Visite Industrielle -- A Memoir

Industrial Tour is a ritual for engineering students in which they sojourn industries so as to get acquainted to industrial processes. Students of Evening Shift (EC and CS) and EIC branch  of GTC comprising of 102 students and 9 teachers went on an industrial tour starting from Monday,7th of January to Sunday,13th of January 2013. We visited H.P.M.C.(Himachal Pradesh Marketing Corporation) fruit processing plant at a bend near the Kalka-Parwanoo toll tax barrier, on the last day of tour. We stopped over two other industries prior to this visit (H.M.T. and Bisleri) but our bad luck preceded us and we were not able to finalize them as a worker died in one and another was closing up at the time of our visit.

Our tour being an educational cum excursion had stops in the hill stations of Shivalik range viz. Shimla, Manali and a short stoppage in Chandigarh.We (students) were not content on going to these places as we wanted to wander of to Goa (where other branches were going), but once we entered the bus to get to the Railway Station of Jaipur not a single thought about Goa crossed our minds.I now realize it was not about the destination,it was about us going along with each other, together.

We went to Chandigarh via Delhi in two renowned trains of Indian Railways,Double Decker train and Janshatabdi Express. In Chandigarh we visited Nek Chand's beautiful Rock Garden made by city's garbage on the shores of lake Sukhna where we enjoyed delightful pedal-boat drifting,surrounded by an enchanting mystic fog (one of the best times).The journey from Chandigarh started in two video-coach buses,one with Evening Shift students and another with EIC students and a 12-seat winger.

Our buses reached, queen of mountains, Shimla at 7:30 p.m.on 8th. Next day marked starting of our expedition in mountains and we travelled to Kufri in the morning. We had to walk (some got on tattooo's) 2.5 miles to get on the hilltop of Kufri. It was here we got to see the snow and the exalted scenic beauty of Shivalik's for the first time. It also had a temple, lazy Yaks, and awesome maggi made by local vendors. In the evening we vagabonded famous Mall Road of Shimla. The same night we started for Manali and reached in the wee hours of morning. With the first glimpse of Manali in the morning, I fall in love with the transcendent scenic beauty of the place, accomodating exorbitantly tall Devdar trees on the mountains, camouflaged by snow and snowy green meadows surrounding the mountains, with river Manaslu adding adjectives to the beauty of scenery.

On 10th we tarrianced archaic Hidimba temple, Khatu-Shyam temple, Manu temple, Vashishtha temple  and went for river rafting across river Vyas which was pure fun and adventure (none of us will forget it for rest of our lives) followed by a visit to Gulaba (near Rohtang), next morning. We were not able to get to Rohtang Pass as heavy snow impedimented the roads. In Gulaba we had our second interaction with snow, and there we did everything with snow that our palate could conjure up with. We climbed the snow peaks, played with snow, tasted it, stuffed it in each other's robes, drove snow bikes, did skiing, copied the "yahoo scene" of Junglee movie by free falling on snow, and of course got our cover and display pics for fb. In short, there we had the time of our lives. In the evening we visited Mall Road of Manali and had the most awaited DJ night.

Next day, we started our journey back and reached Jaipur at 7 a.m on 13th. The part of return journey from Manali to Chandigarh turned out to be another extraordinary odyssey. Singing songs in the bus was an involuntary phenomenon throughout the voyage but that day we chanted song after song till our throats gave up and we danced in the discrete spaces of bus like we'll never get a chance to dance again.

I want to thank our teachers from the core of my heart as out there, they were more of our friends than teachers with full sense of responsibility towards us. This voyage would not have been extraordinary without'em.

For those who thought it to be a routine trip and missed out on it, well you people missed out on one hell of a lifetime journey which would have given you goosebumps throughout your life.
Lastly, being an amateur in school/college trips, I was really looking forward to this tour and it turned out to be exceptional and led me to truly wonderful 6 days of my life which I'll cherish throughout my life(I guess.. other students would also agree with me on this).

It's been two weeks, since we came back but,....... the hangover's still there....:) :)