Dharamshala trip: Departure
You do not even need your fat Lonely Planet to get to know about must-visit places in India. Far before I read anything about Dharamshala, Rishikesh, Pushkar, Amritsar, Jaipur, Jaisalmer etc from my Footprints I got an idea of those as major weekend destinations for Delhi trainees. Simply everyone is heading there. I myself have not been a light-feet traveler these months at all: my travelling experience in India insofar has been limited to the weeding trip in the South and another family type road trip in Uttar Pradesh.
Invited by Lajpat Nagar people (the recent wave of my former flatmates) and inspired by Kanak who has been to Dharamshala 4 times and still was joining this 5th time (even with his injured leg, what a spirit!) – me packed Friday morning so that to be leaving right after my office.
The major momentum of our nine-people group was determination to go. The latter was not backed up with any of booking or reservations though. Friday night, congested traffic in the Old Delhi nearby ISBT, 9 of us getting there from various locations in Delhi, absence of somewhat centralized information desk at the bus station….. all contributed to the nice night we ended up with in Delhi and the belated departure… Wanted to leave at 7 pm, got tickets for 11 pm….
We decided to hang out over a cup of coffee or a pint of beer… Someone naturally though of Connought place as the central-most location for such things and someone else was resourceful enough to suggest metro for getting there. The underground in Delhi deserves a special chapter to be written on… or maybe even some chapters, but for the purpose of the narrative I hope to manage with one passage. The metro covers some parts of central and northern Delhi and but still it would take some 3-4 years before the whole city would be covered. Delhi underground is referred as one of the most modern in the world and this is nothing but true. Astonishingly clean and not-crowded for Delhi, hi-tech, very (or even way too) spacious, all with marble floor that one can playfully slide on…. For 9 Rs each of us gets a sweet soviet-like plastic token to enter the metro…The concept is that you also need this token to leave the underground – u return in at the exit turnstyle…. smart way to decrease plastic waste that is more than abundant in this city. We enter the ultra-modern train and I wonder what is more striking to watch : the super-puper train itself or a crowd of crazy foreigners staring around.
Once reached CP, Oliver and Roel walked us around and showed the office of their well-known to us stone company. Cup of coffee was voted over pint of beer and we are already sitting on the fluffy sofas and taking our time which is plenty. Chatting, taking pictures… as if no Dharamshala would ever happen later this weekend…
Got back to the bus station (ISBT). Despite my expectations the latter appeared OK. Reasonably clean (does not obviously stink), reasonably priced reasonable food (eatable samosas for 3 Rs), reasonably crowded (flow goes quickly, people do not really stay for long except those who manage to sleep in the most amazing places in the most amazing positions), reasonably loud (the most certain way to figure out wherefrom your bus leaves is to listen to stentorian shout of conductors “Shimla, Shimla”, “Dharamshala, Dhramashala”…. In an all .. home sweet home is there and nothing would scare us, Russians who have already been through fire and water….
The bus was not a major surprise either. We opted for the cheapest version – 280 Rs for 12-hour night drive (I still wonder how come…in the sense not all of us were mentally prepared to take up the challenge of travelling by such a vehicle). The seats that were nothing but functionally comfortable. mournful Hindi music that tuned us for a long-long trip. Men who found it more convenient to join three-seat coach with me and Roel rather than jointing the same coach with his two friends…
However unconvincing my “I’m comfortable” sounded as a reply to those wondering… I was… reasonably comfortable… considering the settings… managed to sleep… To be more precise I was sleeping and waking up the whole night in the strive for a better position. There was not much room (literally) for improvement, but hei….
Invited by Lajpat Nagar people (the recent wave of my former flatmates) and inspired by Kanak who has been to Dharamshala 4 times and still was joining this 5th time (even with his injured leg, what a spirit!) – me packed Friday morning so that to be leaving right after my office.
The major momentum of our nine-people group was determination to go. The latter was not backed up with any of booking or reservations though. Friday night, congested traffic in the Old Delhi nearby ISBT, 9 of us getting there from various locations in Delhi, absence of somewhat centralized information desk at the bus station….. all contributed to the nice night we ended up with in Delhi and the belated departure… Wanted to leave at 7 pm, got tickets for 11 pm….
We decided to hang out over a cup of coffee or a pint of beer… Someone naturally though of Connought place as the central-most location for such things and someone else was resourceful enough to suggest metro for getting there. The underground in Delhi deserves a special chapter to be written on… or maybe even some chapters, but for the purpose of the narrative I hope to manage with one passage. The metro covers some parts of central and northern Delhi and but still it would take some 3-4 years before the whole city would be covered. Delhi underground is referred as one of the most modern in the world and this is nothing but true. Astonishingly clean and not-crowded for Delhi, hi-tech, very (or even way too) spacious, all with marble floor that one can playfully slide on…. For 9 Rs each of us gets a sweet soviet-like plastic token to enter the metro…The concept is that you also need this token to leave the underground – u return in at the exit turnstyle…. smart way to decrease plastic waste that is more than abundant in this city. We enter the ultra-modern train and I wonder what is more striking to watch : the super-puper train itself or a crowd of crazy foreigners staring around.
Once reached CP, Oliver and Roel walked us around and showed the office of their well-known to us stone company. Cup of coffee was voted over pint of beer and we are already sitting on the fluffy sofas and taking our time which is plenty. Chatting, taking pictures… as if no Dharamshala would ever happen later this weekend…
Got back to the bus station (ISBT). Despite my expectations the latter appeared OK. Reasonably clean (does not obviously stink), reasonably priced reasonable food (eatable samosas for 3 Rs), reasonably crowded (flow goes quickly, people do not really stay for long except those who manage to sleep in the most amazing places in the most amazing positions), reasonably loud (the most certain way to figure out wherefrom your bus leaves is to listen to stentorian shout of conductors “Shimla, Shimla”, “Dharamshala, Dhramashala”…. In an all .. home sweet home is there and nothing would scare us, Russians who have already been through fire and water….
The bus was not a major surprise either. We opted for the cheapest version – 280 Rs for 12-hour night drive (I still wonder how come…in the sense not all of us were mentally prepared to take up the challenge of travelling by such a vehicle). The seats that were nothing but functionally comfortable. mournful Hindi music that tuned us for a long-long trip. Men who found it more convenient to join three-seat coach with me and Roel rather than jointing the same coach with his two friends…
However unconvincing my “I’m comfortable” sounded as a reply to those wondering… I was… reasonably comfortable… considering the settings… managed to sleep… To be more precise I was sleeping and waking up the whole night in the strive for a better position. There was not much room (literally) for improvement, but hei….
posted by Olga Tikhonova | 8:00 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home