Shimla - the mountain beauty

Hey peeps how has your April been so far? Mine as you know was quiet relaxing in India until we planned a trip to Shimla which lies in Northern India and is capital city for state of Himachal Pradesh. This was my very first trip to this place, we travelled by Shatabdi to Kalka, known be one of the fastest trains in India and stayed overnight in Chandigarh at Lemon Tree. I was really impressed by the new services that railway department has started for the passengers and how well we were greeted with a welcome flower, followed by water, a magazine and supper.

That was a picture my dad wanted to capture my train journey after ages. :)

We checked in Lemon tree Chandigarh at around 9:30 in the night, thankfully it was not too far from the station.

Lobby Lemon Tree

Roomview

As we were damn hungry we rushed to the dining restauarnt inside the hotel, but I was not well due to a bad stomach infection persisting for last few days I could only take soups and light food. I tried out the desserts which did not taste as good as they looked, afterwards we slept really well for next 8 hours, until the driver called us. We left in a taxi with the same driver for Shimla dreaming of a wonderful Paratha breakfast on the way which kept us awake and lively untill next 2 hours.

These are the lounge pictures of the hotel which we did not get to enjoy because of our tiredness, but I really liked the place and colors of it.

 Group picture is a must when you set out for an adventure, isnt it??

Just a click I did while in car and waiting eagerly for a Dhaba(Indian roadside restauarnt).

After a lot of sharp turns and rash driving he got us to this place, where there was no customer until we had ordered Parathas, which is a stuffed roti made with different kinds of fillings like Potato/onions, Cottage cheese and Cauliflower with nice thick yogurt and some pickle to go.

Parathas are the most enjoyed and famous breakfast in Punjab and even in Delhi and other parts of India, and they are best enjoyed with yogurt, buttermilk and pickles. We ordered quite a few to keep us stuffed until lunch. He drove even faster after the breakfast and we all slept until we reached hotel Marina in Shimla, mall road.

I have to share the hotel pics as we were delighted to see the interior and ambience of the hotel that it was hard to believe it was made somewhere on the mountains with all the amenities.

                                                                            Lobby

Roomview

I loved the bed linen, and designer cushion covers so much I could not resist taking its pictures. The hospitality and services were amazing, we had ordered for Chicken drumsticks and Veg snacks in room which tasted awesome, and Kashmiri Pulao late night which was not very good but I think they did not want to let us down by saying no for anything. They sent us ice bucket and plates for evening without any fuss.

When we came back from evening stroll at mall road, hotel staff had kept a little surprise for us inside our rooms.

                                        These are the starters we ordered for evening drinks.

Loved the presentation of the food and the crockery as well.

Three of us left for mall road except my mom as she wasnt keeping well and stayed back in the room for some rest, we went on to get her something nice to eat adn fresh fruits. Here are few pictures I clicked of the place while on mall road

I chose a minimal makeup look for the day and just accessorised with a beautiful black necklace and black bracelets. Make up - Mac :)

I loved wearing this kurta, i did not carry anything as such in woollens apart from this pink stole which surprisingly matched with all my clothes. I have a thing for pink as you can see, the nail color and lippie. The weather was really pleasant temperature around 15-17 degrees , it used to get really cold at the night.

Next morning was really cold and quiet on streets and we left in hunt of some local hot breakfast and landed up at a small shop, where this old man was making some really amazing stuff called "Aloo parathas"fresh yogurt,pickle -  yepppp we had that again with Samosa and a nice green dip. I wanted that cold breeze to keep me caged until I leave this place with a lot of memories.

We had to check out and leave back for Delhi but trust me I wanted one more day at this hotel and this cool place with chills, quietness and those cute fair kids with cheeks turned red like apples walkig up and down the slopes. I wish I could stay more and see more of the life people lead and relax in these green mountains where sun is just a supplier of light and the winds are cold and thrilling as North pole. But we had to leave and catch our train back from Chandigarh so we sat back again in that taxi with a crazy driver who always seemed to be in some kinda rush unknown to human beings.

We had planned to see Institute of Advanced Science which was known to be a favourite spot of few pf the directors from Bollywood and many famous flicks had been shot. We bought four tickets for the exteriors and asked the driver to wait outside despite he looked in a great hurry to reach his home and drop us at the station hours before our train. We clicked pictures, there was an old man who clicked some professional photographs for us and charged very little to deliver them to our place in 3 odd days.

It looked so beautiful sited at a quiet hill with lots of greens around and the architecuture was way too wonderful to describe in words. And as we did not carry our camera for this trip, all these pictures have been clicked by my iphone6 and iphone6 plus and have come out really nice.

Try to ignore that coffee cup in my hands, I had it a night beofre on the mall road and could not resist trying it again though the weather called for some chilled coke. lol

I even made everyone try wai wai which was a noddle glass I used to have in my college all the time, but this guy did not make it that well and we had a hard time finishing it up.

All right guys I had to share this picture, it was taken by a local photographer there and he gave us this print in some 20 minutes and we bought it straight away. But I hate him for telling us a wrong way while I was in search of something special and we had to walk some extra miles because of his poor sense of knowledge, I had to  forgive him after I got this picture.

Our heads had started to spin as the driver was taking really bad sharp turns and I dont know what horse power he got overnight and why he was so eager to reach home so early, but for us it was really scary and horrible. We stopped at a restaurant for lunch and told him to take us to the very famous and huge mall in Chandigarh called 'Elante'. This did piss him off a little but who cared when I got to have some mexican food at Chili's. Yes even I was surprise to see Chili's in a place like Chandigarh and we enjoyed some really nice tacos and nachos there and I saw the very first Being Human store and even shopped some stuff there. My husband got me a surprise as well which I will soon share on my blog.

Thanks for reading, leave your comments/reviews below, I would love to reply to you all.

Love

Kanchan

xoxo