An early morning call that didn't come, so lucky we had the alarm, had us up about 5.15 with a simple breakfast of melon and yogurt and a cup of tea. The jeeps were loaded ready for the trip to Chandigarh.
It was quite an undertaking with a gang of coolies portering our luggage to the exact spot on the platform where our coach would stop. One of the party had to return to the hotel to retrieve her bag, but this was soon sorted out. Once the train arrived our stuff was loaded onto the luggage racks and we sorted out our seats. It was an AC car coach and the AC was very welcome. The train left punctually and it was an interesting ride to Chandigarh through both urban and country landscapes.
Many of the towns and villages have rubbish dumps and pools outside the walls where pigs of every size rooted and wallowed and the morning ablutions just outside Dehli were crowded places with young boys and men dotted all over the place. The area we travelled through is the Basmati rice basket of India and there were certainly lots of paddy fields at different stages from just planted to nearly done.
There were several birds seen from the carriage with Red-wattled Lapwing, Glossy and Sacred Ibis, Squacco Heron, Jacana and hundreds of Cattle Egrets, with very bright heads in the wet areas. A Coucal flashed into view and the wires held Roller and Black Drongo. We were served an interesting breakfast and every seat was given a bottle of water. The station had some really interesting statues,
The removal of our luggage at Chandigarh was organised by the train captain and we were really pleased to find everyone's cases on the platform. Another well organised crew collected it and took off with us following to three cars where everything was either strapped to the roof or packed inside.
I got in the car with Desh as driver and we set off for the hills. We made a stop for lunch at a 'Pure Veg' restaurant, which meant no omelettes and I tried a Paneer Kofti, which was balls of cheese in a spinach sauce with butter roti and a lovely Sweet Lassi. We also had an unscheduled stop when stopped by the police who told us one of the bags had fallen off about 10km back. The officer took great delight in telling us it was ours. Our driver went back for it while we had some drinks. There is a lot of work going on on the roads and the driving for the first few hours was tortuous and slow but once we got further up into the mountains it became much easier and the speed picked up, but it still took ages to get to our hotel.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
The removal of our luggage at Chandigarh was organised by the train captain and we were really pleased to find everyone's cases on the platform. Another well organised crew collected it and took off with us following to three cars where everything was either strapped to the roof or packed inside.
I got in the car with Desh as driver and we set off for the hills. We made a stop for lunch at a 'Pure Veg' restaurant, which meant no omelettes and I tried a Paneer Kofti, which was balls of cheese in a spinach sauce with butter roti and a lovely Sweet Lassi. We also had an unscheduled stop when stopped by the police who told us one of the bags had fallen off about 10km back. The officer took great delight in telling us it was ours. Our driver went back for it while we had some drinks. There is a lot of work going on on the roads and the driving for the first few hours was tortuous and slow but once we got further up into the mountains it became much easier and the speed picked up, but it still took ages to get to our hotel.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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