I had a great vacation at Shimla, Dharmasala and Amritsar during the 2nd week of May. It was a great getaway from the 'oh, not the same thing again!' office work.
We (my parents, my bro and of course me) took a train from a place called Kalka to Shimla. The train runs on a narrow gauge railway and the journey left me enraptured. It is so picturesque that you feel like taking a snap every second during the short journey of 6 hours. There are 103 tunnels and many bridges in this route and the scenery is just breath taking.
Shimla is very quiet town (I suppose all towns are quiet when compared to Bangalore). There are many places to visit, which you can see with the local taxi-wala. The local zoo had a snow leopard (alive) and I found this to be the highlight of the stay at Shimla as they are feared to be nearing extinction. After a 3 day stop at Shimla, we headed for Dharamsala.
Here, I got my first glimpse of the snow covered mountains and of course the Dalai Lama. I had pictured a grand monastery, but was disappointed with the non-aggrandized version which I saw. The view of the snow covered mountains, the greenery make you exclaim 'wow!' here too. Again, the local taxi-wala will show you around the town.
The quietness of these places actually made me miss the Bangalore traffic. I was kind of home sick as I had not heard the honking of vehicles for 4 days now.
We left for Amritsar the following day. The city is just 30km from the Pakistan border. We visited the Wagah border the same evening. The flag ceremony here is just too good. You can sit like 50m from the Indo-Pak border. People cheer at both sides and it is such a carnival atmosphere. We were let to as near as 2m from the border gate. The ceremony was over at 7.00 pm and I was dozing at the hotel room by 9.00.
We went to the Golden temple on the last day of the trip. Although filled with devotees, the temple still generates an aura of calmness. The temple, floating aloft the holy pond presents spectacular sight to the beholder's eye. The fact that Sikhs suffered so much to build this temple makes the visit more special.
The very next day, we took a flight to New Delhi and another from there to Bangalore and I was back in my favorite city in 4 hours at 11.00 am. I really have to say this, I just love Bangalore (+ its traffic).
The pics are at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/ani.ait07.
Regards,
Anirudh
