10 Oct

My Udaipur Diary – 8 must visit local places

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City Palace has several gates (in local language known as “Pols”). The entry to the Palace is from the Hati Pol (Elephant gate). The Bari Pol brings you to the Tripolia gate. Main ticket office is near to it. You can also hire a guide or take the audio tour for getting familiar with the events and historic happenings of this beautiful monument.

The main part of the City Palace is now preserved as a museum displaying a large and diverse array of artifacts. After entering the Pol the armory museum is situated there, exhibits a huge collection of old war weapons. The rooms and the halls of the palace are decorated with mirrors, tiles and paintings. The Palace has large collection of royal paintings, jewelry, crockery, photographs and beautiful silver “Shadi ka Mandap” covered with glass wall. The palace has an old history which has many kings and rulers and there details, photographs and belongings can be seen in the different areas and rooms of the palace. The new small museums of silver, sculptures and music instrument were great.

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Road Journeys – Mount Abu: “An oasis in the Desert”

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Evening is extremely lively in Mt. Abu, unlike other hills, the Mall road here remains crowded till late in the evening, say upto 10 – 11 pm at least. One of the safest hill station, less colder due to lower altitude and superb law and order, I was always pleased to see the care free atmosphere there. Diwali being just passed, the decorative lightings of the shops and hotels were still shimmering, adding extra charm to the already charming place. The vibrant stalls, mostly laden with Gujrati & Rajasthani stuffs are bound to lure your better half. Rows of ice-cream shops, pastries, cookies and crushed ice-balls (Golas) in different flavor are the trade mark of Mt. Abu.

Activities around Nakki Lake are however, stalled at 8 pm for security reasons. The surrounding is expanding with growing popularity and increasing inflow since I have last visited the place in 1998 and again in 2008.

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Manali to Rohtang : Yes! We did it finally

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Rani Nallah was waiting for us for a long jam. Took at least an hour in which cab driver of ours & of the one in front of us putting hard work to help out others to come out that water logging at Rani Nallah which is a norm due to both side snow walls constantly melting. I still think that BRO can sort this issue by creating a slope kind of but they are the experts out there & know their jobs better, so let’s wait when this issue gets sorted out.

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Mandi to Manali – the charm begins

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I was prepared in advance for the journey but still wasn’t sure that where the 3Kms long tunnel is (Its at Aut BTW), also when would Pandoh dam would come and if its on the same road or again offroad like Bhakhra one was probably. So, we asked and got to know that Pandoh dam would be roughly 20km far from the place we had lunch.

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Road Journeys – Turbulent Pingleshwar Beach & Chowpati of Mandvi

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Our most awaited destination was Naliya, where we filled the tank and a routine air check, after almost 600 km. With lifted confidence, we roared on the four lane upto Kothara from where a single road on the right leads towards the less visited but very natural and unexploited Pingleshwar. Passing by a few villages on a narrow bumpy road for 15-20 km, we reached at the dead end. Rows of giant wind mills were standing erect with the large blades performing in tune of the wind. An ancient temple, dedicated to Lord Shiva is situated here. The shrine is brightly colorful and very well maintained but I understand very few tourists other than locals visit the temple often.

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Kausani and Ranikhet – Mighty Himalayan View

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Kausani: The absence of crowds was a welcome change in this place as well. No mall road to boast about but the available accommodation was good enough. The ‘wow’ factor is the spectacular view of the mighty Himalayas – 300 kilometers of unhindered and unmatched majestic view. Peaks Nandadevi, Nandaghunti, Trishul etc. glistening in the morning sunshine, gives lovely viewing pleasure. On a clear morning as you open your bedside window, the sight of these snow-capped mountains which sometimes seem to be bending towards you, simply take your breath away.

Gandhiji spent a few days here in the Anashakti ashram – which is right in the middle of the town and displays some photographs from his life – and called this place ‘the Switzerland of India’. Hindi poet Sumitra Nandan Pant was born in this place.

Baijnath, 19 km downhill from Kausani, boasts of a 1000 year old temple complex situated on the banks of river Gomti. Children enjoyed feeding the fish here.

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Khecheopalri – The Holy Lake of West Sikkim

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Siliguri to Pelling in West Sikkim is 131 kms and takes approximately 3 hours for straight drive. Needless to mention that the drive is subjected to imponderables like traffic snarl, road repairs and broadening work, tea and meal breaks. As such it is safe to plan approx 4 hours for the drive. Pelling to Khecheopalri is 32 kms and takes about an hour‘s drive along a graveled road. As usual the condition of road from Siliguri to the lake can best be described as “the good, the bad and the ugly”. Last year at a chance meeting a MLA from Jorthang told me that this West Sikkim road is being turned into a four lane highway, insallah.

Road from Siliguri to Sevoke is a smooth broad 2 lane highway (NH 31) that knifes through the neat sevoke Military Cantonment and Sevoke Forest. From Sevoke Bazaar to Coronation Bridge (3 kms) is another smooth, well carpeted road snaking along he mountain curves runing almost parallel to Teesta River. This road is adorned with good highway signs; however, unfortunately this stretch is marred by delays due to railway gate blockage and heavy traffic from/to North East, Dooars, Sikkim and Kalimpong. From Coronation Bridge to Teesta Bridge near Teesta bazar (37km) NH 31is forever in the making and subject to traffic jams & delays caused by repairs and expansion; as such, it can be dusty and slushy depending on the season.

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घुमक्कड़ की दिल्ली : गुरुद्वारा श्री बंगला साहिब

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भवन के बाहर आकर पंक्ति में हलुवा का प्रशादा लिया. प्रांगण में कुछ देर शांतचित्त होकर बैठे रहने के बाद प्रशादा ग्रहण किया. गुरुद्वारों में मिलने वाले प्रशाद रूपी हलुवे की विशेषता है कि यह शुद्ध देशी घी से बना होता है और पूरी तरह से घी में तर होता है. हाथ में प्रशादा लेकर खाने के बाद हाथों में देशी घी की सुगंध और चिकनाहट बानी रहती है और स्वाद की तो बात ही क्या ‘गुरु-प्रसाद’ जो है. बच्चों ने भी प्रशादा ग्रहण किया और मेरी बड़ी बेटी भूमिका को इतना पसंद आया कि प्रशादा की लिए दोबारा से लाइन में लग गयी. प्रशादा वितरण करने वाले भगतजी ने सर पर रुमाला न होने की कारण थोड़ा डांटते हुए प्रशादा देने से मना कर दिया और हम दूर से दृश्य देखते रहे.

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Solo Travel, Himachal Tribal Circuit – Lahaul Valley

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During this stretch, a car had a flat tyre in the middle of a stream. The traffic had halted and the passengers of our bus, helped in changing the wheel. We started crawling forward, for being blocked once again by the same car, which was ahead of us. This time the car got stuck in a stream having big boulders. Again the passengers and staff of the bus came to the rescue of the car. Stones were planted strategically in front of the car tyres to provide some friction and the car was literally lifted out of the stream by the passengers.
We descended to the valley at Batal and from there we moved in the valley, literally on the river bed up to Chatru, which was our mid-day meal stop. Trekkers going to Chandratal from Manali or Keylong can stay here overnight. Chatru was the smallest village I have seen in terms of population, with a population of just 20 people. In fact there are no houses here, just 3-4 eateries catering to needs of the entire spectrum of passengers.

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Exploring AP – Nagarjun – Suryalanka – Vijaywada

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My favorite, never take the route back which you take to reach a destination, thus maximizing the opportunity to explore and know more. There are so many places in AP to Visit, so it was a week long plan to make a trip. I had 3 days in spare and almost 700-800km or budget based on my car’s milage. We were longing for Suryalanka beach from long, its the nearest beach from Hyderabad, not much advised in summer but still a beach is my attraction. We listed down, bora caves, bellum caves, warrangal, vijaywada, srisailam, nagarjun sagar, suryalanka, vishakhapatnam and many more. Finally, friday afternoon I decided for Srisailam, a piligrimage with just 200 odd km away from my home in Hyderabad. So, I texted my wife and my brother in law (he was on a short visit to our place) that pack your bags we are going to “Suryalanka”… that was an inadvertent mistake. Which I did not realize until I reached home from office. I was surprised to know that my family was apparently happy to know that we are going ot Suryalanka. I spoiled their excitement admitting the mistake.

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Solo Travel, Himachal Tribal Circuit – Spiti Valley

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Next morning brought a very pleasant surprise. In the morning, I was having tea in the hotel balcony, clicking pictures of the serenity of Spiti valley. One youngster arrived in the compound of the hotel on a bike. It took me a while to recognize that he was one of the two boys from Mumbai whom I had met three days ago at the time of land slide traffic hold up near Karcham. Thus far, I was thinking that the bikers must have turned back from Nako village, where the road was totally destroyed. I was curious to know, how they had crossed that stretch. He [Alok} informed me that when they reached Nako village, being a Sunday, there was no BRO labor at Nako. So, they took a night halt in Nako village and next morning, with the help of BRO labor, they lifted their bikes across the steel girder. Hats off to these adventurous souls.

In Kaza also, I had to hire a car for visiting Key monastery and Kibber village [highest altitude village in the world- accessible by road}. In these valleys, government buses to remote villages go in the evening and return early next morning. Thus, 4-5 hour trip by car would take two days by public transport. We went about 7 kms. on the highway towards Manali and then took a right turn uphill for Kye monastery. It is an old monastery some 15 kms. from Kaza and the uphill road is good. But this monastery is not considered as important as Tabo and Dhankar monasteries by the Buddhists. The monastery is in much better shape, compared to the Dhankar monastery.

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