Trip on First Birthday

Jishu’s first birthday was approaching and we were pondering on a few options about how to celebrate. Me and Mayurakshi really wanted to make it a special day. From Last couple of months, we have been enquiring at different banquet halls around Noida/Delhi and also with some event management teams. Initial thought was to throw a party on the day.

But, somehow the general idea of a birthday party was not convincing us and we were looking for something else. One day Mayurakshi suggested to make a trip to celebrate our son’s 1st birthday. Ah, and I really love trip proposals! So we readily accepted the idea and almost in no time to decide for Amritsar is the place we want to go.  The main reason to consider the Amritsar trip was that I have been waiting to visit Golden Temple from last few years and there could be no better time than this to seek blessing for our little one at the Gurdwara. Secondly, Jishu also loves to travel and we though he will enjoy more in a trip. We decided to make the trip by train. So it would be Jishu’s first train journey.

Mayurakshi’s brother Mayur (Rimu) also joined us. Having all set, we  started our trip to Amritsar on 22nd February,  2018  afternoon from New Delhi railway station. We boarded the Shatabdi Express to Amritsar. Jishu was quite happy at the start, but it went a bit boring for him after a few hours. So we had to try all means to cheer him up. Finally, reached Amritsar at around 11 PM and check-into the hotel already booked.

On 23rd February 2018, it’s Jishu’s first birth day. Our little prince has turned 1. We had a light breakfast in the hotel and went out for the Golden Temple. To our surprise, the temple was just in front of the side entrance of the hotel. Jishu was in a all happy mood. It was a serene environment inside the temple. Everything was in a systematic order. There was already quite a good number of people waiting to enter the main gurdwara complex. Inside the gurdwara building, there was devotees all around chanting gurbanis.  We sough blessing near the Guru Granth Sahib and also set for some time at the top floor among devotees. The environment was quite peaceful and gives a soothing feeling in mind. Then we spent some time besides the Sarovar and also took meal at the famous langar in the temple. It’s amazing to experience how such a huge number of people are being catered by volunteers everyday in this langar. Little Jishu totally enjoyed the whole experience in the temple.

In the afternoon, Rimu and me went to the Wagha border to watch the beating retreat ceremony. There were thousands of people there for the ceremony. We could also see the Delhi-Lahore bus passing the boarder gate in front of us. Altogether it was a good experience, but the local transportation we took made it a bit tiring.

In the evening, we all went out for dinner at the market area near Jallianwala Bagh. The vegetarian food at the restaurant Zaika was simply delicious. After dinner, we took a little walk around the area and finally went to Golden Temple again to experience the view at night. As expected, the view of the temple under the moon was simply spectacular.

We also had Chandigarh in our itinerary. Next day, on 24th February 2018 we boarded the Kalka Express train to Chandigarh early morning at 05:15 AM. The plan was to reach Chandigarh as early as possible and take a round of the city. But the train got delayed by around 3 hours. Anyway, at Chandigarh we checked into the hotel and had our lunch immediately. In a short while, we went out to visit the main attractions around the city. As I heard before, Chandigarh is a beautiful and planned city. Thanks to Ola, roaming inside Chandigarh was a breeze. In the evening, we had some good bites of tandoori chicken from the famous Pal Dhaba, at Secotor 28.

Next day morning, we boarded our return train to New Delhi. It was altogether a very memorable trip, on the eve of Jishu’s 1st birth day. He was super active throughout the whole trip and enjoyed a lot.

Wish you again a Very Happy Birth day, son!