North India Trip - Trivandrum - Agra
I started planning atleast one month before. Since my
vacation is limited, my intention was to limit number of places to visit. My
initial plan was to visit Delhi-Agra-Pathankot-Dharamshala-Amritsar and
back. But the time frame to cover all
these places exceeded my allowable days. So I droped this initial Idea, and
reframed the tour. My wife was so particular that she wants to avoid as much as
possible by road. Himachal and Agra visit avoiding the road was highly
impossible.
To meet my wifes requirement, I redrawn my plan which suited
my wife also, as this avoided road travel by almost half.
So we finally decided to take the following route.
Trivandrum-AGRA-Kalka-Shimla-Manali-Rohthag pass-Delhi –
Trivandrum. This route allowed me to travel by train. After getting approval
from my other half, we approached Alhind travels to book for our holidays.
Day 1 – 12/08/2013
Trivandrum – Agra
We left Trivandrum by 12625 Kerala Express leaving TVC on August 12th
2013. The three days in the train, was
really relaxing, from my hectic schedule of Qatar. It was raining all the way,
and was a real treat for my eyes. The last time I travelled to Delhi was in
2002. So it was almost after 12 years I am covering the entire length of my country.
Also I got opportunity to show my kids the diversity of India. The first day of
the run was almost through the south india, covering keral a and Tamilnadu. I
was awake up to Erode to take the hot milk. The train was hauled by WAP4 of
Erode. Only bad about my journey was the seat, which we got was next to the toilet. The frequent
opening of the door disturbed our sleep.
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| All set to Go |
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| Enjoying the journey |
Day 2
Morning when I woke up we were at Guntur in the state of
Andhra Pradesh. I was explaining my kids about this state. The break fast was
loaded from this station. I was more particular to see the Krishna river,
especially the truss bridge which fascinated me from the child hood days.
Hearing about the Krishna river, kids were verymuch anxious to see this bridge.
I took my camera and leaned from the door to get a full view of this mighty
river and civil engineering marverl, the great Krishna Bridge. We crossed this
bridge, and reached Vijayawada the busiest station in the Delhi – Chennai
sector. We reached Vijayawada ahead of schedule and train received a very good
wash, including disinfection of toilets and coaches. We brought Guava fruits
from the platform. Another favourite, vijaya butter milk was available at
platform. My wife is very much fond of Aaam peda. But I could not find a single
shop selling this product. I almost walked 10 coaches away to get a handful of
Peda . Thanks to vestibule I was not worried of missing the train I stored
almost 10 packs for my journey. We left Vijayawada after 20 mints stoppage. We
moved further covering Warangal, Ramagundam, sirpur kagaz nagar. We crossed
Godavari near Sirpurkagaz nagar. It was almost raining all the way. This stretch
brought in to my mind the accident happened to Dakshin express when the flash
flood, overturned this train some where near mancherial. By evening we entered
Maharashtra, through Balarshah. The sewagram express was parked at platform No
1 and we entered platform No 2. This station is famous for the raw ground nut,
and I brought some packets of ground nut. We left balarsha after few minutes
and continued our journey through Maharashtra. Balarsha is having a base
kitchen from where night dinner was loaded. We crossed Sevagram and reached
Nagpur around evening 9 o clock. It was raining heavely and I managed to get
some Haldiram products the town is famous for. I wanted to show my son the
narrow gauge train, but it was too dark for him to find a narrow gauge train. We left Nagpur after 20
minutes break. We crossed Madhyapradesh capital Bhopal in the midnight. The
train reached maximum speed after Bhopal, and I could able to record my train
crossing 90 Km mark. The route from Bhopal to Newdelhi is one of the fastest
track of Indian railway, where Bhopal shadabdhi clocks around 120 Kmph .
Day -3
When I woke up in the morning, we were nearing Jhansi. We
had fairly long halt at this station. Mangla express from Ernakulam was already
waiting at nearby Platform. The train attenders of both the trains exchanged
greetings, as both the train belongs to Trivandrum Division of Southern
Railway. Mangla express left ahead of us and we waited further till Puri –
Haridwar express occupied the platform vacated by Mangla express.
We left Jhansi and picked up the speed as we traverse across
the State of Madhya Pradesh. Next stoppage for us was the princely city of
Gwalior. Gwalior station looks like a palace. This station was famous when Late
Madhava rao Sindya was the Railway minister. He was credited for the introduction
of Shatabdhi Express. You can see the magnificent Gwalior fort after we cross
this Junction. Now it was the turn of famous Chambal forest to welcome us. Chambal forest was once famous for
notorious bandit Phoolan Devi, who turned to a polititian.
Finally we reached
Agra Cantonement station, our final destination ahead of scheduled arrival. We
were held at the outersignal waiting for the Mangala Express to clear the
platform. Finally our train was received in the platform No 3. On our arrival,
we were surrounded by the porters. Since this platform got ramp, we decided to
pull our luggage Ourself. We came out of the station, and was greeted by our
driver, who welcomed us to the City of TAJ.
To be continued
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