Camping in Shimla

This summer we decided to join Mountain Marks for “family camping” in Shimla. Mountain Marks is founded by Ajay Dedhia (nephew of Navin Dedhia of Bay area), Jayant Dedhia and Ketan Chheda. The three of them were associated with the Mulund KVO trekking group for a lot of years and decided to start their own trekking group this year. They organize trekking/camping tours for children (9 – 20 age group), Mother + child and family camping.

Our itinerary consisted of 5 nights in Mashobra (a small town 10 km away from Shimla where the campsite was), 2 nights in Chandigarh (one on the way in and one outwards) and 2 nights in the train — a total of 9 nights. We left Mumbai for Ambala Cantonment around 11:30 am and reached Ambala by 2:30 the next afternoon. From Ambala we directly went to Rock Garden in Chandigarh.

The Rock Garden is famous for all items which have been made out of recycled material and also its huge swings.

We also visited the Lake in Chandigarh and then proceeded to our hotel which was about an hour away from the main city. The next day we started for Mashobra. It took us about 6 hours to get there mainly because we were traveling in 2 35 seater buses (there were 62 of us for this trip). The campsite was called Mashobra Greens . Though the initial description said “Swiss tents” these were more like log cabins with proper cots and attached bathrooms. Since the site was inside the woods (about 2.5 km) from the main town, resources were limited. We would get hot water only for about an hour (at scheduled times) and even the cabins had just 1 light and a power strip for charging. The weather was pleasant at nights (around 20 C) but quite hot during the days (around 33 C). The first three days were spent doing various activities like rappelling, tree climbing using a jamboree, zipline and kids had a special obstacle course. The group also went for a 30 min night trek which was quite nice as it was a full moon that night and also a day trek into the nearby village.

On the third day in the evening we went into Shimla town for some sightseeing and “mandatory” shopping. The next day we visited Naldera and Kufri.

” />

The return consisted of bus journeys from Mashobra to Chandigarh and then from Chandigarh to Delhi with a night halt in Chandigarh andthen back to Mumbai via the Rajdhani.

Overall it was an enjoyable experience. Unlike most trips to northern India where folks visit a lot more place and hence are always on the move, we choose this option because we did not want to be on the road for a majority of the time. Since we are a group of 20 odd families,kids had a lot of company and were never in lack of friends to play with and the adults also always had folks to chat/play cards with. The only downside was that on the return we spent almost 2.5 days traveling and most folks would have preferred a flight out of Chandigarh (or maybe the fact that we missed the IPL finals (we were on the train) had something to do with that).