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"The intended trip that took an unexpected turn"

Although some of you may find the title strange, it is true. We planned a vacation, but an unexpected series of events took place and it turned out to be a total mess. We ended up landing at those places which we were not intended to.

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back into time, circa August 2011. My birthday had just passed on 7th August, and we were ready to head onto a vacation to Devbhoomi Uttarakhand. Our plan was to visit Nainital and other adjoining places. At that time, I was residing in Kolkata. So my father booked tickets for 3 of us, myself and my parents. Our tickets were in 13019 Howrah Kathgodam Bagh Express in sleeper class, end to end on 13th August 2011, the day of Raksha Bandhan. (Kathgodam is the nearest railhead for Nainital.)

It is obvious that my brain cannot recall every detail (I was merely a kid aged 6 by that time), but I have summarized what I have in mind below. My mother assisted me in gathering the trip's specifics as well. We arrived at the Howrah station ahead of schedule and boarded the train. The train left at approximately 9:45 p.m. according to schedule. The locomotive was most likely a WAP4 or WAM4 for the Howrah or Asansol shed, which would take us to Barauni Junction, from where we were led to our destination by an EMD or ALCo.

We had prepared enough food from home to sustain us till the following afternoon. However, the trip would be finished on the third day of boarding so we would have been out of stock of food till we reached Kathgodam. We obtained the remainder of our food from my maternal grandmother's (Nani) home, who lived in Siwan, which was in between the route. I recall that my uncle (Mama) gave us a camera he had borrowed from us. However, my mother validated that the camera was already with us and he did not hand it over to us.

When I was a little child, I had a habit of making friends with a lot of other passengers. I did the same on this trip as well, and now it was time to disembark. On August 15, when we disembarked at Kathgodam, the area was shrouded in a dense fog. After arriving at the hotel, we took a day to relax.

We reserved a car for the following day so we could see tourist attractions like Suicide Point and the Nainital Zoo, among others. It was not going to be a good day; it began to rain heavily. Because of the incessant rain, we had to purchase umbrellas there. We made our way back to the lodging after the day's sightseeing.

The night took a bad turn for us. All around, there were landslides. On August 17, the following morning, my father alerted that we would need to leave the city anyhow. The driver agreed to drop us off at Kathgodam station when we contacted him. Despite how unbelievable this may sound, I have witnessed a landslide occur in front of me. We had a narrow escape and were caught in the landslide-related traffic. We were able to move after almost two hours, and we arrived at Kathgodam station. I cannot describe how worse the situation was; all I can recall is my father saying, "Jidhar ki bhi train mile bas baith jana hai," which translates to, "We will board any train that is available."

In the evening of 17th, we got a train upto Amritsar. I think it was some special train because I could not find any hints of any regular train running between Kathgodam and Amritsar. We managed two general tickets and boarded the general compartments. When I woke up the next morning, we were already in Amritsar.

We didn't remain in Amritsar for very long. We just got off the train, got fresh at the station, and left our stuff at Amritsar Junction's cloakroom. At Amritsar, we saw the Golden Temple, Jallianwala Bagh, and the Attari-Wagah Border. The same evening, we returned to Amritsar station. We left for Haridwar, most likely taking the 14632 Amritsar Dehradun Express, and reached the following morning.

We reserved a hotel here. I saw an electricity system and card-based gate lock for the first time at Hotel Ginger, where we were staying. The following day, we traveled to Rishikesh after visiting the temples of Har Ki Paudi, Chandi Devi, and Mansa Devi at Haridwar, the previous day. We made it because these two locations are only a few kilometers apart. We visited the Terah Manzila Mandir, Ram Jhula, and Laxman Jhula in Rishikesh. The same day, we left for our hotel in Haridwar, where we picked up our bags, and headed to the Haridwar railway station. On August 20, 2011, late at night, we boarded the Upasana Express to return to Howrah, arriving on August 22, 2011.

Thus, a week full of "hoch-poch" came to an end in this way, leaving us with a suitcase full of unexpected memories.

The recent blogs that Mr. Arnab and Mr. Kumud posted on the forum served as my inspiration for this travelogue. If we all post our travelogues here, I believe there will be more fascinating ones added to the forum, which would be fun to read.

I hope you all like it. Signing off...

Piyush Srivastava