Day 4 and 5

Day 4 was the Shimla-Manali journey. It wasn't great; we sat in the unfriendly bus all day, lunch at a dhaba was horrible. But we managed to find delicious apples and carrots, bought lots of them for the rest of the journey and found these two cute little puppies on the way:

Inee cute!!

We also got some audio casettes to keep us sane through the rest of the journey, and the only other thing worth remembering was a 3 k.m. long tunnel, where, we were told, the shooting of a bollywood movie called Dhoom 2 took place. We girls were bored enough to think aloud: "Hrithik Roshan was here..".
Anyhow, we did reach Manali, not in time, of course. After dinner, it was time to celebrate, as it was one of the boys' birthday. Chetan's classmates had arranged a surprise for him: a nice huge cake was waiting for 00:00, accompanied by some hungry and constipated people :P. "How sweet.." I thought, a moment too soon. I will never understand birthday bumps. Why do people have to get kicked on their special day. It's so Ouch, and heck, you cant sit anywhere without regretting not having worn pillows instead of pants.

Day 5.
We visited one Hadimba Temple, a little place surrounded by lots of tall trees. Pine trees, I guess. We goofed around there for a bit, climbed a really high and unclimbable-looking rock, got ushered out of the place because it was "getting late", only to wait for everyone to finish shopping for the silliest stuff. I must've spent about an hour screaming Boredom and getting reduced to watching people bungee jump, wait for some wood keychains to be done, throw a ball at a pile of rubbish, yeah ok, it was a game a really smart local made up, and he was doing good business. That's one big turn-off of travelling in groups. It made me want to go off alone and look at shawls and sweaters all by myself.
Finally when seemed like my kids would arrive on their honeymoon any moment, we headed back down to the town, had some lunch, and goofed up a good plan to go river rafting. I seem to be using too many finally's but that's how the day was. Then a Tibetan monastery and some shopping later, we headed back to the hotel.
Some photos:
The temple, with Shruti sitting on the steps:

These are us goofing around. Boy how I wish I had a camera of my own..


At the end of the day, I had a pack of dry figs, a wool dress for Vedant, a sweater for Dad and a cap for me, and a lighter purse. Shopping bites.

Day 3

I dont remember sleeping at all that night. At around 05:30, the bus stopped at a Gurudwara, so people could perform their basic morning ablutions. The morning was extremely cold, and I was sure my gums would freeze after I brushed my teeth! Obviously they didnt.
Anyway, we reached Shimla at 12:00; the 10 hour journey took 15 hours; we would soon get used to the way our driver did his math. The hotel was alright, but taking bath in the cold water was one experience I wont want to repeat, ever. After everyone was clean and fed, we moved on to visit Kufri, located about 20 k.m. away. This included a 2 k.m. ride on a pony! The ponies were very cute, and all of us first thought they were proper horses, till some of the 'proper horses' came gambolling towards us.
A pony ride can get uncomfortable, especially when you have to bend backwards while on a downward slope, and the pony almost jumps to cover most of the slope. My pony was called Toofan, and his master was Prem, a very friendly character who told us about movies that were shot there, how much they earned, the temperatures there, and the fact that it would snow in a couple of days. None of us had seen snow before and were cursing ourselves for our timing.
The pony ride ended midway to the top of the mountain. We got off, and roamed around. marvelling at whatever we saw. Bits of snow here and there, and the Himalayas far away. A setting sun and about 30 contented-looking ponies. Throw in a food stall that sold piping hot Maggi noodles and some shopping. And some typical touristy activity like getting photographed wearing the traditional Manali dress, on a yak wearing a cowboy hat, and spotting the India-China border through a telescope.
Some photos:
Siri, Shilpa, Shruti and me. Hoping we can strike the same pose on top of Mt.Everest some day, and me regretting not getting my jacket along:

Shilpa, Siri and Shruti in the traditional Manali outfit:


The India-China border should be lurking in here:



For me, the highlight of Kufri was the setting sun, which we caught on the pony ride back to the bus. It was breath-taking. Deep red and glowing orange among the pine trees and the faraway mountains. Pity I couldnt capture it on camera; I was too insecure with Toofan acting up and trying to get me to focus on the more boring features like the rocky slope and the awkward angles that your leg could bend to if your pony acted up.
Back at Shimla, we loitered around Mall road, didnt shop(Junaid warned us that it would all be too expensive, which it was not.), had pizzas and burgers for dinner at a Cafe for a change, and headed back to the hotel.
Slumber that night felt like heavenly tonic or amrut, since I hadnt slept for 3 nights in a row. And three cheers to clean teeth before hitting the sack. Yeah well, girls do have issues while travelling. :D

Day 2

Day 2 of the tour started for us at 03:45, when most of our party was awake and waiting to get off at Agra, which was the first destination on our itinerary. I had hardly slept, and could remember the pace of time, having listened to about 40 songs on my iPod, and a couple of kids doing their customary wailing. We got off at Agra at about 06:00, where we were greeted by two grumpy TT's who wanted to see everybody's ID cards, and the knowledge that our luggage was quite heavy indeed. There was some confusion as some students hadn't brought their ID's along, thanks to lack of proper communication. It was all managed well by Chaitanya, the student who managed most of the tour for us, and our tour guide Junaid, a young and tiny looking man with a squeaky voice like that of a meek lady. A fine of Rs.1000 was paid and we were soon aboard the bus, called Himala that would take us through most of our journey. As we went around Agra city, i looked around eagerly at the northernmost part of India i had traveled so far. The people spoke friendly hindi, and it was easy to communicate with them. We stopped in front of a gate labeled West gate, Taj Mahal. It was a bit of a shocker, since the gate looked no better than that of Indira Park back home in Hyderabad. Anyway, our bus stopped there and we were asked to carry our 'hand-baggage' with us and follow the guide. He took us through tiny, sewage-lined lanes which prompted some of the girls to start singing the song 'hum kis gali jaa rahe hain!' and we laughed off the initial shock. We stopped at a decrepit hotel and were asked to freshen up. There was no hot water and not enough time for four of us sharing a room to bathe. We managed somehow and in an hour were served breakfast which consisted of ten quarters of aloo parantha and makhkhan (butter). The looks on our faces told our guide that we weren't all that happy with the arrangements. But he assured us that the hotels at Shimla and Manali would be far better, and we weren't going to stay here anyway. So we were then asked to carry our essentials and leave the rest of the luggage there, which, we were promised, would be deposited in the bus. We then followed our guide to the Taj Mahal which was about a minute away from the hotel, and waited in line to set our eyes on India's contribution to the Seven Wonders of the World.
At first sight, the Taj Mahal promises you a sight that you will surely remember for a long time. You'll surely have seen nothing like it. To me it was like standing in front of a picture, perfectly drawn, and I got to photograph it exactly like all the photos I had seen of the beautiful monument. Here's the photo, notwithstanding my amateurish photographic skills:

In contrast to the cold morning, Agra's afternoon reminded us of summer back home. And it was in this heat that we walked out of the Taj and all the 2 km-long way to Agra Fort.
Tired as we were, it didnt stop us from admiring the beauty of the fort. This was the place where all those Mughal emperors, Akbar, Humayun, Babur, Shah Jehan and everyone else one would usually picture as staring out of one's 6th grade history text books, all lived and ruled over their kingdoms. It was where the stories we had learnt by heart as kids had actually unfolded to create what is called history today. Some realisation.
The four of us, Shruti, Shilpa, Siri and I explored the fort right through the populated entrances to the dark corridors. Surprisingly, no one stopped us, and we didnt get lost. We read the names of each of the structures with interest, but the only name i remember is the Pearl Mosque, which was Shah Jehan's private mosque. And of course, the Diwan-e-Khas which had this huge black marble seat, or it might have been a throne. No doubt each of those kings might have made their own mark on the Fort as the generations went by. Some photos:




After Agra Fort, at around 17:00, we were picked up by Himala ( our bus ) and taken to a dhaba for lunch. The food was pretty good, contrary to our beliefs. I guess that's one difference you wont fail to notice while travelling in north India. You dont get good food in dhabas while travelling in south India.
We were then off to Shimla after lunch. The rest of the day was spent in the bus, except for a stop at a dhaba at 23:30. Initially the night took a fast pace with games and happy talk floating around, but towards day 3, everyone was all cramped and groggy due to lack of sleep.

Industrial Tour

The first 9 days of vacations were F-U-N!!!
I went on an industrial tour with my batchmates from the IT branch. Ironically, there was nothing industrial about it, it was all tour, and thus we behaved like tourists to the T. Man it was FUN!

I simply have to talk about it in detail. I will do so in the course of the following week, and trust me to give full justice to every paisa spent, every sleepless night and every pain in all the places of the anatomy.

I'll start with Day 0, the day before we started on the tour. The date was 27th November, the day after the Mumbai terror attacks started. My family and friends were pensive about the tour and though I was upbeat about it that morning, after a couple of phone calls filled with murky warnings from well-wishers, i was left speculating whether it indeed was a good idea or not. but my friends, having got no such calls, and having planned for this trip for about a month, were sure that they would go. i reached home and started packing anyway, trying my best to ignore all the supposed danger, and managed quite well. my father helped by calling up people to verify whether it was safe to be holidaying at this time, and finally it was decided that i would go, if my best friend Siri was going. So i packed my stuff and left for her house at about 20:30, as i had to be at Secunderabad Railway Station for the train at 06:50 the next morning, and doing so was going to be difficult given that my home was a good half hour away from the place.
Once i arrived, i knew that Siri wasnt sure about the trip too. Her sister and brother-in-law were trying their best to talk her out of it. they finally succeeded, and we were busy informing everyone that we wouldn't be going. back then, i wasnt looking forward to the tour at all so wasn't all that disappointed. after the tedious exercise, we thought we should find out if we would get our money back. It turned out we wouldn't, and we went to bed with that costly prick on our minds.

Day 1
For Siri and me, the day started at 00:00. We were wide awake and talking stuff trying to reassure each other that the decision that had been made was the right one. I couldn't help but think in terms of the money that was involved. after a lot of dilly-dallying about the pros and cons of going and not going, we finally settled on a fresher decision. We wanted to go. So now we had to wait for 4:00 when we could wake Siri's mom to inform her that we really wanted to go, given the feeble chance of anything happening to us during the trip and the money that we would lose if we opted out of it. She gave in, and we were back to packing and plotting. We reached the station at 06:20. The girls in the IT 4/4 class are a fun bunch, I was a part of the fun party by noon, and we played games and shared silly ghost stories and found humor in the silliest of things. The joy was complemented by the fact that someone i had disappointed earlier that morning didn't think i was all that bad after all, so i retired with a mixed sense of relief and the kid of tiredness that too much mirth brings you.