Hi friends,
Writing here after a long time. Hope y'all are doing good.
It was 10 April and after being extremely busy preparing for an exam for a few weeks, I was chilling as the exam was over. In the evening, I went cycling with friends up to Sukhna Lake. The weather was awesome and the cool breeze blowing over lake water made the cycle tour worth the time and effort.
Upon returning, we had dinner and went for tea outside on motorbikes. As we did not find any shop open, we reached reached Sector 3B-2, Mohali, a popular evening spot. We sat there enjoying our tea and chit chatted for hours on a wide range of topics. Then we stumbled upon the topic of spontaneous trips and recounted our fun times. All of us agreed that the most fun trips are the candid ones with no fixed schedules or itinerary. Lo and behold, I suggested we go to Shimla on the bikes from there itself. 2 friends agreed instantly while the 3rd one was hesitant. After a brief discussion on distances and time constraints, we finalized Kasauli to be our destination.
Kasauli is a small cantonment hill town in the Solan district of Himachal Pradesh, India. It offers calm and soothing vibes amongst lush green forests and scenic hills. We started our journey at 3 am from Mohali. The roads were empty so we were pushing and testing the speed limits of our bikes. There were two of us on each bike. I was the rider and my friend Bhullar was the pillion. Ashish was riding his scooter and Keshav was his pillion. As we entered the hills, the air suddenly got chilly. It was really fun to ride the bike in pitch dark with cool air blowing on serpentine roads and a silent atmosphere all around.
After an hour, we stopped at a roadside cafe and had some snacks. It was the only one open at that time of night. Then we rushed as we had to reach Kasauli before sunrise and we were only half way yet. The last 10 kms of trip took extra time as the road condition was bad and it was single laned. We reached there at around 4:45 am and it was so early that the parking lot guys were still sleeping. We parked our bikes as motor vehicles are allowed up to a certain point only. There are two main ways uphill. One is for sunset viewing and other for sunrises. We rushed to the sunrise one. After around 20 minutes of uphill walk on aptly maintained roads through the hills, we reached the sunrise view point. It was jutting out of the hills with stone benches to view the sunrise while sitting. Ashish placed his phone on a water tank nearby to capture the sunrise time lapse. The sky was already beaming with hues of red, orange and yellow and the view was spectacular.
After around 5 mins we saw sun popping out of the hills with astonishing speed. It is here that you realise how fast the Earth is rotating. You could literally watch the sun moving with the naked eye. It was amazing to say the least. Then we went on a photo capturing spree and 'whose phone camera is best' contest winner was Keshav. So his phone became the official camera of the trip.
Then we went uphill to explore some more as not everyday you get to walk in such a pristine environment with a soul pleasing view. After some more walking we reached the gate of Air Force Station, Kasauli. There was a temple inside the station but we couldn't see it as the gate opening time was 9 am and there were still 2.5 hours to it.
We started our downhill walk and with lots of talks and laughs we reached a British era building near our starting point in no time. There we clicked some pics. After resting for a while, Ashish and Bhullar went to see the sunset point while the two of us i.e. Me and Keshav waited as I had been there before and Keshav insisted we go there on bike and it was not allowed. We waited for them but it took them a long time so we left on our bike and went to explore another hilly road nearby. We reached a vantage point from where the entire valley was visible.
After waiting for a while we proceeded on our return journey. We reached a mini cafe run by an old lady on our return journey. We had some tea and chatted with aunty for some time. In the meantime our other friends reached there and we proceeded on our way. We also tried to visit the Kaushalya dam in Pinjore but the entry was prohibited so we had to return from the entry gate. We reached our destination and our trip concluded. It was an amazing day as we enjoyed a lot and realised why candid trips are the best ones.
Thanks for your valuable time. It's all for now. Signing off.
May the gods watch over you !