. Tomorrow we go and sleep in Mandi . And need to visit Rock garden before we leave ....

Signing off day 1.