Shimla Weekend!!

Everyone included me thought that once I am in Delhi and staying with my family, I will start moving towards the lowest depths on having enthusiasm for a Weekend Drive!!

Gosh, I am still the same!!

So after multiple announcements to colleagues and the complete floor and friend list asked to join for the weekend to Shimla, we found no one!!

Finally me and my colleague, Upender Singh (US) decided to goto to Shimla for a drive and a nice weekend (Round trip of 753 kms).

For a change, we decided to travel in the car of US which is a Hyundai Ascent (1.6L) but a black car!!

So we started on Saturday (6 AM), early (by our standards) morning from Noida.
Passing through DND > ITO > Rajghat > Outer Ring Road > Transport Nagar > Sonipat > Panitpat > Karnal > Ambala > Chandigarh > Panchkula > Kalka > Solan we reached Shimla at around 2 PM.

On the way, few things which were different from my earlier trips: - We planned to stop at a Highway Dhaba to have breakfast ........... this part of India is certainly very different from the South in terms of the concept and density of High Way Dhabas ......... south is virtually none!! Since it had been raining for 3 days ............ the land in front of the dhaba was very muddy and since water had logged, the actual land surface was not visible. We, as the smartest racers of our time did what we were supposed to do. We drove the car in a portion which was otherwise blocked by the dhaba owner. And "Thud", the car's front wheels were in the mud pool with the land surface few inches away from the tyres!! Meaning, the Car is stuck and since it is a Fore Wheel drive, it can only work as a pump to push the mud out of the mudpool and nothing else!! So what we did was even more smarter. We sat down at the Dhaba and had the best and heaviest breakfast ever. The Dhaba guy called it a Potato-Onion Paranthas, but it actually was a Paneer Paratha with Loads of Ginger in it ............ probably I had the maximum ginger I had ever eat in my life. So after fulfilling our duties towards our ever-growing tummy's, we moved towards our mud stuck car. Dhaba guy was so cool about it and he applied all his experience (within last 6 hours, ours was the third car stuck there) to pull the car out but apart from him getting all the dirt straight from the source because of the powerful CRDi engine, he got nothing .......... LOOSER!! Yeah, right!!Anyways, a Maruti Zen with the gods in it came and dhaba guy tied the rope to the zen which pulled us out coupled with the push from the dhaba people. We were out of the mud and as a value added service, the Dhaba cook also washed our car with loads of water!! - LandSlides ........... I hope you are aware what is it. Even I was till the time I actually saw it!! we crossed almost 50 places where suddenly the flat road used to get merged with the walls of the ghat road!! Yeah the mountain portions / soil / Trees get detached from certain height and flow / fall down on the NH 22. The road was sometimes becoming narrow enough for only 1 car to pass at a time. Sometimes the forest guys with their cutters were cutting down the massive trees which fell on the road, massive enough to even crush a heavy duty truck. Sometimes suddenly on a U-Bend you could find a completely Round stone (becomes round due to the rolling friction sheering while rolling down hill) absolutely in the middle of the road. Round Stone is of a size of the car itself!!
So we have an adventerous drive uphill.One of the most different view ever was of a White TATA Safari defying gravity. When it was parked, all the 4 tyres were at the same altitude and when the landslide happened, front tyres remained at the same altitude while the back tyres went up by about 2 metres and hence the car was almost parked with its full weight on it's front bumper.

So with all those scenes, we reached Shimla. Parking was expected to be a pain and yes, it did prove itself. But we smart guys of Delhi, with some story got a nice parking near Hotel Combermere.

We went upto the Mall road ........ fortunately we had taken an umbrella along so had the vehicle for walking in the rain.

We first bought another umbrella and then took a room in Hotel Willow Bank on "The Mall". Amazing place to stay and honestly, I recommend it even when they did not agree to my commission.

So after a lot of rains and umbrella walking on the Mall Road and watching few nice faces, we had a good sleep at the Hotel and with a heavy breakfast we started back.

During our stay, we witnessed Aftab's shooting, babes in Barista, babes in ATM's, Landslides on the Mall, Institute of Advanced Studies (place where India-Pakistan divison map was discussed. Though surprised to know that Lord Mountbatton wanted India-Pakistan to be a single country. I hate myself for my History knowledge). Some scenic images and excellent wether, we started back on Sunday noon.

On the way back, we again crossed good amount of small and big land slides ........... as usual we drove at a speed of 100kmph as well in the hills and 150kmph on the planes.

Now the ordeal on our way back from Chandigarh to Delhi.

We, starved smarty's from Shimla had heard a lot about a place by name "Haveli" for roadside high value Dhaba. By the time we finished our downhill journey, we realised that the place is about 100 kms from Chandigarh and it is already 4PM!!So the starving hunks increased their speed to 150 kmph and were zooming across the crowded highway when suddenly we went over a road edge and realised that the tyre started making a sound and the car pulled itself towards it's left. We stopped and one of the worst fears of Highway Dwellers, the fron left tyre went flat!!What can be as bad as this? Worst is not seeing a nightmare, Worst is the nightmare coming true!!So, the car was not equipped with following: - Jack - Spanner (special one to open the Alloy Wheels) - Brain (of the car owner) :-)

Fortunately for us, the incident happened at a place where we were sourrounded by loads of tyre experts around. But Unfortunately, it is a sunday so shops are closed. So what we did? we ran around searching for any shop which is open and finally we found few within 0.5 kms!!Guys tried and tried but were not able to open the wheel coz the spanner never matched the size!! but after multiple permutations and combinations, we achieved success and hence we drove on!!

We reached back Noida at aroun 9:15 PM and we ended with another Journey with another long story to share with our friends!!

Few Photos for this blog are below: