I should’ve written this long ago in July 2007. Don’t know how I missed to. Got married and wanted to plan my honeymoon travel to somewhere worth the money. Didn’t have much cash. Somebody told me that I should try Himachal Pradesh because they have the best Tourism Industry in India.
I visited the Tourism website of HP. And guess what. Booked my bus tickets and hotel tickets online. Payed by Credit card. I called the hotels and confirmed my reservations later next day. Took a flight from Hyderabad to Delhi on Spice Jet. The airlines were very good. Had excellent service.
Went to the bus station like any local guy would do and boarded the Volvo bus waiting for us at the station by Himachal Pradesh Tourism. Had a wonderful travel through the country side and hills.
Reached Shimla the following morning. Travelled to Kufri via local bus which was an amazing experience. Nobody cheated us as they respect tourist. Still we were very careful. We had tourism offices all around in case we got lost. Thank god I and my wife had AIRTEL. Only that works there in the remotes areas too. Airtel was the best. No other services. The cottage in Kufri couldn’t be reached because of a landslide. Instead they offered us a cheaper hotel. They took our permission. We liked the cozy hotel we stayed at out looking the hills. It was better than a cottage. We got our money refunded on the spot.
Next we travelled to Kullu. As we booked the hotels on the website we never had any problesm staying. We made sure we stood at hotels only which the Tourism industry authorized. Had excellent food. From Kullu we booked a cab via Manali to Rotang pass for 2000 bucks. Was an amazing experience. The Ice and Yaks wow. Dont have words to thank the HP govt. We returned to Kullu the same night. We didnt take the tour services because we wanted to be by ourselves. Everything is organized. We know where to pay to whom to pay, everything has a bill with taxes.
Next from Kullu that night we had dinner and slept cozy. Took a bus to Shimla and the hotel we stayed welcomed us. Our reservations were confirmed 2 weeks before. Luckily there was a marriage function in that hotel, so we enjoyed looking at the traditional HP marriage.
Next day we were supposed to take a bus to Delhi. We had a problem. The bus leaves at 9AM. As it was an online ticket we couldnt change the time. We wanted to leave at 2PM. The 2nd Departure. We explained to the bus counter guy that we are tourists and would need help. He took us to the HP tourism supervisor. he personally went down to the computers and confirmed 2 seats for 2PM and rescheduled our departure. We are very grateful to him. I told him, Its people like you who keep up the name of HP tourism industry.
We took a bus to Delhi. From there a train ride to hyderabad completed the perfect honeymoon. I didnt spend more than 18000/- for the7 day trip.
Thanks to HP Toursim to give us a wonderful Lifetime Experience. I admit there were a few people around to take advantage of us. But we were not that easy to be fooled.
On the other hand, Citibank credit card we had was of no use. As no shops take CC. only Major players do. So take load full of cash. Lucky for us we happen to have an ICICI and Citibank ATM there. We withdrew money. Had it been not there we would have been in soup.
Thank you for reading.
love