Roadtrip Day 42,43 : Rest day in Rampur, Rampur to Solan via Shimla [Apr 19,20 2021]
The day I decided to halt the trip & turned back towards Chandigarh. Also the day of coldest ride in the entire trip which I had to brave, fairly unprepared.
I had pretty faint memories of my rest day in Rampur. The previous night, I had planned to leave the guest house / dormitory I was staying & I was contemplating between going to Reckong Peo or Chitkul (both are in Kinnaur district).
I got up early & I remember having good vibes at the place. I had not got a chance to write blog posts in my previous stay in Jibhi, so I was backlogging a bit. I decided to spend my morning writing post. I think I also became a little lazy & thought of taking a rest day in Rampur & proceed the next day. Little I knew that how the later part of my day is going to change my decision to proceed further & I will decide to halt my trip (maybe for good).
Below is how the scene looked from my window.
After writing all pending blogs till like 9 AM, I went to the hotel nearby for tea. I do not remember when it happened, but my friend Amit Chouksey called me. Amit is the same guy whom I had mentioned in my opening post (he helped prepare my bike for the trip). I knew Amit since long & we both had done Laddakh bike trip together. Amit suggested that I should probably halt the ride for time being. While a lot of folks were suggesting me to end the ride & go home, I felt that they were a bit too overcautious. But when Amit said it, I actually gave it a serious thought.
I remember going out for some shopping in afternoon (I had forgotton my thermos on the way to Jibhi so I needed one). But I somehow did not decide to buy. My calling had changed by afternoon & I had decided to end my trip & return back.
In afternoon, one person in the dorm told me about Sharada Dhaba slightly ahead (away from Rampur) & I went there for lunch. I had long conversation with the owner of the place. She was from Nepal & had been running the Dhaba for long. It was probably not the cleanest Dhaba but the food was pretty good. Wont recommend the place for families but worth a shot for folks traveling on low budget.
I called my wife & told her about my decision to return back. She was elated (well that was expected). I figured that there were Covid test rules that were enforced by airlines & if I take flight from Chandigarh to Bangalore, I would need to carry a negative test. I decide to head to Dehradun instead & take a flight from there. Amit introduced me to one of his friend in Dehradun (I do not remember his name now) & I decided to park my bike at his place & continue with my journey, once things settled a bit.
The distance to Dehradun from Rampur was around 277 kms. For a leisure rider like me, doing that kind of distance in hills, even in 2 days, was a challenge.
I decided not to book my flight & do it when I am closer to Dehradun. I decided to halt at a village called Tiuni. I inquired about the road & most folks said, it is bad. But well, I wasn’t really disheartened to hear that.
I started early the next day. While leaving, I clicked pic with the owner of the dormitory.
I had put a status on my Whatsapp asking folks if anybody had taken a flight recently to Bangalore from Chandigarh. I got pinged by a friend Ajay & he told that one of his friend took a flight & did not require to submit the Covid certificate. She was made to go through the test in Bangalore airport. I got this information next day morning & I immediately changed my plan to head to Chandigarh, as it was closer & I had close friends there.
I remember stopping on the way while riding & booking flight tickets while my phone was in the holder itself. When my wife called to check, I told her that I had booked the ticket & she was surprised as to how I did while riding my bike :).
I also stopped at the Bushahari tea stall where I had stopped while reaching Rampur. I noticed something interesting. Polythene filled with water were hung from the ceiling & when I curiously asked him the reason, he said that it keeps flies at bay.
On the way back, I passed this hotel Mahesh Regency which I had inquired about stay while I had reached Rampur. They were willing to give a room for Rs 700. It looked like a pretty decent one & I would recommend staying here if you are with family (or you aim for a comfortable stay).
I also remember meeting a guy & a girl who were pushing a punctured bike . I figured that they would probably need help & stopped to help them. I realized that they were either not looking for help, or were not pleasantly surprised to see me (guess they thought that someone is trying to help them in lieu of some money). I realized it in like 15 sec conversation with them & figured its best to not scare them anymore :). I also thought that how preconvceived notions & some deep rooted fears make people miss out on some good experience (timely help in this case as I was willing to help them take out the tire with my tools & ride to the nearest puncture shop). Anyway, I continued with my ride.
The road to the point where Tirthan valley road meets Shimla road, was familiar to me. I had to take a left & started ascending. I realized I was going towards Narkanda. The road was pretty good & scenic. I captured multiple pics on the way before reaching Narkanda.
You could see in the pics that the weather was becoming gloomy & I was expecting rains to start anytime. But it did not happen till I crossed Narkanda.
When I reached Narkanda, I was greeted with very mild snowfall. It took me some time to figure out it is the snow which is falling. Narkanda was a small town & the market was on the main road itself. I stopped there to have tea. It wasn’t great but I just needed an excuse to ‘abosrb’ this small town :).
I crossed Narkanda & soon it started to rain. I had already wore my rain gear so it wasn’t really an unpleasant surprise.
But what caught me off-guard, was the wind-chill. It has become seriously cold & I paid price of being under prepared. I wasn’t wearing thermals & soon I was shivering. The rain made it super hard for me to stop & change. Plus, who is going to open up stuff ! So I just decided to keep riding in the rain hoping it would subside soon.
For riding for close to an hour, I decided to take a break on a roadside dhaba. I dont remember if I was hungry, but anything for the sake of a break :) .
I do remember having some decent length conversation with the owner of the dhaba. It started when I saw an Amazon courier guy doing delivery & I was suprised if the ‘makeshift looking’ dhaba actually has a recognized address. Apparently, the dhaba owner did not take my ‘lack of knowledge’ in a sporty way & it probably hurted his ego. But I guess rest of our conversation was pretty decent.
The Amazon courier guy was also taking a break with a tea. I noticed it was pretty cold & he was riding his motorbike without gloves. He was going downhill (towards Shimla) as well & I offered him one of my spare gloves & told him that I can collect it back from him downhill, but he politely refused saying he is used to the chill weather :).
I was a bit worried about my clothes getting wet but I knew fairly well that I wont be needing any warm clothes once I reach Solan. So I just decided to acknowledge & park my fear :). Unlike my stop at Bali Chowk prior to Jibhi, I did not want to take the unnecessary (& in-fact more damaging than benefitting) hassle of finding a shaded area to park my bike to prevent my bags & clothes getting wet.
I resumed my ride after like half an hour as it did not feel like the rain is going to subside anytime soon. I do remember asking dhaba folks as to how long I could expect the rain & they did tell me a town downhill, but I do not remember the name of the place anymore.
I reached the tunnel in Shimla at around 4 PM & soon was riding through a dense market. I was compelled to stop my vehicle to check out the market but the road looked narrow & the ubiquitious ‘cops’ on the road made me decide not to stop anywhere on the road.
I did happen to stop at a place where the road was slightly wide & took the pic below.
I had a very different perception of Shimla. I thought it to be overcrowded & overhyped tourist destination. But I was in for a surprise. Shimla actually feels pretty nice although there is no doubt that it is over-crowded. It was a weekend & I saw a lot of cops on the street.
Soon I decided to ditch the google map route & explore more of the city. It turned out to be a bad decision as 1. I could not find a place to park my bike 2. cops stopped & fined me for the fog lamps. Apparently, it is illegal to put extra fittings on your vehicle & there is a category of offence which mentions extra light fitment on the bike. I did get into a verbal spat with the officers explaining why I need extra lights but soon realized that they are just going by the books. The cop said something about ‘compounding’ the challan which I dint understood. He said there is an option to pay it online/later & I just decided to resume my ride & not to worry about paying the fine on the spot.
I wasn’t feeling very great about Shimla anymore & decided to just leave the city & resume my ride towards Solan. Shortly after resuming ride, I stopped to see the famous toy train station. Someone came over & started having conversation with me. I don’t remember his name, but he was from Chennai & was curious to see a KA number vehicle. He had taken the train from Kalka in the morning & slated to take the return train in the evening. He insisted that I should see the station from inside & I gave in.
Soon we were walking on the station. He made me pose to take pics & I awakwardly did put up a few poses :).
At around 6:10 PM, the man suddenly disappeared. Looks like he was trying to trace his bag which he seemed to have left in the waiting room & was unable to find it. I tried calling him but to no avail. I waited for him for like 5 min, looked around & then decided to just leave the place.
It had become semi dark & I started to ride towards Solan. There was some nice views on the way till it became fully dark. The road was nice & all downhill.
I stopped somewhere before Solan (dont remember the city name) intrigued by ‘Besan Barfi’ name written at multiple shops. I decided to buy like 250 gms as those barfis had sufficiently piqued my interest. I ate one & it was yum. Soon I ate 2-3 & it was hard to stop. But then, I decided to save a few for my wife back home.
I also crossed Mohan Meakin factory just before entering Solan. Being an Old Monk fan, the place is no less than a pilgrim for me :). So I took a few pics.
While in Shimla, I had taken a break & had looked up cheap accommodations in Solan. I came across Dashmesh Guest House & had called the owner (I think I located its number from Justdial as it was not on google maps). He offered a fairly cheap deal to me (I guess Rs 300 for a night) & I decided to head over there as the reviews were decent on Google Maps.
It did not turn out to be that great a place. The pictures were a bit decieving plus it is located inside a building felt pretty old & unmaintained. It was 9 PM by the time I reached & I just decided to stay for a night there.
This is how the room looked
While the walls had wooden finish, it was cemented floor. That is when I realized how ‘deceivingly’ the pics uploaded covers ceiling & walls only. Having said that, for Rs 300, it was a decent deal IMO.
I went out for a meal in a nearby restaurant after looking it up on google maps & called it a day. I do remember passing my a brewery but then I was not allowed to go in as it was 10:30 PM & it was closed :).
The plan for next day was to wake up early, reach Chandigarh, park my bike at my friend’s place & catch the flight to Bangalore. I do not remember when I got my flight ticket done but I remember I had booked afternoon flight. I also figured that I would be passing by Kasauli. I decided that if I happen to have time, I would take the detour & explore Kasauli. I remember the name of the place from the movie ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ . It is where Akshay Khanna goes to Kasauli for a work break or something when Saif comes to his place looking for him. I thought it would be worthwhile to relive those ‘younger’ days while riding through Kasauli. With the thoughts, I retired to bed.