The first time I experienced travel on the Unesco World Heritage train to Shimla was roughly two decades ago when I surprised a college friend on her birthday. It was a journey I undertook from New Delhi. A five-hour ride on the broad gauge Himalayan Queen brought me to Kalka, a quick switchover was made to the toy train, and another six-hour chug to my destination. Arriving after dark, coupled with tedium at a never-ending journey, I recall being hugely disappointed at having missed the fabulous vistas that this mountainous route is famed for.
A more recent one was no different, leaving me guessing at what I might have missed out the previous time. My cousin and I decided to hop on for a return trip to Chandigarh. Given the morning departure, we hoped excitedly to capture as many of them wonderful views that had long been promised to us. Also, given the time of year (early December) we presumed mistakenly that we would be two of very few passengers aboard. Hoped, more like it, and so you can imagine the rude shock we received when we boarded. We found ourselves squashed amidst a large group of loud, inconsiderate and hygiene-challenged tourists. That really is the point where we should have got off, but…
Saving Grace: A few, very few, breathtaking moments before visibly apathetic development blocks them out.
Verdict: Too slow (you could grow roses before stopping to smell them!), too long (seven hours versus four by road), too little green (post monsoons may be a good time to go, if at all), too much construction (read concrete monstrosities), too many people (self explanatory).
Note To Self: Never again.
Puneetinder Kaur Sidhu, travel enthusiast and the author of Adrift: A junket junkie in Europe is the youngest of four siblings born into an aristocratic family of Punjab. Dogged in her resistance to conform, and with parental pressure easing sufficiently over the years, she had plenty of freedom of choice. And she chose travel.
She was born in Shimla, and spent her formative years at their home, Windsor Terrace, in Kasumpti while schooling at Convent of Jesus & Mary, Chelsea. The irrepressible wanderlust in her found her changing vocations midstream and she joined Singapore International Airlines to give wing to her passion. She has travelled extensively in Asia, North America, Australia, Europe, South Africa and SE Asia; simultaneously exploring the charms within India.
When she is not travelling, she is writing about it. Over the past decade or so, she has created an impressive writing repertoire for herself: as a columnist with Hindustan Times, as a book reviewer for The Tribune and as a contributor to travel magazines in India and overseas. Her work-in-progress, the documenting of colonial heritage along the Old Hindustan-Tibet Road, is an outcome of her long-standing romance with the Himalayas.
