Posted by Shivam Singh
On 20th Jan, 2021
***Kinnaur Roadtrip***
Date: 21st Nov, 2020
Time: 06:00 AM
Finally, after one month of planning and preparations, the day arrived when we planned to start our Roadtrip from New Delhi to various offbeat destinations in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh (most of which fall in Kinnaur District).
Travel Buddies: Shivam Singh, Prabal Agrawal, Sharad Mehrotra (all married and have children, specials thanks to our wives for allowing us to go on this trip without them) 🙂
The plan was to start early on 21st (around 6:00 AM) so that we can reach Narkanda (420 km from Delhi and 60 km from Shimla) by evening for an overnight stay.
Narkanda is considered as a convenient stopover while going towards Kinnaur from Delhi.
We also selected this place as our first stop since we wanted to cover the entire 165 Km journey from Narkanda to Reckong Peo during day time. The reason for this was the beautiful cliff roads and iconic cave like structure right on the road (will show in another blog).
Both Prabal and Sharad arrived at my house sharp at 6:00 AM. I was also ready by that time, perhaps this was the first time I was starting my trip exactly on time. Within 15-20 minutes, we arranged all our stuff in my car (a Tata Nexon Diesel), and finally, at 6:30 AM we were ready to hit the road.
Today’s route to follow -> Delhi – Chandigarh – Shimla – Narkanda
As we were crossing Amrik Sukhdev, Garam-Dharam, and other dhabas in Sonipat, literally our tastebuds were forcing us to stop. None of us even had breakfast at home but decided to skip this place due to Corona-scare as we didn’t wanted to take any risk nearby Delhi which was witnessing its peak in terms of daily counts. Prabal got some home-made veg-sandwiches and I had a bottle full of tea. After covering almost 150 km, we decided to take a short roadside tea break.
I was carrying TripVaani stickers to be pasted on the side of the car along with a big one for the car bonnet. While sipping tea and eating tasty sandwiches, pasted some of them.
Within 20 minutes, we started again. Now Sharad was driving, and he is known to be a rash driver among us (courtesy Vaibhav who was not part of our trip).
As we reached 20-25 km ahead, suddenly Prabal shouted, “abeeeeeeee”. I was attentively watching Sharad driving holding hand-brakes with one hand and Prabal’s voice scared me to the deepest possible level. I looked here & there and not finding anything serious, first I complemented him with few nice and youthful words, then asked the reason. “Where is the cash?” was his question.
It was a genuine question that made us worried since we all actually forgot that at home. A few days back we decided to keep at least 15k per person (45k in total) to be able to survive for 10 days without Debit/Credit cards (in case they do not work which was expected in Kinnaur due to weather). As we were crossing Zirakpur (just before Chandigarh and commonly known as Gateway to Chandigarh from Delhi), we found an ATM just near the Decathlon showroom. All the money withdrawn was handed over to Prabal and he was given the charge of money handler.
Here, Sharad handed the steering back to me for the further journey with a question on his face, “How was my driving?“.
Opposite to our expectations he drove last 100 km pretty well and Vaibhav’s charge on him as a rash driver was dismissed. Immediately he dialed Vaibhav and the first line we heard him saying on phone, “Listen be****d, don’t complement me as a rash driver again otherwise a big stick ________” plus some additional youthful adjectives.
He was such a happy and joyful soul now 🙂
Within few minutes we were on the Himalayan Expressway, which is a 27 km long 4 lane highway connecting Zirakpur in Punjab directly to Parwanoo in Himachal Pradesh. The highway helps to bypass the very busy roads of Kalka and Pinjore towns. The major portion of this highway (almost 21 km) falls in Panchkula (Haryana).
Driving on this stretch was such a pleasure and satisfying, we hoped it could be longer. Go-Pro was On for almost entire stretch of this highway.
I was also narrating my experience of the Kalka-Shimla Toy Train to both, using which I had traveled 4 times so far during my previous 6 trips to Shimla. Listening patiently, both Prabal and Sharad finalized a family trip to Shimla by toy train which I expected. After all we the private sector people are very good in making plans but fails later in execution.
Indian Railways also offer transparent rooftop coaches (Vistadome coach) now on this Kalka-Shimla line.
Sharad was continuously browsing on mobile for hotels in Narkanda, while we were still unsure whether we will be able to make it by evening or not. It was already 12 PM and we had to take a lunch break as well, plus we also decided during the planning phase that we will not drive after sunset.
Reason: Safety and more important we don’t want to miss beautiful spots en-route.
4 Tolls on Chandigarh highway wasted lots of our time, even after having FASTag on our car. I must tell you, this facility has serious issues which need to be sorted.
Prabal was checking the weather forecast and giving us some unwanted bad news again and again for heavy snowfall and road blockages in Kinnaur after two days. Thinking we will have only two days to cover different places in Kinnaur, we were continuously changing plans but after few discussions, we decided to stick to our original plan to give away any confusion. So, we had to reach Narkanda today anyhow.
As we entered Solan, we decided to stop for a lunch break at a roadside restaurant named, “Delux Dhaba & Restaurant”.
This was our first restaurant visit since March 2020 when lockdown started. So, all three of us were bit cautious and worried but the trip excitement was overtaking the Covid fear.
The place looked hygienic and the food there was tasty. We also found some strange English usage on a banner at this place, which hopefully you will understand 🙂
We started again within 45 mins, Sharad was busy in hotel search, Prabal was still verifying weather updates and I was just looking for views to turn the GoPro on/off.
We were about to reach Shimla, strangely my Apple Map was showing Narkanda at a distance of 15 km while Google Map was displaying 70 km. In such conditions, you should always trust Google Map, which was correct here also 🙁
Just before Shimla, we had a confusion at a diversion road and entered the road towards New Bus Stand of Shimla. Now Prabal’s Google Map started showing the wrong route but Sharad (recalling the route given by today’s restaurant waiter) asked me to continue. Then as usual a tense argument started between Sharad and Prabal. I was enjoying it, being aware that they will start loving each other within few minutes. Best friends you know….. 🙂
Asked a local, he told us to continue on the same road. This looked like a bypass road and the exit was after Shimla city but was a bit long and boring. We wanted to pass through busy streets of Shimla as that would have taken only 15-20 mins extra time.
As we reached Kufri, we started noticing the snow on the roadsides, the view was getting magnificent as we were moving further. We took just one stop for photos, made tea in the car using ready-mix pouches and reached Narkanda by 6 PM. Trust me, the road is very smooth and wide till here, we had no issues so far.
Sharad already had a word with one of the hotel by the name “Hatu Hotel“. We were going by GPS here but entered in a wrong muddy and narrow uphill road going no-where in the end. Fortunately found one local guy, who asked us to go back and gave us the exact direction. Took us risky 10 minutes to take a U-turn on that spot.
Finally we reached hotel, which was very beautiful both in terms of looks and location. The room was nice and we bargained for 2600 rupees for 1 night 3 people with no food inclusions. Extra bedding and tower halogen heater were provided.
The outside temperature was showing 1 degree on mobile. We quickly changed clothes and ordered dinner. On the menu, there was a column for Local Delicacies, from which we ordered “Batu ki Kheer” and “Gobhi Palda” as extra items just for taste since they both were available. Taste-wise they were ok, not good not bad I will say.
After dinner, Sharad in excitement got ready for a walk in the lawn of the hotel. Thinking about extremely cold temperature and tiredness, I and Prabal skipped it initially, but soon joined him after getting ourselves fully covered. The sky was clear and stars were visible everywhere in their full glow (a very rare scene in Delhi-NCR). Sharad was using Star Tracker app on his mobile to locate various stars, which was fun. Temperature now was displaying zero degree on mobile.
Spent around 30 minutes and then came back for sleep by 10:30 PM.
Tomorrow’s schedule was to visit Hatu Mata Temple for darshan, post hotel check out and then to leave for Reckong Peo at a distance of 165 km which takes around 5-6 hours.
See you in the next blog. Keep Travelling !!!!!
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3 Comments
shashi kandpal · January 20, 2021 at 7:56 pm
youthfully written, felt Witty essence in post n next time explain youthful adjectives too😃😂
Shivam Singh · January 21, 2021 at 10:50 am
I had to zip my mouth for those adjectives…while writing the post 🙂
Sharad · December 29, 2020 at 12:25 pm
Amazing descrition. I was able to relive each and every moment of the 1st day again. 2nd is one of the most adventurous day. Waiting for the same