Trip to Narkanda, Himachal Pardesh, India

  

As my blog profile tells that, I love to travel and cook food. Cooking at various places is my hobby. This time it was Narkanda, Himachal Pardesh. Narkanda is a place which was under forest department in its earlier time. More than 200 years old cedar trees are standing here with dignity. It is located at the altitude of 10000 feet above from sea level. In winters its view looks like Switzerland. It is approximately 65 kilo meters away from Shimla, the capital of Himachal Pardesh. The drive is about 2 - 2:30 minutes depending upon the traffic at shimla. There are some good hotels and rest houses where you can spend your night

The day was 30th December of 2012. We were four relatives planned a two nights and three days trip to Narkanda. Because I love to cook, we decided to cook into the forests of Narkanda. We assembled some utensils and put a portable gas cylinder in our Tata Safari. We purchased raw chicken, onions, tomatoes and some spices to cook masala chicken. We sat in our car and moved towards to Narkanda. It was around 19:00 when we reached to Kufri. It was evening now, we couldn't reach to Narkanda. We decided to stay in Kufri. Kufri is also a famous tourist destination in Himachal Pardesh. Because it was 30th December so this place was full packed. People were coming to celebrate new year night. We thought what will happen if we couldn't get a room in hotel. We talked to hotel manager, if there are two rooms vacate. He said you are lucky, today we got cancellation from our customer. We did not think anything and took the keys of rooms at once. We booked this hotel for two nights We parked our car in the parking of hotel. After dinner we went to sleep.

Next morning we woke up at 08:00. The view of morning was just beautiful. After one hour we finished our breakfast and moved towards to Narkanda. On the way we faced some problems with the road. Road is good but it was covered with snow and it is very difficult to drive on snow. My brother has a very good experience of driving. He knows how to drive on snow. After one and half hour of drive we reached to our destination. This place is nothing less than paradise. Whole place was covered with the sheet of snow. Air was so chilled and fresh.  We searched an empty place where we could sat our open kitchen. We parked our SUV on road side and started cooking. The joy of cooking in mountains is awesome. People  passing through that place were watching us. They were doing good comments on us. After one hour of waiting our dish "Masala Chicken"  was ready. It was very delicious in taste. It was finger licking good. I can still remember the taste of chicken. Quantity of chicken was too much, we couldn't finish it. We did some trekking and camp fire. We spent about 3-4 hours there. Now the noon was turning into evening. We tucked our things, put in our safari and moved back to our hotel. On the way we met some people who were came from New Delhi. We offered them chicken they ate and extolled our recipe.    

    

In the evening we reached to our hotel. We did some rest. It was New Year Night. The atmosphere of the hotel was set to celebrate that night. Party started at 20:00 with light music and hard drinks. We entered in the party and enjoyed so much. Everybody was dancing and celebrating the New Year. When it was 24:00, all lights switched off and a song started by the name of Happy New Year. Everyone wished New Year to one another.


Next morning we left our hotel and headed for our home. We decided to go from another route. Again we purchased some raw chicken and spices to cook lemon chicken. After reaching "Kumar Hatti" we took left turn from here towards Nahan. The road was good and new. Traffic was very low on that route. Scenes of nature on this route were very beautiful. We stopped our car at an empty place. Wind was very fast, we couldn't burn the gas cylinder. We put cylinder in the back of our SUV to cook lemon chicken. After 30 minutes it was ready to enter in our stomach. When you cook something in an open place, its fragrance spreads all around. Because of this fragrance it attracted some dogs. When we finished it, we left the bones for dogs. After spending some time we moved for our house. This was my memorable trip with my relatives.

Some Tips
1. Book a hotel in advance specially in peak season.
2. Release some air pressure from tires to drive on snow.
3. Drive carefully in mountains.
4. Its your duty to stub fire after burn it in forests.