One of the most picturesque dales in the upper reaches of the Himalayas, the Kangra valley can scare you with its sheer drops and at the same time stunt you with its raw beauty preserved from the ravages of time and tourist influx. Take a journey through the famous hill stations and ethnic villages set along the Kangra Valley route and return home with cheerful memories of a burst of yellow in the acres of mustard fields, and the waves and toothy smiles from kids playing on the streets.
The pine and deodar forests, native to the region, take you by surprise too. If in the right season, preferably March to May or October to December, you can also catch the cherry groves in their live performance titled: The Colors of Nature. The tea plantations, as before, are an integral part of train journeys in the Indian mountains, as are the views that can only be done justice by the pen of a true romantic.
Ooty, the short name for the tongue twister Udhangamandalam, has been one of the most popular hill stations of India from the colonial times. In an otherwise arid region, this hill station set on the Nilgiri Hills comes as a breath of fresh air. The train journey from Mettupalayam to Ooty can then be described as the air-freshener. This four and half hour journey on the Niligiri Mountain Railway, at a turtle’s pace of 33 km / hour, takes you through the most delightful and lesser known hill stations in Tamil Nadu, South India.
The train twists and turns to take you from the plains to the upper reaches of the Nilgiri Hills. While the 16 pitch-black tunnels may be enough to incite playful shrills, the rest of the route seems straight out of a coffee table book. The train basks in the soft sunlight, chugs through the old-fashioned girder bridges, through the evergreen forests and tea plantations lining the slopes of Ooty hills on its 46 km journey. Once there, only a few can resist the temptation of not repeating the journey soon.