Hi to all my ghumakkars,
After so long I was able to make a short road trip to Dehradun. First of all I checked for the details from my ghumakkari’s site and planned the way.
We started our journey for short trip to Dehradun on 17th June by 0600 am, but my plan was to leave my place(near Palam) much early by 0430 am. As we all know kids never wake up on time when needed. I tried to follow the route which I was able to find from google map but I just missed a turn and it took nearly one and half hour to get out of delhi and be on road to Dehradun. On the way from Mohan nagar, Meerut and so on. I was also stuck in a gas station in Delhi-UP border for CNG which was unsuccessful, as the electricity went off, no genset in that pump.
The trip was very nice. We were able to see the greenery which we miss in Delhi. We used the by-pass from Saharanpur which was nice with greenery on both side and a nice road though single road .We found less traffic on the railway crossing at Iqbalpur village, on the way towards Roorkee, Mohund.
This was my first trip to hill by road, but enjoyed it. My kids enjoyed the trip, my wife was also nervous but when passed the hilly roads she looked relieved.
We reached at around 0230 pm and looked for hotel. We found nice one, Hotel Clister, situated in good and peaceful location but still on main road.
After a little rest, we went out for local sight seeing. We went to Buddha Temple maintained by the Tibetian’s. Then went for Tapkeswer Temple were its said that Dronacharya prayed and at that time instead of water, milk used to drop. Who knows!
That was the end of day, as no other place could be visited, it was 0930 pm. We started our local sight seeing on the next day. Trip started at 1000 am, starting towards Robber’s cave nice place the climate which was on previous day hot, now was cloudy and cooled down a bit, we all enjoyed the spectacular view of the cave kids enjoyed the entrance and we all enjoyed the cold water. It was also drizzling when we came out of the cave. The next destination was towards shastradhara, we enjoyed the view but could not found the namely view. Bit disappointed, only could locate the water-park type theme. The maintenance of a tourist spot was not seen as it should be, there is no parking facility, no management, but parking ticket is high.
Robert’s Cave
We planned to return to home. It was about 0230 pm, when we left. On our way back we stopped by for lunch in Dehradun only, namely in Chinese bamboo restaurant, waste of money and time, not good in service, not good food and still charges were too much. We all were disappointed. Tried to refresh our mood with some ice cream and coke. Way back we followed the same path got stuck in the Iqbalpur railway crossing but for short while, wife managed to do some fresh village vegetable shopping, then we also managed to shop for mangoes from the road side mango shop by farmers. We reached to home by 1200 am, all drained out kids were sleepy and we too.
We enjoyed the trip, have good memories and among them one odd bad.
I would like to request that the Dehradun Authority should put some road signs for the most famous and visited places, like we were unable to find any road signs for Buddha or Tapkeshwer temple on our trip. Though I would like to thank to all the localites who were helpful and friendly.
We are looking forward for another trip to the Doon valley but now exploring the other places….
(By the way my trip photos are available on flickr.com link- http://www.flickr.com/photos/abhijitbose/7564347256/ )
Till then, bye to all my fellow ghumakkars………..