This post is part of a series on ‘Walks in India‘.
Place: Shimla
Highlights: Traffic Free Mall Road, Celebrations during festival days, Wooded sections, Restaurants.
Season: In Summer. March to June
Time of the day: Any time of the day is good.
Distance: Approximately 3kms
Difficulty: Easy
Map. This is an interactive map of the walk. Zoom in or out to get the desired perspective. For a more concise map with the important locations marked, click here.
The Walk.
Shimla’s Mall Road is closed for traffic, making it a pleasant walk with no pollution and noise from vehicles. The Road is usually full of tourists from the plains walking up and down in lookout of things to do or just searching for a quiet bench to sit on. It has an easy going, festive air.
Begin the walk at the eastern end of Mall Road, near Oberoi Clark Hotel. It is good to start with an empty stomach, which would help you in stuffing up variety of eatables all along the way. If you are feeling lazy, you can find a bench as soon as you start, just above Clark Hotel where you get good vies of Shimla’s valley. It takes less than five minutes of walking to find a few dozen option to eat and drink – it could be a coffee, light snack, ice cream or a full meal. But don’t get tempted, there is lot more to come. Just take a cup of take-away coffee and continue walking.
It is only in Shimla that you can use a lift to move from one road to other. Cart road runs parallel to the mall a hundred feet below it. The city corporation runs a lift between the roads near Combermere Hotel. Take it to Cart road and come back just for the fun of it.
A five minute walk from the lift, you will reach the ridge – the highest point in the walk. Climb up the ridge using the steps leading to it from the road. If you are there in the evening on a good day, you might be lucky to see some dance, song or other cultural performances from local artists. Gaitey Theater on the ridge is one of the charming Raj era buildings in Shimla that has still survived.
Just ahead of the ridge is scandal point where tourists love to hangout. There isn’t much to do though, just sit and watch the world go by, which is what everyone else would be doing. The walk further gets easier, since you go downhill on a gentle slope. Within five minutes of walk, you see an India Coffee House to your left. Walk-in for a snack and spend some time here. If you are hungry and it is lunch time, just next to it is Devico’s Restaurant which has good views of the valley.
Buildings start disappearing after India Coffee House and give way to wooded sections. You will find vendors along the road selling exotic fruits like litchi, apricot and plums. Pack some fruits and continue down the road. You will see less and less people as you walk, and some stretches of the roads have no buildings. Find a bench here and spend time quietly munching the fruits. Walking a little more will take you to the western end of mall road, where the walk ends.
++ More about Shimla on paintedstork.com
* A Day in Shimla
* Touts in Shimla
Summer is the time to be in the mountains. And if Himalayas are in your mind, look no further than India Travel Blog for bounty of information. There is much stuff on Indian Himalayas, from as far east as Arunachal Pradesh to Himachal Pradesh. Kashmir/Ladakh is one place missing, but be assured that you will have all-you-want-to-know information on Ladakh before the arrival of next summer. Here is the list.
Images
* Himachal
* Auli – 1, Auli – 2
* Rishikesh
* Corbett National Park
* Sikkim
* Arunachal Pradesh
Goecha La, Sikkim
Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim
* Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh
* Eaglenest National Park, Arunachal Pradesh
* Yumthang Valley and Gurudongmar Lake, Sikkim
* Goecha La Trek, Sikkim
On the way to Tawang
Uttaranchal – Garhwal and Kumaon
* Corbett National Park, foothills of Kumaon
* Skiing and walking in Auli, Garhwal
* Foothills of Rishikesh and Haridwar and Rajaji National Park.
At Auli
Himachal
* Lower regions – Shimla and around
* Manali and around
* Lahaul and Spiti
* Kinnaur and around
Chandratal Lake in Himachal Pradesh
Travelling in Himachal in June – 2007
Shimla >> Manali >> Rohtang >> Chandratal >> Ki/Kibber/Tabo >> Kalpa >> Shimla
+ Previous: Highlights of Kinnaur
+ Next: Infomration on Lahaul, Spiti and Kinnaur
+ Go to beginning of the story or index page
Kalpa Village in Kinnaur was our next stop in the journey.
Being in Rekong Peo, the big town just before Kalpa, is like returning to ‘normal world’ from mountains of unlikely scale, desert like climes and altitudes running to five digits. And life is also ‘normal’ – almost like in the plains – motor traffic increases several folds, there are people everywhere, and the town has every kind of commerce you will see in a town of its size anywhere in the country. Wide roads with good tarmac that was unimaginable till now in Spiti, takes you through the town and then into Kalpa. It is still not a place flat enough to have football grounds, but is a far less forgiving landscape than in the high altitude desert we had left behind.
The road climbs steeply from Rekong Peo to Kalpa but driver Mangal takes it fast and easy, after being through the terrible roads for many days. Apple orchards and other cultivation dominate the vegetation, with a few small strips of coniferous growth here and there.
Once in a while we see signs of guesthouses indicating that it is a well visited place. There aren’t too many of them though, and fortunately bigger and plush hotels have not yet arrived here. But that doesn’t mean Kalpa can be be put in ‘undiscovered’ category. Tourists from Delhi, tired of going back to Shimla every year and wanting explore newer locations, come here in good numbers to escape the summer heat. Once entering the village, small guesthouses are everywhere, and a construction in progress springs up every hundred meters. It can almost get classified as a hill station sans the Raj influence. Don’t be surprised if you arrive here ten years down to see a few Obeois, Tajs and Hiltons complete with a mall-road where people juggle for space.
Kalpa’s pleasant weather is only second of its major attractions. It is the view of Kinner Kailash ranges on the other side of the valley that pulls in people here. Nearly every guesthouse proudly displays posters of these mountains bathed in golden light of early winter evenings. Unfortunately we were there on a time when it was cloudy half the time, although not completely betrayed of the views. But having been soaked in the grandeur of Spiti where we walked right in those high mountains, Kinner Kailash suddenly seemed far away and less impressive from the distance we were in. But that is not to undermine the great views of these snow-clad peaks. It is a good place to rewind and relax and is an ideal long weekend getaway from heat and dust. And yes, definitely much better than Shimla.
Information
Kalpa is known for its pleasant weather and views of Kinner Kailash range of mountains. Legend has it that Kinner Kailash is the winter abode of Shiva. At a distance of approximately 250km from Shimla, it can take the whole day to reach here. Roads are decent, at least for the standard of terrain, and it is not too hard to drive. Buses connect Shimla with Rekong Peo town, and Kalpa is a short 30 minute away from there. You can combine your visit to Kalpa with Sangla and Chitkul known for their mountain scenery. There are some budget to mid-range accommodation available in the village, and should not be hard to find a place except in weekends of peak seasons. Summers here are pleasant, and I was told that it can get really cold in winter.
Continued at Information on Lahaul, Spiti and Kinnaur