Friday, December 30, 2016

The Outing - Day One

So, this is day one of the outing. After months of hard work together, our team here, decided to have a rocking year end, together, away from the daily hubbub of office and home and work and travels to and fro in Delhi's traffic.
Where to go was the question. McLeodganj, Shimla, Dharamsala, Manali and Nainital were among the list of probables, ones which were less than 500kms from Delhi. Dozens of other things were to be considered, including travel, lodging, travel time, as we had limited time at our hands to have a really enjoyable year end, and had to come back to work as the new year starts.
Nainital it was, as it's nearer, there are number of tourist destinations we could explore, most important of all, we could get accommodation at a place like this, especially when there's a huge demand of accomodations at this time of year, with hill stations being a perfect destination in winters for people to experience snowfall.
A group of twenty initially formed, with people going on and off with their plans, with the final count settling at seventeen which froze towards the end, more importantly because the travel arrangements didn't allow adding any more people or the tally could have grown more.
With all the arrangements done, accommodation booked for the next three days, transport arrangements done, Nainital was just eight to ten hour drive away. The entire team was excited, while for some people it was a mixed feeling as this was their first time around, alone without their family, for some this was an exciting feeling as it was probably the first time they would see snowfall, with the news that nearby hill stations like Shimla recently had received snowfall particularly made most of us elated.
Finally after days of planning and follow-ups with the accomodation and transportation providers, it's the day we are leaving Delhi with hopes that this new year eve would be one of the best of all our lives, as we all will be celebrating together far away from homes, in the lap of the Himalayas.
Let's see how the trip turns out to be. I'll be unraveling this in the upcoming posts. Stay tuned!