Trip to Jammu

This one was a trip to remember not only because of the out of the world places and scenic views I got to see but also on the variety of people that i met here. Just a bit of history here, there was a 4 week long curfew in my hometown, Indore and a 8 day long curfew in Jammu. My trip began the very next day the curfew in Indore was over and in Jammu for the only 2-3 days there was no curfew. When i left Indore the curfew was just lifted and when i left Jammu a bigger curfew was going to start. The reason was a Hindu- Muslim tussle for the land allotted to the Amarnath Shrine Board.

After just a 5-hour train journey i reached Jammu at 4 a.m. in the morning. It took me more than an hour to find a hotel. I mean i had to walk for 1 hour before getting a place for my favorite pass time, the sweetest and the ever available Sleep. After the you know what we took a taxi later in the day. We visited the (always available anywhere in India) temples in Jammu. A surprising fact was the presence of every kind of sculpture in every temple that is idols of a lot of Gods in one temple. A not so surprising fact was the salesman kind of approach of the temple priest's. They were selling the prasad(sweets) right inside the temple in front of the idols. Next i visited the underground aquarium. Here i found a large variety and species of fishes. My favorite fishes were the piranha, cat fish and shark. I know what you people will observe from the names but i have a odd liking for the most dangerous of fishes than the most beautiful ones. People seeking beauty would like the rainbow fish, blue eyed and wave fishes too.

Next stop Mansar lake, the sheer size of the lake was very astonishing. It took me an hour of boating just to cover the 1/10th portion of the lake. Another fact about this lake is the amount of fishes one can find in this lake. When i was feeding those fishes from one of the feeding spots( a high rise that went inwards in the lake) i saw more than thousand fishes of half foot length coming near the rise for the prospect of food. i even saw 1-2 giant tortoise. After finishing my stock of fish food, i could not even see a inch of water free for as far as i could see. We even went to see the forest reserve near the lake i saw 8-10 different animal species. Though didn't tell about this Amber who wanted to go to the national sanctuaries with me and we couldn't.

The next day it was a wake up alarm at 6'o clock that woke me up from my slumber. So i was sleeping in the car while we were traveling to Patnitop Hill. So no photos of on the way natural scenes. At Patnitop i saw the apple garden, Nag temple, some colorful flower gardens. On the return journey due to excess of time we went to the Miami beach of Jammu, Jajarkotti river. Now this was a place i would have spend the whole day without getting wee bit bored. I had fun time swimming, diving and even running on the beach. After that the Jammu trip ended with the shopping and sightseeing.

My Trip To LUDHIANA

Of my friends how many would have thought that i look like a 10th class kid. That too in my 3rd year of college but a girl had to do that. Wow i look young. Okay just my luck had to share my train compartment with a girl on the first day of my travel in the northern regions of the country. Well i am not exactly unhappy but looking six years smaller than you are isn't the best way to start a journey. A train journey in the AC compartment of the Malwa Express into Ludhiana,Punjab.

Well, Welcome to my travel log. First stop what else but the railway station. Went to visit the Diesel Loco shed. Just to inform my friends i did not wake up in there i walked up to it. So what exactly did i do there. I learned about how to drive a railway engine. Not that i learned anything. I did look up everything pretty closely inside the engine even ran it for some time(couldn't move it). Some person had the courage to tell me about all the parts of the engine even the ones that are below the train. I call him courageous because he really tried fighting a lost battle. Common i could not remember most of the things even six hours later back in my hotel room. I will have to say here that i did try to learn but the sheer amount of the buttons, controls, switches, parts actions were 5 times more in number and complexity to those that i have seen in a fighter plane. If we had a single train driver than i would do nothing but envy that guy more than a pilot anytime for the amount of work he would be doing to control the machine.

After that back to the most usual of the "things to do while traveling" a.k.a. Shopping. When a lot of your friends have told you to bring them souvenirs you gotta just find the market and start onto a shopping frenzy. Those who want to know how was it. I have got some good news. From now on Indore is not the only one on my list for Ludhiana has not only challenged it but in their rivalry came out as the winner. The list my dear friends is the list of "THE WORST ROADS IN THE COUNTRY". I had thought during my previous travel that i would never see worst roads than i have seen in M.P. but now i stand corrected for i had never been to Ludhiana before.

People cheering for Indore have no need to get so much happy for what Ludhiana has lost in its roads has been compensated by its people. I found the most of the people in Ludhiana having a very helping nature and even the rickshaw drivers have nice-nature. I also found a great idea for the transit system from this place. They increase the size of the Auto so that it could easily accommodate six-seven people. Autos going in the same direction keep on collecting and dropping people en route from specific places to other places similar to our buses. The permit of the autos are thus cheaper as they only have to drive on the same route rather than move all around the city and is cheaper for the people too. An auto ride that would have cost them 50-60 Rs. just costs them about 10 Rs.

Back to the shopping. Shopping was mostly due to the large list of Monty's and rest was the gift, souvenir shops. So all i saw was these shopping areas only. I did do some sight seeing and window shopping also but that was mostly limited to time. I would like to add that i did enjoy the large size hot dogs, hamburgers and my first KFC's Chicken experience. Damn, i just got hungry again. Nothing like the hot dogs of my hometown though. That is all for Ludhiana folks.

Well here i am now waiting in the waiting room of platform no. 1, writing to pass my time before leaving for Jammu. U may get more from ours own about my journey there too if i get time to write. In all if you are planning to visit Ludhiana anytime soon then you should come prepared for shopping for the count of places of visit is pretty low here. Adieus Amigos my dear friends.