Unplanned & abrupt trip to Shimla for 24hrs

This year (2016) in, the month of May, we had Annaprashan (infant’s first intake of food other than milk) function for our daughter Niti. On this occasion, my mom and dad arrived from Kharagpur, a small town in the state of West-Bengal. The function was barely 2 days away and we had 24hrs in hand to decided for some fun and hangout. The day my parents arrived, I asked them, “why not just, go somewhere, the function is still 24hrs from now?” on which my father replied “Yes sure, we will be probably hangout tonight in a nearby Mall”. Well, I just hate Mall, and after an hour of discussion we decided to go to Shimla, which is about 350 km from New Delhi and takes 8 hrs approx to reach there. Shimla is a beautiful hill station in the state of Himachal Pradesh in North India. We had very less time in hand 24hrs to be exact and the journey to and from Shimla is 8hrs + 8hrs. So we had only 8 hrs time to spend in Shimla. We did some quick bus and Hotel booking and we moved out without wasting any time.

Sharp at 9.30 P.M we were in Himachal tourist volvo bus and we were lucky that we arrived at Shimla without any delay. Upon reaching there we hired can for our pre-booked hotel. Though we had no time to rest and we managed to do it in bus. Still we booked hotel in order to  have some quick refreshment and to drop our bags. We had breakfast (Aaloo Parantha with Yogurt) and tea. We hired cab for local sight seeing and we requested the driver to take us only to prime destinations of the city. Below are two of the photos taken at hotel.

Places we visited in Shimla

Eight hours wasn’t enough to explore Shimla, but we planned to focus on major attractions of the city. Below are some of the places that we visited.

Green Valley

Green Valley is located on the way to Kufri and few minutes away from bus stand. The beauty of the valley in enthralling. Taking a halt there for few minutes is one of the best experience one can have in Shimla. The sight of the valley is amazing and we weren’t able to skip this even in the short time we had.The greenery of the Deodar trees spread across the never ending valley can hypnotize anyone.

Kufri amusement park

Kufri is a small hill station located few kilometers from Shimla We spent about 2 hrs there. Though we didn’t had any adventure activity, but yes we enjoyed hanging out in the beautiful weather of Kufri. Below are some of the photos we took in amusement park.

Mall Road

The Mall road reminds you of colonial era and it is the major activity center in Shimla. One can easily find hotels, restaurant, coffee shops, post offices, banks, etc here. Taking a walk here enjoying the scenic beauty of nature and looking at Himalayan range is an amazing experience. We spent some memorable time here.

We were running out of time and little disappointed that we came so close to explore the best hill station of India. Our bus back to Delhi was at 8.30 P.M and we returned hotel on time, we again had some tea, did bill payments and left to board the bus from victory tunnel. We had to prepare for Annaprashan, upon return. Check out some of the photo’s of the party.

This was the shortest trip we ever had and definitely we will visit Shimla again but this time with sufficient time at our disposal. Let me know about your shortest trip? Share your experience in comment.