Moving on to Day 2 of our Himachal adventure. After a good nights rest at our guest house in Chandigarh, we woke up before light to make our way towards Kalka train station. We knew our next destination would be Shimla, and instead of just driving there, we heard a scenic hill station route via the toy train is highly recommended. It would take approximately 5hrs, a bit longer than the drive there, but the train wraps around the hills giving you great views and a greener experience.
The Kalka Shimla Rail Route
The 96-km long Kalka-Shimla narrow gauge railway track combines antiquity and modernity with a cocktail of pilgrimage and glamour. The rail motor car of 1927 vintage which had the unique distinction of bringing Mahatma Gandhi in 1945 to Shimla for talks with Viceroy Wavell about British plans for leaving India, is still rail worthy and remains a tourist’s delight. The Gothic-style Barog railway station has become a favourite jaunt of Bollywood stars.
On 9th Nov 2008 this railway line was officially declared by UNESCO as world heritage site.
The ticket in the trains varies from Rs 19 to Rs 280-/ .
There are deluxe , honeymoon , chair car , rail car compartments in the trains.
Try to get a seat on the right side of the train to get the best views.
The railway track is narrow and was known as meter gauge track opened by the British Government in 1903. The toy train goes through 102 tunnels and 87 bridges.
When we got to the station, there was a bit of a confusion on which ticket to buy. People were telling us all sorts of different advice, but thank goodness for Roh who speaks hindi. We had to purchase our ticket through a tiny window and everybody was trying to cut the queue by any means possible or sticking their hands in front of your face. One guy even used his wife, and asked her to go to the front of the window, and demanded that a woman should be allowed to go first. After a long wait and lots of pushing, shoving and haggling, we got ourselves 5 tickets on the toy train to Shimla.
So which platform was our train on? We had no idea. We saw 2 trains pull away, but thought nothing of it. We got into our train… or so we thought, but after sitting there for 45mins, we thought it was a bit odd we weren’t going anyway. Turns out, the train we were sitting on wasn’t moving until 3 hrs later. And not just that, we missed our real train!
We felt so silly! So what next? No other choice but to drive to Shimla. We did wonder if our car would be faster than the train. If it was, we could possibly join in midway at one of the stops.
So we hopped back into the van and headed to Shimla via road.
So the Ben & Jerry’s team informed me that a new ice-cream flavour is about to be released, and a group of us would be the first in Asia to try it out. Great! Arranged for a delivery time, and this sure wasn’t what I was expecting! Woody the cow came to deliver the ice-cream himself!
I wasn’t given any clues, but my guess was peanut brittle and some sort of rice crispy puffs. A week later, it was revealed! It contained a little peanut butter, caramel and marshmallow named “Clusterfluff”.
“Clusterfluff” is slated to be launched on 4 April. As part of the launch of this ice cream flavour, Ben & Jerry’s is giving away free scoops of ice cream to all who play this mini game created on their Ben & Jerry’s Singapore Facebook page.
http://instagr.am/p/DX0Vp/ #
delayed flight 
