Written by - Ganesh Murthy
Chandigarh, the capital
of both Punjab and Haryana in north India, is the best planned city in India.
After a visit to Chandigarh one begins to wonder when other cities in India
would become like it – like how the shops and residential areas are far from the
main roads with service lanes, pavements and lawns spread in between them, the
green cover for the roads in the form of trees by the side of roads, a Maruti
Suzuki Gypsy with armed cops at every sector chowk and the best part – whatever
time of day, even during the rush hours, traffic keeps moving and there is
never a jam as the roads have minimum two or three lanes and even road
discipline is better. All these things I happened to notice during my travel to
Shimla via Chandigarh. It serves as a getaway city when one wants to travel to
Shimla or other places in Himachal Pradesh.
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| En
route to Chail, a hot cuppa and pose time for the Himalayan ! |
The plan was
to go on a bike trip to Shimla, as my college friend Anbu came to visit me in
Jalandhar from Jaipur during Christmas’16. He hadn’t visited Himachal and this
gave me another excuse to visit the enthralling state. We
headed to Chandigarh in the evening to spend the night there and head to Shimla
in the morning. The bus ride from Jalandhar to Chandigarh is 153 Kms. The three
hour journey went in a flash as we had a lot of catching up to do as I hadn’t
seen him since college.
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| En route to Chail |
The next morning, we
headed to the bike rental Rana Cabs Pvt ltd in Chandigarh, where we booked for
a Royal Enfield Thunderbird for the ride earlier through phone. After
completing the formalities, we were shown the bike. I was excited. I had never
travelled to Himachal in bike and that too in a Thunderbird 350. So imagine my
excitement when a bloke in a 410 cc RE Himalayan stops right before the rental
office citing a silly “it’s too cold to ride up there dude”, reason and gives
the keys to the bike rental. And so the bike changed from Thunderbird to
Himalayan in the next five minutes. The dude again told about riding in the
cold weather and to take cab to which I hurriedly replied was “yeah, ok thanks
dude, we’ll take it from here”.
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| The
entire route from Chail to Kufri presented this sort of scenery |
The RE Himalayan stands
out of the crowd, no doubt. The design is a distinct one with the touring
abilities kept in mind. The tall stance gives a commanding view of the road
ahead. The high rise visor also provides protection from the wind blast above
speeds of 80 Kmph in the highways. The exhaust note is a throaty growl which
has the ability to turn heads where ever it goes. The seats are comfy enough
and the rear monoshock is a first in a RE. Navigating in and out of Chandigarh
is very simple with the city neatly divided in sectors and becomes much simpler
when Google maps show the fastest route out. The Himalayan feels firm footed
and speeds between 80 and 110 kmph are where the Himalayan feels happiest on
the highways.
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| Himalayan never fails to excite! |
The maps showed heavy
traffic in the usual route to Shimla via Shogi, so we decided to go via Chail,
which is a longer route but it had least or no traffic at all during the entre
ride. The route also has a narrow road with full pine and eucalyptus trees on
the side of the mountainous road. This deserted route gave us the chance to
stretch the Himalayan’s legs and it was an absolute joy to attack the corners
in the narrow roads. Once we reached Chail at around 4 pm, we decided to head
for Kufri for the night, which was the best decision we made on spot instead of
going to Shimla. Just before 6 or 7 kms before Kufri, we spotted ice on
roadside and as we neared Kufri it was snow all around and the temperature
dropped suddenly and I could feel cold creeping through my gloves. As it was
holiday time, we were afraid that we wouldn’t get a decent stay considering we
just packed our backpacks without any plans to stay at specific hotels. Luckily
for us we found a comfortable stay at the Kufri holiday resort in Kufri. The
location and view from the hotel was simply captivating. The night temperatures
reached 1 – 2°C at Kufri.
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| It snowed just a day before we reached |
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| Kufri Holiday Resort |
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| View from our cottage |
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| Sunset in Kufri |
The Himalayan was a
blast in the hills. The bike pushes you to ride harder and there was an ease of
leaning it while cornering hard, but due to the bigger front wheels and long
front suspension the bike felt uneasy to handle sudden inputs in direction
changes. The able chassis of the bike meant excellent handling and while in
certain roads cars were lined up on roads due to broken tarmac the Himalayan
felt at home handling some off road situations with aplomb, tackling broken
roads with ease.
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| En route to Kasauli |
The next day we rode to
Shimla from Kufri, which is a 17 km ride downhill. The capital city was so
crowded with holiday goers, that we decided to skip visiting the famous Mall
road, as we had to park the brand new rented bike some 1 Km away in the
parking. Disappointed, we headed downhill slowly navigating in the bumper to
bumper traffic. As we passed Solan downhill we saw a signboard with Kasauli
showing 13 kms by taking a detour to the right. I have heard about this quaint
little hill station and I wanted to visit this as we still had a good 3 – 4 hrs
before we could ride down before dusk. The 13 km stretch has narrow roads and
it’s better to ride slowly as the roads also weren’t that great until the last
4 kms or so. Kasauli has its own charm, and it’s a total contrast to the busy
town of Shimla. I recommend spending time in Kasauli and see Kufri, Chail and
give Shimla a miss unless you are serious about seeing the Mall road in Shimla
or experience the toy train which runs between Kalka and Shimla.
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| Church in Kasauli |
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A
memorial dedicated to the hockey legend Major Dhyanchand in Kasauli
|
|
After some exploring and
having lunch we rode down from Kasauli at around 4 p.m and made it to
Chandigarh before 6 p.m. We rode a total of 340 Kms in two days from Chandigarh
and back. The highlight of this entire trip was no doubt riding the RE
Himalayan in the hills, the scenic places of Chail, Kufri on day one and the
totally unexpected surprise in the form of Kasauli on day two. As a whole 2016
gave me a chance to visit three captivating hill stations in Himachal Pradesh -
Manali, Dharamsala and finally Shimla. The year couldn’t have ended in a better
way with a trip to Himachal with my college buddy as I was moving out of Punjab
the next week for a new job in Pune, Maharashtra. Still there are many more
surprises left to explore in the majestic Himalayan region, all in good time to
come. But for now the misty hill stations in Maharashtra and the white sandy
beaches of Goa await... :D
(Writer was advised to wear full riding gear)
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These pictures are overwhelming! Absolutely stunning they caught my eye at once. I always wanted to visit himalayas amd tge nearby areas and you just made me more fond of it
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