Personal Time Off :Kullu - Manali - Rohtang Pass - Hampta - Solang Valley : Friend’s reunion hangout Trip

There was never a chance to meet my best friends of school and college life due our profession work. We three were put at different states of India. Finally we three moved to Namma Bengaluru which our hometown. And again, due to our busy work schedule we were not able to meet up. We were like God!! Why we are in this IT field no time even to hang out with friends.

We just decided will go for a holiday for 5 days. Wow, we got 5 days but where to go? While surfing over internet got so many places to visit from South India to north India. As we covered most of the places in South India, decided to go to north India and now comes which place in the month of November. Selecting the Place itself big deal for everyone. We wanted to cover some good place within budget.

Finally we decide to go to Manali, but best time to visit Manali is from December during snow fall. That’s okay man lets visit now for a change and we booked package for 3days through travel agency and also to and fro flights to Delhi from Bangalore. Since we planned for 5 days trip we thought of visiting few places in Delhi on first day and last day and we managed to book flight tickets also based on our plan.

About Bharat Booking:

Bharat Booking is a holiday planner who provides budget travel packages within India. When we booked there service was within India, now they are providing International holiday packages too. It was the best trip arrangement by them in budget price. Service was too good, there pointers were on time. We had good time in Manali due to them. Thank you Bharat Booking.

Most of my friends were like, oh! you people booked everything and you are all set to go.Good, Enjoy.  We were like, what? How can we accept we are all set to go for a trip, that too for Manali without Shopping? People said, don’t but anything here simply you have to carry everything better to buy everything in Manali. You will get everything in cheap price. But we didn’t listen to them we purchased jacket, gloves, monkey cap and other stuff which we are in need. My advice is to carry jacket before you reach Manali, because on the way in the bus itself we will feel the cold and it is must to wear jacket once we get down from the bus.

Itinerary

Day 1:

Reached Delhi airport around 10:30am. Collected our baggage and started towards Delhi city. Since Delhi has best metro connectivity over the city we decided to travel through metro. There are many shuttle at airport which takes us to nearby metro station. We took metro train to New Delhi station.

After reaching New Delhi station we placed all our bags in clock room and went to explore Delhi. One can visit all places in Delhi using Metro line maps. We did same thing. We finished our lunch near to New Delhi Metro station and took metro train to station which is near to India Gate. Spend enough time at India Gate and went back to NEW Delhi station through metro to collect our bags and reache RK.Ashram marg at 5PM which was our Delhi-Manali Volvo pick up point.

Day 2:

On the way to Manali we just experienced cool breeze which took away all stress and tiredness away.Early morning we reached Manali, Bharat Booking representative welcomed us with warm smile, oh! Nope with cold smile and transferred us to Adarsh Annexe hotel which we selected in our package option.

After fresh up, proceeded to visit Hadimba Devi Temple, Vashisht Hot springs Tibetans Monastery. We spent enough time in all these places and we were set free to explore Mall road in Manali which is good place for shopping. Then we went back to room which is just back side of the mall road.

About Adarsh Annexe hotel:

It is situated in the middle of the city, situated back street of Mall road. Well furnished Rooms which were clean and hygienic. Service provided was too good. Yummy and tasty food provided(Breakfast and Dinner).  We are not aware of tariff as we went in package.

Day 3:

Since we went in off season, we were said like there will be no snow in the Rohtang Pass . Even though there will not be snow its worth to visit the place. We were bit unhappy due to no snow but when we reached Rotand Pass we were surprised to see snow. When we asked how come there is snow with the shop keepers they said just yesterday night snow fall happened you people are lucky they added. We felt yes yes we are lucky to experience snow in off season. We played in snow, did small trek to nearby mountain and visited frozen lake. Enjoyed well and started back to room.

Information collected: National Green Tribunal allows only limited vehicle to Rohtang pass per day. Rohtang pass will be on subject to availability of permit or weather conditions. Rohtang is closed on every Tuesday.

After few min we started to explore manali ourselves. We went to Van Vihar which is situated in mall road. Later we went for shopping and also ate momos , hot Jamun,ice cream , chats, bread pakoda , pani poori etc which were different from what we get in other places. One must taste very tasty and yummy hot jamun and momos(sold by old lady) at mall road.

Day 4:

After breakfast, we started towards Kullu and our first point was at Beas river to enjoy thrilling River Rafting. Later visited some of the places in the Kullu and returned back to room and again we started to explore places in Manali as we had enough time.

Day 5:

It’s a check out day and our return bus was at 5Pm we thought to explore few more places near to manali so we hired same cab which was arranged by Bharat Booking for Rs.2100 to visit Hampta and Solang Valley. Morning around 9PM we vacated our room and went to Hampta which we felt was best experience. It’s an awesome and best place for trekkers. We spent enough time in the place and started to solang valley. Since it was off season there was no snow in the solang valley which spoiled the beauty of the valley. We just spend half an hour in the valley and returned to Volvo point to catch our return bus.

Day 6:

Early morning around 5am we reached Delhi near to RK Ashram Marg. We took hotel in same area as our return flight was at 11pm. We had full day to visit few more places in Delhi. After fresh up, again we started our journey through Metro. We visited Akshardham, Qutub Minar, Red Fort and Chandni Chowk and returned to room. After check out and finished our dinner started towards Delhi airport via Metro to board return flight to Bengaluru.

Personal Time Off: Pondicherry – A long awaited vacation and Ideal hangout place for all kind of travellers

 We planned Pondicherry for NEW YEAR 2017 unfortunately didn’t get proper resort even though we enquired two months before. We called many resorts especially beach view resorts but most of them were booked till 2nd  week of January. We decided to book beach resort for 3rd weekend having early check-in and late check-out. Finally, Nature loft beach resort Pondicherry which offered early check –in and late-check out of course with half a day extra pay.

Wow such a cool website with beautiful images of rooms and also reasonable price. If a person looks at the website, images posted in the website and start interaction with the resort staff over phone; next minute will transfer advance amount for booking and yes, we did the same. During our discussion we asked about the negative reviews about the resort. He responded saying, “No madam those images were taken during flood now we have renovated everything and the same images are posted in our website”.  Finally we manage to book Sea view room having triple occupancy costing 4500 for 3 people for 1 night with early check in and late checkout paying half of the amount Rs.2250/.

Few images from Nature loft beach resort Pondicherry website

We booked train ticket in 16573/Yesvantpur-Puducherry Weekly Express and waited for our Journey. Meantime we travelled few other places in Karnataka and finally the day arrived with a problem. It’s nothing but Jallikattu protest all over Tamil Nadu. We called the resort and enquire about the situation they said that no issues we can travel there is no violence its a silent protest. We asked some of our friends from Tamil Nadu thinking lets cancel the trip due to the issue. Even friends said ‘No problem girls, you people can travel without fear’ which gave us confidence to start our Journey.

On 20^th January, we started fom Electronic city around 5:30pm using public transport for 9:00PM train as we know very well about Bengaluru traffic we thought 3hours is enough to reach Yeshwathpur then half an hour we can walk to platform enquiring about our train details. Unfortunately it’s our bad day with heavy traffic; After 1hour 30minutes of our Journey we just reached Forum which is far away from Yeshwanthpur. Definitely we can’t reach if we go by bus so we took cab from shanthinagar and we informed driver that we have to reach Yeshwanthpur before 9:00pm so that we won’t miss our train. He gave confidence that we can reach no problem. We were able to reach station around 9:15pm for 9:00pm train.We rushed to the platform and still train didn’t start and came to know that train was half an hour late.  Finally we boarded train and the train started in few min. 

 As usual we started to chit chat till late night and took our berth to sleep, around 2am people were started to get down from the train. We wake up due to the noise and enquired what happened and where are we. People in our compartment said that ‘we are in Salem Junction, due to Jallikattu issue some people not letting train to move in particular route so better get down and take bus to reach Pondicherry else go back to Bengaluru’. We didn’t know what to do then we decided to stay in the train till morning later will decide our next move. There were also some people along with us. After sometime Travelling Ticket Examiner crossed our compartment we stopped him and asked whether train goes to Pondicherry or we should get down here. He said ‘No, don’t get down the train will start in some time via new route’.

We were supposed to reach Pondicherry Junction by 7:00am but we reached around 11:30am on 21^st January 2017. We booked OLA cab to Nature loft beach resort it took half an hour to reach the resort. Upon reaching there, Google map showed destination reached but we were not able to find the place. Resort was not visible, sea was also not visible we asked the driver is it the exact place he said yes it’s the same and pointed to one building saying that as the resort we are looking for. We were totally disappointed looking at the resort, it was completely opposite to the images provided in the website. We didn’t want to stay there but we were already late and have only one and half day to explore Pondicherry so decided to stay in the independent sea facing room near the beach. We checked the room it was not that much clean so asked them to clean again meantime we went to the beach.

Nature loft beach resort, Pondicherry 

The serenity beach view made us to forget the disappointment caused by the resort. Beach’s blue water and beautiful waves attracts everyone. This place is also surf’s hub in Pondicherry. It’s a perfect place for the surf’s who are interested to do surfing in Bay of Bengal. We spent around 2 hours in the beach giving enough time to clean our room. We visited this beach again on 22^nd morning to visit sun rise, since it was cloudy we didn’t experienced it. Beach was not crowded is the best thing about the place. 

Serenity beach

Auroville is meant to be a universal town where men and women from all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony, above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realize human unity.In the middle of the town is the Matrimandir. Matrimandir is equipped with a solar power plant and is surrounded by gardens. When there is no sun or after the sunset, the sun ray on the globe is replaced by a beam from a solar-powered light.

Auroville

The beach was full of people and beautiful rocks. The cleanliness and discipline well maintained in the place. We also visited the graceful and majestic French War Memorial, which stands tall as one of the architectural wonders of Pondicherry. After spending around 1 hour at the beach we decided to head towards French colony. We started walking through French colony experiencing the beautiful French architecture of the building surrounding us. While roaming around, came across Firewood pizza. The pizza has reasonable price and taste is very good, even the small pizza is very big in size and the bigger pizza is too big!

Rock Beach

On 22^nd January 2017, we woke up early at 5:30 am and reached Serenity beach situated opposite to our room. There were few groups of people already at the beach before we reach. Since it was cloudy we missed sunrise view at serenity beach but we enjoyed the cool early morning breeze at the beach. We then returned to hotel, got ready, vacated the room paying remaining amount of 750rs and we didn’t paid extra amount as we checked in and checkout on time.

Sun rise at Serenity beach

We hired an cab in Rs 1800/- for a day from morning 10am to night 8pm which was arranged by staff of the hotel. The places we visited throughout the day were, Arulmigu Manakula Vinayagar Temple, Paradise Beach, Basilica Church, Chunnambar Boat House, aurobindo ashram, Cafe de Arts, shopping and food streets. First we visited Vinayagar temple and Aurobindo ashram and spend less than an hour at the place. We then headed towards Chunnamber boat house.

Paradise Beach

Chunnamber boat house is the only access point to Paradise beach and we have to rent ferry to reach the beach. Paradise beach is the most beautiful sand beach in Pondicherry and it is the cleanest beach in Pondicherry. There were many beach games at the island and a small restaurant which was crowded and expensive. We had great time at the beach, spent around 2 hours.

Cafe De Arts

Basilica church

From the boat house we started to Cafe de Arts which we wanted to visit badly because of its beautiful theme and tasty food. We placed our order and started to explore the place, it’s a nice place and staff were so cool. We were walking here and there in the cafe but they didn’t control us. We then took a place in the garden and enjoyed pastries and ice creams. Then we started to Basilica church spent some time and asked the driver to drop us at the shopping street near MG Road. Later we reach railway station and took return train to Bangalore.