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Till August 2009, I had only dreamt of doing this route on a motorcycle (detailed dreams here)… all this changed when I got a booking for this sector and started the preparations in full swing much before August. (more…)

Ahem! After a lot of avoidable delay caused due to laziness or de-motivation, here’s the 3rd contribution of my Himalayan sojourn. Sleepless night, early morning drive – tiring! gang (three of us) started form Gurgaon to Dalhousie, which is blessed with enchanting beauty, a certain tranquility of its ambience and the serenity and sacredness of its culture. All the parts of Himanchal that I visited are stunning nature’s wonder; however there are few places that stand out from the rest. Not as crowded or commercialized as Shimla or Manali, Dalhousie is a delightful quaint little town.

An evening in ... Dalhousie

In the region of southern India, about 2oo km from Bangalore there is a quite little hill station (sort of) known as Coorg. Also known as the Scotland of India, this place is very suitable as a weekend getaway from our boring and monotonous lives. I accept the fact that there are numerous places in our country for the nature lovers but this place has its own charm. The unvarnished environment makes you feel rejuvenated and the affable locals make it a pleasant vacation.

The town is pretty small and has limited resources, so let’s say there is not much of shopping you can do in this place, which means you can forget about taking a souvenir for your girl friend unless of course she is a coffee lover because in this place one thing you will never run out of is coffee! Public transport is quite good in this place and is not very expensive, you can also rent a car or a bike (don’t forget to take your driver’s license or you will end up cursing yourself or cursing the govt. like me) There are a few places you can check out around the town like Raja’s tomb, Medikeri fort, a museum, a temple, and some more small and boring places (now c’mon you do need some places to take a few snaps).

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One day we planned to visit Shimla and Kufri. So I started the journey from Ludhiana and my friends from Delhi. We met at Chandigarh ISBT to catch a bus to Shimla. There are two major bas terminus in Chandigarh. One in Sec 17 and another one in Sec 43. You have to catch the buses for Himachal Pradesh from Sec- 43 bus terminus. We catched a Keylong Depot bus, that was going to Keylong via Shimla. It was early morning around 4 AM. The bus passes through the beautiful hilly terrain of Himalaya’s Shivalik Range. The beauty of nature is spread all around you on the way. En- route to Shimla bus stopped once for the tea and snacks. It is around 4-5 hrs bus journey from Chandigarh to Shimla. There were different types of people in the bus. There were tourists, local folks and students of ITI going back to their home after vacation. We enjoyed our conversation with the students, even some of them from Keylong invited us to visit Keylong and to stay at their places. Anyway, we thanked them and terminated our journey at Shimla around 9 AM.

Chirst Church, The Mall