River rafting trip 2 - Tattapani (55 Kms ahead of Shima via Sanjauli)

A totally unplanned trip, planned just 10 minutes before leaving.. It was saturday 5:00 PM, I was sitting at my friends place discussing about next day hang out plan i.e Sunday. He was juggling with scraps and albums of my facebook profile and told me to plan an adventurousness trip on bike near future. As it was about outing and on a bike I didnt give a secong thought and took his consent about river rafting trip to TattaPani
TattaPani :- A place 55 kms ahead of Shimla situated on sutluj river banks where 6 and 12 kms River Rafting options are available. River rafting is gaining popularity in water sports these days. As my friend (Vaneet) has never done rafting before so he finalize the plan with a check list of few items to take along and we we both decided to leave by 6:00 PM on same day itself i.e Saturday. By the time we could left Chandigarh it was already 7 PM putting me in dilemma whether it would be a successful trip or not, as so far no itinerary kinda thing was planned about this trip, the only thing which was planned that we are going for River Rafting in Tattapani 166 Kms from Chandigarh on my monster FZ. My friend Vannet (Assistant Manager sales- in Laqshya Outdoors an outdoor agency) decided to ride first. While crossing Chandigarh leading towards NH22 we took first halt after 32 Kms at Jawli area where popular restaurant  MC Donald is located. Here we decided to take light snacks for a safety ride ahead, as we were empty stomach. MC Donal restaurant is a good option in terms of hygiene and taste to eat for while traveling on NH22 (Chandigaeh-kalka-Parwannoo-solan-Shimla). Sun was about to set and night was becoming darker that's why we left within 15 minutes from there
heading towards our destination TattaPani which was now131Kms apart from Jawli. Clock was hitting 8:10 PM and the bike ride was getting tougher due to non availability of street lights on Himachal highways. Its quite difficult to drive in dark in hilly areas of Himachal, you never know when road takes a turn giving pop up to a new vehicle heading speedily towards you. It takes 4 hrs to cover 110 kms  from Chandigarh to Shimla on bike as road is inclining, there fore we decided for a night stay at Shimla because it was clear that we couldn't reach there before 11:00 PM in any case. Vaneet called up one of his friend who is working with Indian express news paper as a media head posted at Shimla requesting him for a night stay at his place. We gave him our estimated time i.e 11:00 PM to reach Shimla to avoid any sought of inconvenience. Our second halt was after 60 kms at a local highway dhaba for dinner as tiredness and hunger was increasing with passage of distance. Few highway dhabas offers sumptuous food that sometimes even a good restaurant can't. Highway dhabas offer a wide variety in main course like dal makhni, shahi panner, matter paneer, chole, rice, rajma etc. we opt for dal makhni and mutter panner, the food very delectable and forcing us to sleep, but destination was long therefor we left after taking dinner. It was about 10 PM and our destination was still 71 Kms apart. Then we continued with our journey and this time I decided to be a pillion rider. After covering 20 kms we encountered with 1 whine shop very well lighted up with glow sign boards where we decided to take a chill. For hard drink lovers its a best place to hang out with variety of liquor
brands. After a short break we again proceeded and decided not to stop before Shimla.
If you are traveling in night, never forget to take bypass route from Solan otherwise you would miss the paranomic view of Shimla city which glows in the dark giving an awesome feeling to fly over the city.
It forces you to stop there only for a while to freeze that city view in front of your eyes. While riding from there we also stopped there for 15 minutes where Vannet shared about his old memories associated with that city.. While enjoying our ride at 40kms /hr with a view of bright shimla on our right hand side we didn't come to know when we had entered Shimla. At last at 12:20 am we hit roads of Shimla parked our bike on road and headed towards cottage of vannet fniend where our night stay was planned. In shimla most of cottages/homes are located on hills where you can't build stairs or roads. one need to do trekking to enter his house. Weather was very cold and we both were shivering with cold as we were wearing only  half sleeve t-shirt . As we entered his house our all tiredness faded away in a single second when we saw a neat and clean double bed with white quilts just waiting to be grabbed. Vannet friend was sleeping and house gate was not locked from inside so we directly went to bed and intimated him about our arrival without bothering weather he listened or not. And the day ended well with lot of tiredness, lovely ride and cold weather.

4:00 AM Sunday, 12 June 2011 Heavy rain hits Shimla bringing  temp down to15C.
8:00 AM, Shimla temp 21C with moisture all there in environment. I went to balcony of that cottage from where I saw the satellite view of Shimla. whole Shimla was looking very neat and clean washed away with rain water and a cold breeze blowing around with a silent sound. We both had a cup of tea and waved off Shimla heading towards our next destination TattaPani for river rafting. 25 kms apart from Shimla we had 1st meal of the day at a highway restaurant . 2 gobhi parathan with curd and tea were enough to provide us calorie to ride for next 30 Kms. Its is not advisable to intake heavy diet while traveling across Hiimalayas as it can lead to vomiting. Naldhera golf couse is also there on a way from sanjauli to tatta pani to hang with family and friends. Unfortunately we couldn't go there due to time constraint. We headed towards our destination by taking road guidance from local people on highways. So far we have covered 30 kms and not able to see any river bank, but the weather was so cool due to rain last night that we were simply enjoying our ride. After riding 3 kms road lead us towards open into wide area of mountains just in front of us with a view of white clear sky where we decided to stop for a while to feel the silent weather with fresh air without sound n air pollution. One could easily see the sutluz river banks from there, which boosted out excitement leading us closed to that river at a speed of 60 Kms/Hr. At last when clock hit 12:00 PM we were 9 kms apart from tattapani and saw one traveler car loaded with rafts on top of it. We were told about rate of 800 per person for a 6 kms rafting on which we tried to negotiate 

it to Rs. 600/- but that was group rates as what we were told. We moved further to explore other options. Then one shopkeeper told us to reach Tattapani (9kms ahead of that place) where rafting ends to have other option of rafting camps. On reaching there we come to know about another camp who offers this water sports and also holds authorized licennce oo Rafting on Satluj river banks from Himachal tourism.. We tried to negotiate there for Rs 500/- but finally they agreed at Rs.600/- per person. we both were asked to deposit our baggage at reception and leave in car which took us to the starting point of rafting. One family of 3 accompanied us in raft along with 2 guides and 1 life guard.. We enjoyed rafting, body surfing, swimming and reached end point within 30 min. At 1:30 we took bath with fresh water in restaurant which was included in our package of Rs 600 and had our lunch meal. Now its was time to start reverse journey to Chandigarh via Sanjauli-Shimla-Dharampur-Pinjore-Kalka-Chandigarh, Reverse journey is the most toughest part of any trip as no body wants to end up with holidays. We started at 2:30 PM from TattaPani and reached Shimla at 5:00PM and decided to visit Mall road for 1 hr. Mall road is the coolest place in Shimla to hang out which is mostly liked by visitors. Variety of options for shopping, eating and fun are available on mall road. But everybody does pedestrian walk to reach Mall road as traffic police don't allow vehicles to enter over there. Those who cant walk much can take lift from Shimla which opens directly at mall road, A nominal cost of Rs.7/- per person has been fixed by Himachal

tourism for travellers across India. Approx 5:45 PM we left Shimla for Chandigarh in order to reach timely and avoid hassle free driving as we both were having office next day. After an extensive driving of 3:30 hrs with only one tea break in between we reached Chandigarh at 9:15 PM giving end to our River rafting trip 2...

According to survey most of the people found unhappy while returning from adventurous holiday, which I am also feeling ...
but always try to gain something from traveling experience as my Blog Says Travelling Can Be A Good Experience To Learn From, In Addition To Fun..... :)