Journey from Amritsar to Dalhousie...

While the first day of our Punjab and Himachal Pradesh tour was for Amritsar, second day we had booked our train from Amritsar to Pathankot, and then after had planned to take bus to Dalhousie. Our train was at 8:30 in the morning and we were quite on time, but the train was almost 3hours late and by the time we reached Pathankot it was 2. Pathankot railway station and bus station are quite close by, but with baggage and kid, we took auto rickshaw. We had lunch at Hotel Green and inquired at Bus station for Dalhousie. We had missed Pathankot - Dalhousie bus by few minutes and they suggested us to take the Chamba bus, which would drop us at Baniket and there after we could take taxi to Dalhousie. That was the ordinary State Government Bus, while there were other AC buses to Dharamshala and near by places. You start the climb to the Himalayas, with-in few kilometers drive from Pathankot. While we were looking for the snow capped Himalayan peaks, the drive was similar to any hill-station, with turns and steep valleys, but with no signs of snow, and kiddo throughout the journey was checking when she could find snow. By the time we reached Baniket, it was 6 in the evening and it was already dark and it started pouring heavily. There are quite a number of taxis at Baniket bus stand(which is just a road on the Pathankot-Chamba Road) to take you to Dalhousie, we took one. We had checked for a budget hotel on net at Dalhousie and asked our driver to take there. The hotel was quite a distance from Dalhousie bus station and our driver instead suggested us to take to a hotel near station at the same price. He suggested, its only during peak season, thats in May you need to go for online bookings and rest of the year, you can get hotel at budget rates for direct check-in. As we neared the hotel, the pouring rain turned snow. Just as we reached the hotel, it snowed so heavily, with-in minutes, the road was filled with snow. It was our first experience with snow fall and we went crazy. Hubby and driver went to check the hotel, the hotel was ok, but with heavy fall, we had no other option as well to drive to other hotel. It was freezing cold and we went to our room to warm up in the heater. We were in no mood to sleep and waiting for the sunrise, to go out and play in snow outside. But a very tiring journey from Amritsar to Dalhousie made us fall asleep. 

The Fall

 

Me and Kiddo in no mood to get off the snow

Do check out the complete series on this trip of mine here.

Durga Pooja, Pandal Hopping!!!

There is so much to do during Navratri. Haldi Kumkum and aarti of our bombe in the evening and late night Garbha in our society. And weekend late night Durga Pandal Hopping.
There are so many associations around our place, who set up many big and small pandals during Navratri, of which there are few we visit every year.

While Maharashtrian and Gujarati Associations, have idols of Devi in sitting posture on her vahan(Vehicle) Lion, the Bengali Associations have idols of Durga, along with Laxmi, Saraswati, Ganapati and Karthikeya. Each idol and pandal have different themes and colourful decors which attracts most of the devotees. Here are few of the pics of the Durga Pandal we visited this year.
There is something new to learn with each visit. This year I found all Bengali association Durga pandals have Shivji's idol or photograph on top of all idols. Do check out the photographs and don't miss the image of Shivji in all of them.

 

 

Durga Pandal by a Maharashtrian Association

Navratri Celebration at Home - 2015

The most awaited Festival is here, the Navratri Bombe Habba. I took up job recently and not able to be regular on my blog. Its been a week now since Navratri started and finally I managed to post few pictures of the Navratri doll arrangement at home.

Its the same set of dolls as previous years, with few added new ones which I have been collecting. The first step has Ganapati, Ram, Seetha, Laxman and Hanuman and Radha Krishna Idol. The Radha Krishna idol was similar to the Ganapti idol, I painted and decorated it with glitters and stones. The second step has Krisha in different forms, Pattad Bombe, Shiva, Parvati and Ganapathi, and Tulsi Pooja set along with small idols of god and goddesses.

Third is for more god and goddess idols along with Meera and a set of Portugal men and women set, as called so by my granny. The next step is for Shivaji Maharaj, along channapatna doll of a couple and a set of five men and women playing music. That red charriot was bought from Mysore, while I got the dolls playing band along the charriot from Jaipur.

The fifth step has few of my souvenir collections, most of them are gifts by my cousin. I got that face mask from Mahalaxmi temple, here in Mumbai, which I tied to the Kalash I had prepared. I just loved the beauty of devi's face. To add to the step is kiddo's Gungru. She started her Bharatnatyam course this year and thats her new set of Gungru, which she will start wearing after Gungru Pooja on Dasara day.

The last step is collection of few old clay toys, along with new added ones, which hubby got from Mysore, the Lion and the Rabbit tale, a cobbler and a potter. I wanted to highlight the small utensils which I usually place with the old couple(so called Shetty angadi in Kannada), so thought of arranging them separately in plates on either side of main steps.

Finally our ever fav doll house, which is a permanent display in our TV rack.

Hope you enjoyed our Bombe arrangement, will get back with more Devi pics from around my place. Till then A very Happy Navratri to all of you..