Girlie Road trip Day 8 Rampur Kufri Simla
Rampur is one of the old commercial. Hubs along the Summer valley. And used to be the capital of the Bushehar State.
We got up to superb views of the rising sun first making the tips of the mountain seem as if on fire with an orange glow…and then slowly lighting up the rest of the mountain sides. Nature’s canvas is the best portrait.!
Our energetic group decided to go to the river bed, which seemed so near but was really quite far. I wore a skirt thinking this was a river visit, but our group ended up doing what we had not yet done on this trip…it was time for a proper trek!
We got down a long flight of steps, then stumbled our way through narrow paths, trying to avoid the stinging nettle leaves, which had injured two of out friends last night.
We came to the end of the shrubs and the beginning of the rocks, and this was actually more slippery and scary than it looked. While some brave friends managed to cross the rocks and reach a part of the gushing waters of the Sutlej river, I had enough of the smooth rocky experience and asked for help to get pulled back to the grass and I then preferred to click photos from a distance.
And then a local women came like angel to guide us in the wilderness. She took us through another simple path where we could easily walk on the rocks and get into very close proximity near the flowing river. As I sat alone with the five elements of the nature- the sun, sky, earth, water and fresh air, it seemed as if time has stopped still, till the moment was disturbed again by my camera itch. Forgive me…such moments have to be captured for posterity!
Our local woman also became an unofficial guide, she explained the number of fruit trees around us, bearing plums, pears, apricots, limes etc which we would probably never have noticed otherwise. We also had the pleasure to see the light white fluffy dandelions and we did not have the heart to blow away on these delicate beauties.
Finally it was time to trek up again and I was pleased with myself for giving a good morning exercise regime! After a sumptuous and hot buffet breakfast, it was time for another long shower within 14 hours, this seemed like a luxury compared to the days when we managed with just half a bucket of hot water in a day!
We were all set for the last leg of our road trip with our beloved talkative driver whom we called as llamaji but who actually had some other name.
We enjoyed the changing mountain scenery and I clicked many lovely pictures from my vantage front row seat. Signs of commercialization were all across the highway, still this did not diminish the impact of the stunning views of the mighty Himalayan region.
At one spot, I even captured a scenic picture with an unexplained smoky apparition in the background, just another of the unexplained mysteries of this trip!
Lunch was just ahead of another hill station called Kufri where I got scared when am army of monkeys stared angrily at me from the hotel roof. I just had to visit a small local Shiva and Devi temple, one of the many holy spots that adorn this region.
We had one final photo with our two trusted drivers, who drove us safely from. Simla one week ago and brought us and our luggage safely back to Simla one week later.
Simla seemed extremely crowded over the Easter weekend and again we went round and round in circles searching for our hotel. We then realised that there was no direct bus access to the hotel, we had to park on the main road and hire porters to carry our heavy suitcases down the steps to the hotel and up the steps again to our rooms,
And what terrible rooms we got initially. We were greeted by the sight of scary looking monkeys outside the window, the cleanliness standards were way pathetic than what was shown on their internet site. Another lesson learnt was not to change last minute bookings and not to blindly trust what is shown on the net.
After a lot of discussions, we managed to pay extra for much better rooms on the higher floor, with big mirrors above every circular bed, there is a first time for every kind of weird experience in this trip.
It was time to explore Simla by night. We had a long walk up and down the cart road to the base of the public lift. After waiting in the long line we finally took 2 lifts to reach the famous mall road of Simla.
The choice of eateries, boutiques, streetwares, desert stations, colourful displays, well lit up British style buildings was something to gaze about at every corner. After a lot of indecision, we finally went to have local pizza and pasta at La Pina Place..this was a welcome change from the ‘roti sabji dal chawal’ menu that we had for the last week at Spiti.
I enjoyed the walk down the steps from the higher level Mall road to the lower level Cart road, but after that I just had to take a cab back to the hotel while the others walked it out.
And we were lucky to get a very friendly local Simla cab driver whose number I took, for future use.
And we ended the night by clicking pictures from all the rooms of different pairs of friends sleeping on the bed below the mirrors, a fun ending to a tiring day!
So in 2018 do notice these simple smiling moments. Have a smiling year!
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