Vegetable Biryani and Chicken Masala in Tomato Sauce
We checked out of the Ananada and headed towards Shimla. The
journey is too long to make in one day, so we drove 7 hours to the mountain
town of Kumarhatti. This is journey of 7 hours of mostly winding, twisty
mountain roads. We have used the same driver Vijay on many trips and he is
absolute pro at mountain driving. I would be scared to death, and probably
would quickly be dead if I tried to drive even on flat roads in India. In the
mountains it would be impossible.
During the monsoon seasons there are many landslides with
giant boulders and trees that crash to 2 lane highway. They don’t remove the
rubble because the next rain will only cause more slides. What they do is push
the rubble to one side of the road and everyone simply drives around the obstruction.
When the monsoons are over they will repair the roads. When we first
encountered the landslides we were nervous, now we don’t even think about it.
The mountain scenery is beautiful, because of the monsoons
it is very lush, green and tree covered. It is a jungle on the mountain. There
are lots of monkeys everywhere.
High up in the mountains there are many hillside villages.
There are lots of cows (mostly on the road, and they are oblivious to the
traffic). It would be many, many, bad reincarnations if anyone hit a cow. The
cows know it apparently and lord it over the traffic.
We stopped in the city of Paonta Sahib and visited the large
Gurdwara (Sikh Temple),
named Gurdwara Paonta Sahib, on the banks of the river Yamuna River (the river
that runs by The Taj Mahal and through Delhi). This is a very important Sikh
temple and has linkages to the tenth Sikh Guru, Guru Gobind Singh and the Sikh
leader Banda Bahadur. One has to remove their shoes and cover your head to
enter the Gurdwara. It is a huge space. In the Gurdwara live musicians sing hymns that are very soothing. The priest is at one end and reads from
the scripture. We sat on the floor, relaxed and enjoyed the peaceful
experience.
You can watch a short video clip here.
Our winding drive continued up and down mountains, until we
arrived at our destination: Suryavilas Resort and Spa in the hillside village
of Kumarhatti. It is just an overnight stop for us, so no use of the Spa
facility. This is a totally different experience from Ananada. It is an
authentic Indian destination. I am sure we are the only Americans that have
been here for some time. The front desk doesn’t speak or read English. They
have one employee that can speak bad English. He showed us to our room. The
rooms are away from the restaurant and front desk. They need drive you to your
room and pick you up and take you to dinner. It is kind of fun being in a place
that is totally not oriented towards American tourists. This is a place for
Indians. The dinner was delicious, the wine and Scotch were good, and the room is
clean and has wifi, what more could you want?
No comments:
Post a Comment