Tour to Taj Mahal!
New Delhi to Agra (Uttar Pradesh) Map
Taj Mahal in Agra City Map
Tourists: Arihant, Diwaker, Prae
Nice Journey.
Jim Corbett Diary
Nothing was planned! Why should we plan? Lets see what comes by default.
Abhishek Sharma, Diwaker Bandanwal, Gopan Jain and me took a weekend break from our tight schedule to visit Jim Corbett National Park.
Lets begin the Journey
Gopal was supposed to hire a rental car, which actually made the whole trip a never ending journey. It was 11:05 pm on Friday (27th June 2008) and Gopal kicked off along with TOP-e-TOP (our driver) to fetch Diwaker. I joined them after 15 minutes and then after next 15 minutes Abhishek Sharma was also with us. We all headed towards Gaziabad from Cannaught Place but nobody knew that tonight we will gonna explore the UP(Uttar Pradesh) State of India.
Routing the Adventurous Journey
As Diwaker has explored International Tourist destinations before, he brought printed Google Map with him which was the ultimate weapon to cross unknown places. Ironically, TOP-e-TOP did not know the exact route to Jim Corbett though he had been to Nainital once. Till gaziabad I told him the best route and then at Lal Kuan Chowk (Intersection of Gaziabad, Dadri, Noida, Hapur) we took the staright road (though we are supposed to take left turn towards Hapur. Here starts the live nightmare at 1:00 AM. We crossed Dadri and reached Sikandarabad then Buland-shahar and somehow we sensed that we are not on right track and thought to confirm someone about the place. Finally, we had crossed extra 50 Kms from our supposed way to Jim Corbett. It was 1:30 am when we took Gulaothi (it was midway between Buland Sahar and Hapur I suppose, Please note that this route was not that good to travel in night) route to reach hapur. Finally, at 3:00 am we found ourselves on right track. Now another adventure comes when we found our car on the right track but in wrong lane and here comes our driver (Mr. TOP-e-TOP) taking naps while driving. Anyhow we managed to drive till 5:00 am after which our driver gave up driving any longer. Now here comes the real action, when Diwaker and Abhishek shared the driver’s seat for 30 minutes each. Hope they enjoyed their role on those bumpy roads.
Somehow, the driver forcefully took his share of sleep and joined his actual role as driver at 6:00 am. Around 6:30 am our car tyre got flat and the extra tyre was also of no use (but actually we used it) as its condition was too bad. This time we had feeling to kick this TOP-e-TOP at the maximum height so that he should not come back in front of us. Finally, we reached Rampur at 8:30 then Jim Corbett at 11:30. Thanks to the MAP which Diwaker had with him.
Surprise on Arrival
The best news one can get on arrival is that the Jungle had been closed on 15th June for night stay and will open again on 15th November (Note: due to heavy mansoon season the goverment do not allow to stay tourists in Cottages in the jungle). No issues as we took the ticket for evening safari and decided to go Nainital next day (sunday) before heading towards Delhi. Well, the Jim Corbett Safari (3.00 pm to 6:00 pm) was awesome and we had the real feel of jungle.
Getting into the Jim Corbett
The feel of the environment was beautiful and so natural that you just fall in love with nature. Jim Corbett is actually famous for Tigers as it has around 165 tigers till date. During our short 3 hours visit we did not find even a single sign of tiger, but we caught the glimpse of lots of deer (especially samba, i think there were 3 types of deer in Corbett), birds, elephants etc. The Old Iron made Machaan was quite real experience and as we got to know from our guide that the Tigers are not Man Eater in Jom Corbett. If possible I would like to visit this Jim Corbett once in a year to refresh myself in the lap of true nature.
Crossing Sunday
Next day we moved towards Nainital and crossed 90 kms in 3 hours, we did boating in Naini Lake and then had our lunch. It rained heavily in afternoon (God’s grace that we did boating at right time) and we headed towards Delhi at 2:00 pm on Sunday (29th June 2008). You would not believe that we returned to Delhi at 4:00 am on Monday (30th June 2008). I will say that the driver was not that good, and screwed some our time due to his non-sense. But anyhow it was interesting to find some people to whom we give the responsibilities and get stuck with no way left. It was a short weekend journey which we spent more than half moving in a car. We learnt so many things from this journey.
One should keep traveling in different transportations for different places with different people to get the best out of your journey and take the adventure out of the boring routine life.
CoolAge Buddy
Writing something for someone very close is not easy, but there is no harm in trying too. Vicky and me have few things commom (apart from being a normal human being) like we both are LEOs by sunsign, we had our schooling and college together. I am sure Vicky is my only friend with whom i spent close to 12 hours per day for almost 6 years.
We both met when Vicky Gupta joined our school in class 6. We became very good friends from class 9 as we both used to measure our school distance on our cycles. If i am not wrong Vicky used to have ATLAS cycle and mine was HERO. Well, in our class 10 borad exams Vicky surprisingly scores 2nd rank and me luckily got 3rd rank. The irony was we both were not expected by our teaches to find any rank in top 3.
The rising of self governed life (here begins class 11)
Vicky, Ankit, me and later on Anupam joined Sahil Study Circle in sector-8 Rohini for our entrance examinations preparation. From there started the second half of life with little active focus on girls and more lazy focus on studies. As a confused aspirant of Medical Entrance, i joined medical batch of Sahil Study circle and vicky, ankit, anupam joined Engineering batch. I admire the Sahil’s faculty but their management was quite poor which we guys always contempt. Anyhow, only ankit goel managed to get good rank in NSIT where as rest of us decided to drop an year and study for Engineering though i found engineering as my cup of tea this time.
One black year passed and we (Vicky, and me) got admission in Delhi College of Engineering. DCE is something which is attached very deeply to our lives because we learnt few personal, some emotional, new professional things from there only. If we guys were not in DCE i think we would have been somewhere in IIT (LOL). Its God grace that we are blessed with DCE and someday this college will proud of us as well.
Dawn of True College Life
I got Electrical Engineering and Vicky got Mechanical Engineering, though we would have been enjoying the same branch if he had not freezed his upgradation. The college life certainly would have been different if we were together in Electrical branch. Anyhow there was one surprising thing in DCE, if you belong to Electrical 2002-2006 batch then your seniors and peers used to assume that Electrical guys are blessed with best chics in college.
I forgot to tell you that Vicky lives very close to my house though 5 minutes walking distance in actual. So me and Vicky used to go together via RTV, Metro, Car to DCE and had good time in RTV by listening to chirpy girls of JIMS college. Well, i would like to give a pause to our extra college activities by sharing some lovely college memories. It was our college Engifest’2003 and as usual trio (vicky, gopal, arihant) were checking some group for JAM session. On our first day of engifest me and gopal had good incident which is unforgetable for some people. Next day vicky and gopal managed to share dance floor with some IGIT girls, without much delay vicky asked those senior IGIT girls for friendship and there inked something from IGIT for vicky in future. Anyhow this serial process of sharing dance floors went on for first 3 semesters and then trio got departed because of personal reasons and all.
Dawn of Real College Life
From our 2nd year onwards things became practical, everyone got busy with their future plans like MBA, Placements and all. Some stories were still cooking at some places, but the charm was loosing and everything will soon fade away was crossing the mind. It is an irony that initial 2 years of every engineering graduate goes without love to its college, faculty and most importantly no strings attached to their liabilities for college. In our last 2 years at DCE vicky and me had very practical life focussing our long term goals. By the end of 5th sememster we started preparing for CAT and joined TIME. By the end of 7th semester Vicky had placements in HCL, Siemens and me got in PATNI computers. 8th semester in engineering degree is the most stressed as well as relaxing depending on one’s luck and efforts. Finally, our DCE (Decent Chapter of Engineering) Life ends with no regrets and no pain, but with some good lessons and memories for rest of our lives.
Lets see what almighty has planned for us, though we just hope that what we have planned together should come true one day.
Cheers Mate
Ankil goel