This is the story of another trip to mountains with wifey. This one was not planned at all and I had no idea about the places we visited. Infact, I had not even heard of them before we reached there. Even after all this it was an enjoyable trip with interesting sights, people and places. On 12th morning, wifey told me that her parents were going to Shimla to visit family next morning and she wanted us to go too. We were supposed to go there for a long time
but had been unable to do so. As I had 4-5 days free without much work, I said yes. I haven’t been to Shimla since 2007 new year’s eve and wanted to see how the place has fared. While she packed, I worked to finish up some pending work. The process took much longer than expected and I got free only at 4:00 am in the morning. We had to leave at 6 am next morning, so I just lay in bed trying to get a hour of sleep but was unable to get any. Combined with a wedding I had enjoyed a bit too much last night, it was really nice to be very tired yet not being able to sleep. At 5 am, we started getting ready and tying up some loose ends which seemed aplenty.
We got in to the car at just before 7 am when the road was covered with school kids and their buses. Day was a bit hot and humid even then. I don’t like mornings and when you combine it with humidity, heat, noisy kids, traffic and general city ambiance, it’s almost a torture. The drive to our destination through Delhi gets worse when one reaches Majnoo ka Tila area and further. The area looks like a post-apocalyptic wasteland with ugly construction, dust, filth, chaotic traffic and general ugliness all around. The huge mountain of garbage near GT Karnal road with random fires all over the place just completes the life altering experience. Rest of the journey was not as bad, but nothing to talk about till one reaches the mountains. There are some green fields on the way, but the way houses and factories are swallowing up land is depressing.
It remained hot and sunny till we reached Jaabli. By the time we reached there, weather started getting cool and cloudy and we took our first rest stop. Bought some barfi boxes for Shimla family and had something to eat there.
The journey was pleasant from that point as it started raining and weather was much cooler. Passed a few towns on the way with too much construction which is haphazard, looks dangerous and is destroying the soul of mountains. Nothing remarkable happened during rest of the journey till the time we reached the house of our hosts, a 20-25 minutes drive from Shimla.
After exchanging greetings we had a late lunch. Their house has a great view of the hills all around, specially those of Kufri from the terrace. One of the floors of their house is empty and they were thinking of converting that in to a guest house. The views of surrounding hills are great and the place is sufficiently distant from Shimla and major roads which are blocked with traffic very often. Almost everyone is driving a car these days and the roads are just not build for this kind of traffic.
They also own an orchard in Fagu and wanted to have some opinion on how to go about it. We visited that place next day, but that will be covered in next post.
There aren’t many pictures in this post as I took only 10-11 pictures that day.