Mahesh | 
07 2nd, 2007| 
Tour…. What a greatest time of ten days which flew away in seconds!! We started on 21st of June and we are back today. We went with all our department guys to have the enjoyment of our lifetime.
The starting day in Grand trunk express started with whistle sounds tearing the skies and Tamil film songs and dance. We took a small time to settle down but the beginning itself was a terror! With night time waking up of guys and girls and a good series of rummy went on getting me a profit of 35 rupees.
On 23rd morning we reached Agra by morning 9 or so. It took few minutes to come out of the station due to the ticket checker who didn’t know a single Indian language. But we got out somehow and we started towards our hotel and we checked out of the hotel after swallowing stones and sand in names of idly and puri. The first place we visited was Sikandara- akbars ’ tomb. A place to depict the mughal architecture and a cool place to hangout for more than an hour.
Next we went to Agra fort which is really a place to be seen in a relaxed atmosphere. Lots of history lies behind it but we came to know only a few because we went there without a guide. But we tried to find out few secret pathways and smelled a few. Nice experience.
Then we went to the place which is now on the polls to become one of the seven wonders. What a place it is!! We didn’t repeat the mistake of going without a guide and so we came to know a lot about “The Taj Mahal” and its architectures. We took some snaps and trick shots and then we started towards railway station to move to Delhi from where we were to travel to shimla.
The train journey from Agra to Delhi was of 3 hours and that was the most terror filled session ever. The entire train was looking at our group and many joined us during the journey. Our group of six members started singing songs and all members joined and there were dance performances by all possible pairs of boys and girls. Those three hours passed without our knowledge.
We reached Delhi and started off to shimla. Twelve of us alone went in a tempo traveler. The driver of our tempo, Mr. Ashok Sharma is a man of comedy, errors and action. He with his full fledged Hindi speech received many scolding from us and he stopped at frequent places due to his back side problems. He got down eight times and we served him with a LOPARET to stop his backflow. We reached shimla by evening.
In shimla, we trekked till highest point possible and the tea at the shimla shop was remarkable. The next day we started towards Kufri where we went in horsebacks to make our up and down journey in the hill in a path filled with horse shits and marsh. I won’t tell nobody fell off the horse. Ask Vijay about that. At Kufri, we took photos with the poor snake Bandhapuri and there was a fun world out there which offered four rides for 125rs. But we chose to go down to the village which was fully covered with a blanket of tea estates and flowers and we spent nearly two hours there. That night we started to KULU.
At Kulu, we went to Manikaran where river Beas flows at the most rapid pace possible. The place was a Gurudwara where Guru Nanak served people for a long time staying there. The water of Beas River is ice cold. But the spring very close to it is of hot water and it is natural. Just the recycling is done artificially. We had a nice bath there and then we worshipped at the gurudwara and we had the prasadam. Nice place to be at. Temples always are calm places. But here the noise of Beas River is heard heavily but the divinity and the oneness is maintained and we felt peace of mind there in that noise too! Temples are always special, whatever the religion may be!
Then was the hot experience of rafting along the course of river Beas at the rapid pace of its flow. It was a journey of 7 kms and it is a lifetime experience. We felt our muscles tightening when we rowed through the river. Every place we went, we made friends out there and the centre person of the raft was no exception. He said that he never met such guys in his lifetime.
We reached the hotel at Manali by 6 pm. The camp-fire was arranged and it started by half past seven. It went till half past ten and it was the hours of ultimate dance and comedy. We arranged for speakers and Tamil songs after long time made all of us jump to skies. We all went to bed to make sure we all are ready out there in morning for our journey for Rohtang pass.
The next morning we started to Rohtang pass, the place to go in jeep for two hours from manali. Rohtang pass is full of ice throughout the year. We had a fight by throwing ice on each other and since we got nicely from each other, we started climbing up in the ice. We went till the top point of ice and skidded from there. I skidded for three times and impossible to make it the fourth time we stayed at 13000 ft for nearly an hour taking photos and talking. We came back by evening six to manali. Ramanujam a.k.a Mr.”JAYA”ram got lost in rohtang pass and was later found after an hours’ search. Then we started that night to Delhi.
We reached Delhi the next day evening only. We went to Karol bagh, the Burma bazaar of Delhi and I had the worstest experience of longest shopping ever due to the presence of two girls with us. But thank god it ended in a time span of three hours. It was 22:00 hours by then. It was then we all started for second show of SIVAJI- THE BOSS at deluxe diamond. The theatre had 80 members all belonging to our group. All of us lost our voice there by interval shouting for our thala.
We reached the hotel by 3 and the next day morning we visited indira Gandhi museum, qutub minar, lotus temple and India gate. We boarded the train by 6.30 pm and the return journey was the feelings part of the tour. All of us felt that ten days passed very quickly and so all of us kept awake playing cards and talking. We arrived at Chennai on July 1st morning 7.15am. Home town at last!! By ten o clock, Home sweet home. I had the delicious meals by my mom after long gap and after the meals I had a nice sleep.
The tour as an overall thing to say was a life time opportunity. We enjoyed, we fought, we regretted, we learnt many things and above all we all had an opportunity to get closer to each
other. I achieved one of my short term goals of solving the deadly dispute between two good brains of our class. Wat else…?? Two pages full of text and still I feel I haven’t given even half of the tour’s excitement and happenings. It will take a year’s time to describe the tour completely and in this lifetime nobody in our gang can forget this tour. Thanks to all the staff members and our godmother for making this possible and all our gang members!! Tour-de-North!! Still in eyes…a milestone in our lives…a chamber in our hearts!