About:
Dr. Bharatkumar Bhate is M.S. General Surgeon (Gold Medalist) by qualification with an experience of 30,000+ operations and is based at Rajkot, Gujarat. He is an avid reader and a passionate writer. In this blog, he shares his travel experiences and creative writings.
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Blog:
I had a desire since long to visit Himachal Pradesh, specifically
Shimla and Manali. It was planned as our honeymoon destination 45 years ago,
but could not be materialized. Those were the days when road and railway
connectivity was very poor. Train booking was difficult than the journey itself
and onward booking of connecting train was done by sending a departmental
telegram by railways. The confirmation was known only after few days. Air
travel was very costly and was beyond the imagination of a middle-class person
like me. People used to get hotel booking only on phone. In those days,
landline phone was charged ₹1.20 for every 3 minutes and trunk call was too
costly. You had to book a trunk call and wait for the operator to connect you
after many hours. STD facility came later thanks to Sam Pitroda, but it was
also very costly.
Today's generation having high speed internet
connectivity is very lucky. They have everything available at their fingertips
and practically at no cost and with no loss of time. My son booked a customised
fantastic tour of Himachal Pradesh for us in no time on broadband internet.
What we do in our tours? Wherever we go, we do not
miss to see popular holy and worship places like Temples, Churches, Mosques, Synagogues
or Gurudwaras. There, as pilgrims, we pray to God for peace of humanity. We
make dips in holy ponds, hot water springs and rivers and earn 'Punya' for
ourselves, our family, and all human beings. We also do not miss to see any
popular sightseeing destination. Here we are joy tourists. We also see forests
and sanctuaries by jeep safari to watch the nature like its plants, animals,
birds and natural scenes. We do not miss to watch beautiful waterfalls. We also
visit engineering marvels like dams, bridges and tunnels and appreciate our
scholars. We also visit museums to learn something new and satisfy our
curiosity. We never miss to visit war museum or 'Samadhi' of our soldiers,
freedom fighters or national heroes and pay homage to their souls. Even at 70,
we behave like fun loving and little adventurous tourists when we do rafting,
paragliding, parasailing, snorkelling, bungy jumping, hot air balloon riding, zorbing,
gliding on snow etc. We love to do horse riding, camel riding, elephant riding
etc. wherever it is available. In this tour, we are going to do Yak riding as a
new experience. I have heard that lion riding is been done somewhere. If
opportunity is available, I will do that also. We have done lot of journeys in
bullock cart and horse cart (तांगा) so far. I loved tram and subway journey in Kolkatta
and in many countries around the world. However, I never enjoyed cycle rickshaw
journey where a poor man uses his muscles and sweats for running his family.
Same is true with ‘palkhi or doli’ climbing of mountain. We love to watch
traditional dances and festivals wherever we go. We had enjoyed Diwali in
Nepal, Goa Carnival in February, mud festival in Europe and cultural dance of
forest inhabitants at two other destinations. Stage show of The French Cancan
dance at Paris and cultural dance at Singapore were exceptionally good. Lastly,
we love to taste local varieties of food.
Two rides of my childhood have become my immortal memory. Once I had done donkey ride. My school friend was a pot maker's son and had 3 donkeys. Me and some of my friends had tried to ride on the donkey. Initially I enjoyed very much, but then I cried when I fell down. Imagine what had happened with me! Everyone was laughing at me and I was crying in agony. Second ride is a common ride for everyone in childhood and that is to sit on their father’s back and ride him like a horse. Every father loves to do it and every son realizes its value only later in life.
Sometimes I feel sorry that I have not learnt trekking and skating. But who knows, I may land on moon someday?
We started our journey on 13 March 2023 from Ahmedabad by flight of Indigo Airlines and landed at Amritsar at 01-35 P.M. We started our sightseeing tour from the airport itself, in a pre-booked taxi to save time.
Normally all tour operators invariably include three tourist spots at Amritsar viz. Golden Temple, Jallianwala Baug and parade at Atari-Wagah border. We had done all these three spots in our previous visit many years ago. Therefore, this time, I had omitted Atari-Wagah parade and instead added two new attractions namely Gobindgarh Fort and Durgiyana Temple. In this tour, we had decided to see Golden Temple at night. Jallianwala Baug has undergone many alterations in 2019 and 'Light and Sound' show was a major attraction for us in this tour.
I had preferred Amritsar as a starting point of our tour because a new and good destination called "KARTARPUR CORRIDOR (Pakistan)" which is very close to Amritsar has been specifically included in my tour package.
I have already stated in my earlier blogs that we had extremely good experience of Travel Triangle portal for making customised holiday packages. This time also we booked our customised tour by an operator offered by Travel Triangle.
Our tour plan was as narrated below.
✓ Flight from Ahmedabad to Amritsar. Start viewing tourist attractions right from airport in a pre-booked taxi.
✓ Start journey very early morning next day from Amritsar to Kartarpur Corridor (Pakistan) and see this beautiful Gurudwara till lunch time. Then drive to Dalhousie.
✓ Dalhousie to Dharamshala.
✓ Dharamshala to Manali. River rafting at Kullu on the way.
✓ Manali to Shimla and see Manikaran on the way.
✓ Shimla to Kalka in Toy train and Kalka to Delhi.
✓ To see Akshardham + few sightseeing places in Delhi which were either newly added or missed in last visit.
✓ Delhi to Rajkot by flight.
Our tour dates from 13 March 2023 to 27 March 2023 amounting to 14 nights in hotel. This is definitely a long and exhaustive tour. But we did not want to miss anything. We have done all these things very nicely and comfortably. We finally returned back to Rajkot from Delhi by flight on 27 March 2023.
My blogs to follow on this tour will give full description with photos and videos clips.
Read my blogs regularly and reciprocate. Also forward them in other groups.
*Dr. Bharatkumar Bhate*
bcbhate@gmail.com