In this blog I will tell you about “Why should you go for any unplanned tour”.
Yes you are reading it correctly, after giving all the information of “how to plan a tour” in my first blog now this is what, I want to tell you. In this post I will share my similar experience with some details of two beautiful hill stations- Barog & Chail, Himachal Pradesh.
Have you ever thought of it? Some of you, may have this kind of experience, but who have not tried this before, please try at least-once. Let me confess that, if you are going with kids/parents, don’t try this, as you cannot afford any mishaps. Any tour with your friends or spouse, you may try this.
First of all, you have to decide which state, do you want to visit and how do you want to go? If you want to travel by bike/car then start early in the morning and go in the desired direction. If you prefer Railway (like me), then book train ticket up to the last station of the route. Then go for it…. Any station you like, drop there. You can make your itinerary instantly if you have mobile network with good coverage and data plan activated on it. Otherwise you can take help of local people while taking a hot sip of tea. Believe me, this feeling of uncertainty will be a real fun. Interact with local people, stay wherever you want to stay, eat local food and travel in any direction in the place.
This tour happened in August, 2013 (So you can also try these places in coming August holiday). I was doing my MBA from Gurgaon. After 5 years of earning and spending, I became jobless in the year for study. Though I was not supposed to spend on things other than study, the travel crazy part of me finally convinced me to visit unknown & unseen places. However the tough boss inside me warned me not to spend much, as there is uncertainty of getting a job. So the target we set is below 5000. That was the most unplanned and economical tour of my life.
As I love to do tour planning, and tried the same before this tour also, but thanks to our course schedule, I did not get enough time to plan all the things except the train tickets. We booked the back & forth ticket between New Delhi and Kalka. We (me & my husband, who was fortunately the batch mate in the course) along with 2 of our friends started the journey from college campus before 2 hours from train schedule time. Those who don’t know the distance between Gurgaon & New Delhi, please note that, in metro it should take max 1 hour time. So we thought that we will reach in time. But unfortunately, the uncertainty played its game and because of some unknown reason of traffic jam, the distance from our college to nearest metro station (10 min distance) took almost 40 mins. We started thinking whether we can reach in time. We became sure about not reaching in time, when Metro also stopped for 20-25 min in between some station for some technical problem. We started thinking the plan B if we missed the train. However “never stop trying” part of us insisted us to run like “Simran” in DDLJ (though “Rahul” was not there in the train to hold our hand) and we got it!
We booked the Non AC ticket to save money, but 5-6 years of Ac train habit made us little uncomfortable to sleep, which further deteriorated by snoring of one of my friend. We reached Kalka in the next day early morning, weather was awesome. But what next!! We were discussing about that when we saw the narrow gauge train, Himalayan Queen standing and calling (whistling) us. We decided to book the ticket for proceed. The speed of the train is not much, but no one is having hurry!! While crossing the station “Barog” we choose to drop there. It is very small station with a clear view of Himalayan range. Weather was awesome.
I will not bore my readers by telling every details of our journey. You can visit and get the full experience of it. The next 3 days, we have walked the area as much as we could, sometime took bus though, we ate fresh fruits from tree, and we took rest whenever and wherever we needed. We visited one temple above the hill (forgot the name), which was awesome. The next destination, we visited was Chail. Other than beautiful climate & peaceful nature, one famous Palace (here shooting of 3 Idiots happened) is there. We came back with lot of good memories.
Please comment & share if you have similar experience of unplanned trip.
“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” – Saint Augustine
Awesome , waiting for your next one
Awesome Di … Amio inspired … Ebar amio likhbo … 🙂
U took me in past..that was unforgettable trip… Nicely narrated..good going..
So nice!! Waiting for the next one….