Naldhera and Mall Road

The third day of our trip we decided to visit Naldhera and cover the Mall Road in Shimla in leisure. Naldhera is only 10 km from Mashobra village, which was our base. We decided to not attempt the climb from the road to the peak on our own. We took the mules - one for each of us - along with the guide to take us around the points of interest at Naldhera. First stop was at a clearing in the pine forest where several films have been shot. The climb along the winding path along the side of the mountain was at times scary. A slip would send us 100s of meters down the slope! The guides skillfully directed the mules and we reached hole 7 of the golf course there. The golf course is said to be the highest located in Asia, at about 2200 metres.

After taking some snaps of the golf course, we continued up to the top spot of the peak. From the top of the peak we had a view of Sutlej flowing deep in the valley, probably around 1 - 1.5 k.m. below the spot. We also had a grand view of the Himalayas including the India-China border. Evergreen pine forests and some mountains with different other vegetation, depending on whether it was leeward or windward side slopes were also a grand treat to watch. The climb down by the mule was a little more scary as we were worried that the mules will start to trot and get out of control. Again the guides skillfully maneuvered the animals and helped us reach the road. Another kilometer on the road and we were back at the starting point.

After this adventure, we decided to relax at Mashobra for an hour before heading out to Shimla for the Mall road visit. This time we took the "Lift" to the Mall road and had a slow visit around the shops in the area. After spending a couple of hours, we had our lunch and then continued with shopping at HPMC outlet for Himachal's yummy stuff. We could not get enough of the cleanliness of the city or the orderly behaviour and friendly nature of the people. Tourism is bound to thrive in such a city.

Some of the things that struck us at Shimla are as below. Narrow roads leave very little space for parking. Still people manage to park in areas where it will not cause any inconvenience to others. If city folks park 8 cars in a stretch, we found that in Shimla, in same space, they have managed to park 10 to 12 cars! Innovative constructions for parking cars were also found aplenty. Extensions from the road with minor construction held one car or two. Even a small mistake of pressing the accelerator instead of the brake would take the car hurtling down the side of the mountain - still they have managed to create and use such spaces.

Various buildings seem to flout all norms of construction. Match box like arrangement of buildings after buildings seem to raise a question about the law of the land. At the same time, one can notice that everything is not concentrated into the city. There are enough roads leading all over the place and the houses, buildings, etc., are spread out around the whole area. A view of the whole area at night shows dots of lights all over the mountains and spread out. Most of these places are well connected by road as well & those are decently maintained.

With everything going smoothly in this time of year, we wonder how it will be during peak time. It is likely that it will be much crowded. When asked about parking and driving problems, the folks said that it was not a problem. We don't want to test it - but with the positive approach and good attitude of the people, it may well be true.

Incredible India - Jai Hind.

In and Around Shimla

Jakhoo Temple

One day can be spent in exploring Shimla and its nearby spots. We decided to go by what the tourist cab driver had in mind, with some occassional overrides of our own. First stop was at Jakhoo temple, which is dedicated to Hanumanji. Here we have a 100-foot statue of Hanumanji in Kesar colour, overlooking Shimla city. Managing to go up the steep slopes, which remind us of the steep climb up Mount Washington in New Hampshire, we reached the footsteps to the Jakhoo temple. The big difference in this climb up the road was that we also have hairpin bends here, where even a small car like Maruti 800 or Alto cannot negotiate without a 3-point turn! Skill of the drivers were to the fore, we felt the cool confident nature of theirs as everyone went by respectfully in lane and also crossed other cars going in opposite direction smoothly without a honk, flashing of lights or any other indications of priorities / precedence. A short climb of about 200 steps led us to the giant Hanumanji statue and the temple. Some views of Shimla and Sanjouli were also nice through the dense pine growth all around. There were a lot of monkeys around the complex, but many didn't trouble us (unless people troubled them). At times they do try to scare the devotees to take away the prasaadam.

We then moved a couple of kilometers as the crow flies, but actually took 1 hour to reach the next stop through the serpentine roads to Indian Institute for Advanced Studies. We went through a short tour of the main building, which was also the Rashtrapathi Bhavan till 1960s, with the guide giving us highlights of the events at the building. We learnt the history and current uses of this institute along with the original architecture, furnishings, some historic photos, etc. A trip through the nice garden of the institute was enjoyable as we saw nature's ideas for colour combinations, which are very attractive and could give a good guide to modern garment industry.

Garment Industry - pick your natural combinations...

From the same parking area, we could walk across to the Himalayan Bird park. This is a small park in about 4000 sq feet enclosure, which houses pheasants, peacocks and pea fowls. We can get close to the birds and they wander along with the visitors with some swans, jungle fowl, etc., thrown in the mix. One could spend about 10 - 20 minutes here especially admiring the Himalayan Monal Pheasant. Then we skipped the Heritage museum as it was a further trek up the path, which was a little difficult at such high altitudes. Agreed that I am getting old and not in great shape for trekking!

Himalayan Monal Pheasant

We decided to skip the trip to Sankat Mochan temple and Vaishno Devi temple near Shimla. Since we had taken our time in both Jakhu temple and IIAS, we had less time for other places. We went on to Lakkhar Bazaar & the Mall road. Here is the place we were struck by the cleanliness, open spaces, discipline and orderly movements of people, simple efforts to keep the place clean, neat horses available for horse ride, no horse-shit anywhere except in the holding area for the horses, etc. Are we in India, we wondered? Why can't the people in South India be like these folks? Simple individual steps make it an amazing experience for any visitor or resident alike. Should we buy a house in Shimla and move here? We are tempted indeed.

We walked through only a part of the bazaar, reached the ridge, had the customary views of the valleys and mountains, took some photographs of the cloudy day and returned back to our hotel. Though it is all so neat and enjoyable, we still wonder whether summer crowd will be a little too much for us. Our guess is that it would be too much for us, just like a visit to Ooty (Ootacamund; Udhagamandalam) or Kodaikanal. We felt it was enough of an exercise for us all and thought of returning to the Mall road area on a subsequent day to make a complete visit.


Shimla is enough to make us feel - "Incredible India".

River Rafting and Sulphur hot springs

Couple of activities around Shimla, at which one can spend a day, are river rafting upto Thattapani and the natural hot springs at Thattapani. Situated around 55 kilometers away from Shimla, Thattapani is a good tourist spot on the river Sutlej. It takes about an hour and a half to reach the town Sunni by road. One can start the rafting from Sunni or from another town about 6 k.m. further upstream. Though it is referred as white-water rafting, there is not much of white water turbulence on this stretch of the river. Hence anyone and everyone can take part in the rafting.

Landslides along river Sutlej - view from Raft towards upstream part of river

Some land slides visible on one side of the mountain, the deep canyon in which the river Sutlej flows through and the tan colour water from carrying all the silt from upstream makes it quite a beauty to enjoy. Himalayas are a unique beauty not found elsewhere. One wonders whether it could also become like a Grand Canyon in a few thousand years! Since there is no plateau around, this would still be called "Grand valleys" of the world, I guess.

The people operating the rafting trips are quite professional in their approach with very good attention to detail. Even though it is not quite turbulent, they stick to processes to ensure that safety of individuals is not neglected. Taking care of our shoes & socks by taking them off before the rafting trip (and delivering it at the destination of the rafting trip), holding our valuables, cameras, etc., in a rubber dry bag, securing the rowing equipment onto the raft, etc., all carried out methodically by the team was impressive to watch. Later, they encouraged us to jump into the water to take a swim around the raft in the parts of the river where it was quite serene (still waters run deep we are taught - so we were quite reluctant, I guess). The water was quite cold - probably around 5 degrees centigrade. At the end of the trip, before real rough white water starts, we glide to the shores at Thattapani.

Tattapani alighting point - hot and cold indeed

As we alighted, we found that the stones were quite hot, because we had been drenched by the cold water of the Sutlej. We were wondering whether the mid-day sun was the cause, when suddenly we found that even some parts of the sand were very hot after getting constantly drenched by the cold water! How was this possible? The answer is that some of the areas are being heated by the natural hot water springs. It really sent confusing signals to the brain when we moved from 5 degrees centigrade to 50 or 60 degrees sand/pebbles. It was a different feeling and we rushed back into water to avoid getting burns in our feet.

Next we went to the nearby hotel named Hot Spring, where they have small swimming pools which are fed by natural sulphur hot springs. They have lot of boards in Thattapani (meaning hot water, I would guess) that mention many hotels providing the natural sulphur spring pools. We went to the hotel Hot Spring, took an elongated dip in the Sulphur hot springs and then continued on for lunch. There is excellent cooperation between the various teams that we were not asked to pay for anything from river rafting to sulphur spring dip to lunch. Everything was to be billed at our resort only!

Sutlej white water downstream from Tattapani
- real white water but no rafting here

On the way to Thattapani or on the way back, one can take a trip around Naldhera which is home to one of the golf courses in highest location in Asia. A view of the Sutlej, down in the valley, flowing a few hundred metres below our view point, view of the farther mountains near the India-China border, etc., were available when visited on the back of a mule. We decided to skip it and take it up on a subsequent day.

Courtesy and courteousness is seen from all people who provided us with various services. They know how to provide service, how to please customers and keep them in good books. They deserve tips from us, which they don't really insist and don't show their expectations for it either. It seems like "We provide excellent service and income/profits are a bonus" seems to be their motto.

Jai Hind!

Long winding trips by road - part and parcel of Shimla visit

A vacation in Shimla is really an enjoyable treat to oneself and family. We had the experience and it was wonderful. In my previous post, I mentioned the great things about Shimla and its immediate surroundings. The only issue we had was the dizzying trips by car to every place that we had to visit.

View of Sunni town from high up the mountains - on way to Sunni for Rafting

The trip from Chandigarh to Shimla by road is about 120 kilometers, but the trip takes about 3 and half hours on an average day. The reason is that after 15-30 kilometers, winding Ghat roads reduces the average speed of travel. Moreover in lot of spots there is no protection from a slide down into the valley. Hence driving around Shimla is a big challenge. There is no relief of stretches of straight road. The curves are next to each other swinging left and right, which could make people dizzy. Anyone with motion sickness is likely to have problems from a trip of Shimla, unless the drives are spaced out in time. So, prepare for this aspect of Shimla.

Shimla to Tattapani (location for rafting and hot sulphur springs) is about 60 kilometers and takes 2 to 2.5 hours. Narkhanda trip (about 70 kilometers each way) takes about 2.5 - 3 hours. A visit around Shimla and nearby scenic spots is an all day affair with about 40-50 kilometers of road travel, but spend about 4 hours in the car! Any visit to important picnic, tourist spots has to involve hours of driving through winding Ghat roads.

Even return from Shimla to Chandigarh takes about 3 hours in spite of it being downhill. Prepare for this aspect, eat less if you are affected by motion sickness, space out your road trips, etc., if you would like to enjoy a great vacation in this awesome place within India.

Jai Hind!

Shimla - why can't South India be like it?

Things that stand out when one visits Shimla is the clean place and the discipline of individuals. There is no smoking in any public place, including in the open. No spitting allowed and we find that people hold their spit / swallow it (hear some gurgling at times collecting the spit, but not chucked out into any corner). There was not a beggar we could spot. Hence everyone goes about their lives in peace, though troubled occasionally by monkeys. With such narrow roads, people still are always trying to work out the quick way to go past each other and solve the traffic flow. People wait patiently in their own lane and no one jumps the lane to go in front. They avoid jams instead of creating and solving them!

Shimla - Ridge and Mall Road - Cleanliness everywhere

The British architecture in some of the buildings, especially on the ridge near the Mall, along with the open spaces and clean environment makes one think that we are in one of the European cities. There are no plastic bags, paper, trash in any spot. Monkeys are found in most places and probably contribute to people's discipline in not putting trash anywhere/ everywhere. It is extremely clean and well maintained, in spite of the horse rides available (no shit! pun intended). No beggars around to spoil the nice atmosphere. No smoking and no spitting, makes it easier to keep things clean. There are a few smaller roads / shopping areas, where things are a tad unclean, but is still better than most places in India!

People are very courteous and always eager to help or give information. No one is out to take advantage of the ignorance of tourists or visitors. They are quite happy to provide good service and self-assured that the fruits of their service would follow to them naturally. Attention to detail in their own jobs and courtesy to help others, makes them very affable and true human beings.

Road discipline is also amazing. Narrow winding roads all around, with no protection from a slide into the valley, does not deter the drivers from doing the right thing for everyone's good. No one flashes their headlights in any hurry to say "I go first," unlike many parts of India where "I, me, myself first" is the norm. Automatically people move to the side and try to work out the best and quick way to get past each other - even the big vehicles like buses and trucks calmly get past each other in the narrow paths.

Indian Institute for Advance Studies - Shimla

So, why can't rest of India, especially, South India be like Shimla? Amazing personal discipline is the root of this wonderful environment and cooperation. Respect for other individuals, as an equal to themselves, is automatic for them. No spitting or smoking in public spaces, keeping the whole city clean, etc., comes from within. Road discipline is also due to self-discipline and respect for the fellow human being.

Is the good weather for most of spring, summer and autumn (including monsoon), the reason for this level of discipline? Is it the realization that, if one puts the individual ahead of the public, then everything could break down quickly in this hill station? Would it be possible for the South Indian's change their discipline to improve the life for everyone? Is it just the hot weather all year round that leads to irritation and bad social behaviour? People are inclined to work hard and not beg due to their own will power?

Politicians and Bureaucrats don't need to go on foreign trips to see how to improve our own cities. A visit and learning at Shimla is sufficient for people to take as example and improve ourselves. We have an excellent example of community, society and disciplined individuals, right here in North India.

Jai Hind!