A Trip to Himachal - Part 2 - McLeod Ganj

Second Destination: McLeod Ganj

How we reached there:

Khajjiar -> McLeod Ganj (via Jot, Chowari, Dharamshala) : Hired Taxi, takes 4.5 hours

McLeod Ganj -> Amritsar -> Pathankot : Hired Taxi, takes 5 hours to Amritsar and 2 hours to Pathankot from there

Places to stay:

There are number of options available on oyorooms, makemytrip and goibibo as well on HPTDC. You’ll get good home-stay as well. Prefer hotels near main square. We stayed in Hotel Castle (through oyorooms), near on Bhagsu Road.

Places to eat ( esp vegetarian ):

McLeod Ganj has a range of food options for Tibetan, Italian and Indian food. Some of our favourites are:

• Nick’s Italian Kitchen
• Hotel Tibet
• Chocolate Log
• Spring Valley Restaurant

Needless to say that one must try momos in this part of the World, and apart from restaurants, there are road-side eateries offering good momos.

Places to visit:

From nature to history to religion to cricket, McLeod Ganj and Dharamshala has everything one can ask for.

• Namgyal Monastery/Dalai Lama Temple and Tibetan Museum
McLeod Ganj is an official residence of His Holiness Dalai Lama and a headquarter of Tibetan government in exile. Dalai Lama stays at Namgyal monastery which is a must visit place. This buddhist monastery has spiritual aura that brings instant calmness.  Chants of 'Om Mani Padme Hung' and Prayer wheels are essential parts of this unique experience.


There is also Tibetan museum within the temple premises, highlighting struggles of Tibetan people and their migration from Lhasa to India. 


• Norbulingka Institute
Located near Dharamshala, this institute is named after Norbulingka, the traditional summer residence of the Dalai Lamas, in Lhasa, Tibet. It is aimed to preserve Tibetan tradition and provide training, education and employment to Tibetans. You can see Tibetan metal art, drawings and other artistic forms in action here. Losel Doll Museum is quite interesting. There is a souvenir shop to collect memories. And while you are at it, do try ginger lemon honey tea!

• Bhagsunag Waterfall
Earlier morning visit to Bhagsunag Temple, trek to Bhagsunag waterfall and visit to Shiva cafe is another important thing to do while you are in McLeod Ganj. Bhagsunag Shiv Temple is located near the taxi stand on Bhagsunag road. Everything is anyway at a walking distance in McLeod Ganj. It's a 1.5 km trek to the waterfall from the temple, normally takes 30 mins. The trek is scenic, and the waterfall is chilly. Then you trek further up to Shiva cafe. It provides a nice view to the valley on one side, and Triund mountain on the other. Cafe provides variety of food option if you are tired after the trek.

• HPCA Stadium
This famous Dharamshala cricket stadium is a sight to visit. Surrounded by mountains, it is one of most scenic cricket stadium around the world. Entry is free when there are no matches and you can go up to visitor's gallery.

• Kangra war memorial
This is one of the location that our cab driver took us to while roaming around in Dharamshala. This war memorial is built in the memories of the martyrs of Kangra valley.

Apart from these places, walks on the streets from main square to monastery are a must once you are in McLeod Ganj. Slope adds much fun to those evening walks. Located on both sides of the streets are various shops to satisfy your shopping urge. And don't miss the sunset from there!

HPCA Stadium

Bhagsunag Waterfall

Shiva Cafe

What next?

After a three day stay at McLeod Ganj, we went to Amritsar, which is a 4.5 hrs drive from here, during our return journey. I had already covered Amritsar in my earlier post, but the location has changed significantly in these 7 years. We spent the afternoon at the Golden Temple and enjoyed food @ langar. Next we went to Jallianwala Bagh, the famous historic place, adjacent to the temple. We did go to Delhi after this, but could only cover Rajghat, Humayun's Tomb and Qutub Minar before our return flight to Pune.

Humayun's Tomb

A Trip to Himachal - Part 1 - Khajjiar

How we reached there:

Pune -> Pathannkot : Train journey via Jelum Express, takes 38 hours

Pathankot -> Khajjiar (via Dalhousie) : Hired Taxi, takes 4 hours, keep the stomach empty as it will be a roller-coster hill-side ride

Places to stay:

Khajjiar - Hotel Devdar, a part of HPTDC hotels, provides the best possible location for this place. Apart from this, there are other options like Mini-Swiss facing other side of mountain.

Places to eat ( esp vegetarian food ):

• Hotel Iravati in Chamba has wonderful dishes of Gucchi (a kind of Mushroom) and Chamba Kadhi.
• Street-side food options, esp Parathas, are quite good in this part of the region

So after a continuous journey of close to 43 hours, we finally reached our HPTDC Hotel Devdar in Khajjiar during the early part of noon. The lush green meadows in front of us instantly removed all the tiredness. Khajjiar is a very tiny hill station of Himachal, sometimes referred to as a Switzerland of India. It has a centrally located small lake, and surrounding meadows on slope all around. It is surrounded by trees and mountains from all side making it picture-perfect. There is a Khajjiar Nag temple, based on which this place is named ‘Khajjiar’. There are small treks all around, and morning walk towards other side to see sunset is worth the efforts. There is also a vaishnodevi temple at a walking distance, with huge Shiva statue.

Things to do:

During day time, the meadow is full of activities with tourists coming there from near-by places. Horse-riding is quite common. Grass and slope offers sports like Zorbing, which is a must try. One can also do paragliding on the other side of the mountain.

Nearby Places:

• Chamba: At 22 km distance from Khajjiar, Chamba is located along the river Ravi. Laxmi Narayan Temple is a must visit place there. There is also a Bhuri Singh Museum to know a bit of history of the place. If you are lucky, may get to see cricket match in the central Chamba ground!

• Dalhousie: Dalhousie is yet another hilltop tourist place, with Tibetan market and a lot of street shopping. There is a wildlife sanctuary, Kala Top, on the way to Dalhousie. This road also takes you along multiple hillside schools.

(Part 2 will take you to McLeod Ganj and ahead)

The curious care of YU

This is a very interesting account of sadistic customer experience with YU Televentures Pvt Ltd.

This unfortunate story started when I placed an order on amazon.in for YUFit Band on Aug 05, 2015.

Device: YUFit Band

Amount (after discount): 999/-

Billing Name: Nimesh Desai

December 2015

The device worked fine for sometime, but then it developed bluetooth issue for some reason. The device won't connect to phone, thus making it practically not useful. Thus I raised a ticket on the support system via customer care, and device was ultimately picked up on December 03, 2015. They asked (through support@yuplaygod.com) bank details and related information for refund, and like in case of other online distributors, I was hopeful of receiving refund in 3-7 days.

Name of bank account: Nimeshkumar Desai

But I didn't receive the refund. Nor was any response from them about the whereabouts of device and refund. It was only the beginning of unprofessional behavior from YU televentures. I tracked the courier and found that it finally reached their Haryana facility on December 17, 2015. May be this was the reason for the delay, that's what I wondered. Another 10 days passed, but refund didn't arrive. Meanwhile I sent many emails, but didn't receive any response. Finally I called their customer care on Dec 31, 2016. The guys on the other end, told me that they are in process of initiating refund and it would take another 30 days to get it credited in my account. This was anyway far from what is the common business practice, where refund should not take this long. Nevertheless, I waited for the new year in hope.

March 2016

I waited till March, 2016 for the refund. Finally on March 4, 2016 I called customer care again. This time I was irritated for obvious reasons, and I reprimanded the customer care executive. The executive apologized for the delay, and informed me that I should be getting refund in 5 days.

As the refund didn't happen, I called customer service again on March 10, 2016. Note that till this moment, they haven't communicated any reason to not do the refund. I asked the customer care guy to give me reason for not refunding my amount till date. pet came the reply -

   

The name on invoice 'Nimesh Desai' does not match the name of given bank account 'Nimeshkumar Desai'. As per company policy refund can't be made.

I was furious. For one, they didn't communicate about this for more almost 3 months after giving my bank details. Secondly, this is one of the most outrageous reason to not provide refund. I listed out the details on their support forum about how this policy is ridiculous. Also sent messages to their COO, Amarinder Dhaliwal, through LinkedIn. For the record, both of these are valid names of the same person with documentary proof.

http://forums.yuplaygod.com/threads/no-refund-for-faulty-yufit-product-even-after-3-months.36390/#post-484157

After the post on their support forum, got a call from YU on March 16, 2016, again informing that the reason for non-refund is name mismatch. I told the guys to send the policy in writing over email. Below is their response (copied from the reply without change)

We wish to inform you that to we can only initiate refund against the Yu fit post fulfilling the below mentioned conditions as per company policy :

• Invoice of Yu fit should be compulsary. 
• The Name should be same in the invoice as well as the Back account holder name. 

The email seems to have been drafted in hurry. Though I didn't agree with their response, just to conclude the argument, I decided to send details of another bank account:

Name of bank account: Desai Nimesh D

As usual, refund didn't come for few more days. I reminded them through emails, and raised question on the support forum. I got a call on March 23, 2016 again while I was driving on the way back home. I stopped the car to receive the call. And guess what, they are again back with the same argument that the names do not match. Basically according to them 'Nimesh Desai' and 'Desai Nimesh' do not match. Now this was the same account from which the payment was done through amazon. It is only that this bank uses last name first as convention.

In short, receiving payment from any account is fine, but refunding is not. This is a harassment from YU for a simple refund, that should have happened long long ago.

I have done a lot of online transactions and received timely refunds from all the providers, except this unprofessional one. This needs to be shared and made aware of so that products of such companies are avoided. Meanwhile I am planning the next course of action. Any suggestions are welcomed.

Business

Nehru once told Tata that he hated the word profit. 

“Jawaharlal, I am talking about the need of the public sector making a profit,” Tata shot back. 

“Never talk to me about the word profit; it is a dirty word,” Nehru retorted. 

Tata, unsure of the prime minister’s socialist bent of mind, turned down his invitation to join a delegation to the United Nations on the ground that there was so much to do inside the country. Giving the same argument, he declined Nehru’s invitation to head Indian Rare Earths, one of the first public sector units floated after Independence. In turn, Tata’s Air India, Air India International and insurance outfit were nationalized by the government.

- http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/-profit-is-a-dirty-word-110081400017_1.html (Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's discussion with JRD Tata)

This was the seed of socialism that had crippled the country since Independence. It took almost 44 years for the country to come out of Nehru-growth model (famously called Hindu-growth rate), but still the roots of misguided socialism are very strong.

There is a need to accept business as a good karma. Doing a business takes a lot of guts, risk taking abilities and hard work. It is a completely different ballgame when you know that your decision can alter lives of not only yours, but of families and dependents of those who work for you. Intellectuals and politicians should stop selling idea of a welfare state. It is not going to lift the standards of people, and will eventually empty state reserves.

It is good to dream of becoming an Ambani or a Premji or a Tata or a Bansal. This creates a good competition in market and creates an ambitious society. Greater respect is needed for people who generate employment, be it a tea-stall owner, a wedding planner, a 20-year old startup enthusiast, or a CEO of MNC. 

For one Mallya or Jindal, there are thousands (if not lakhs) businessmen generating employment, revenues, foreign reserves and careers of millions of citizens. From manufacturing to aviation, from steel to clothes, from IT to healthcare, progress being made is largely because of the presence of small, medium or large industries in these sectors.

There are many mid-to-senior level people, with great experience and qualifications, stuck in their comfort-zones, hesitant to venture something new. This is where right kind of education and culture is needed. We generate employees, not employers through our system. The change is happening, and hopefully the next generation won't have such hesitations.

Meanwhile a salute to all the budding entrepreneurs. You are doing a great job.