My Travel Stories

Route: Gurgaon - Panchkula - Solan - Kandaghat - Chail - Kufri - Narkanda - Hatu - Narkanda - Shimla - Chandigarh
Distance - 430 kms (delhi - narkanda)

31st December'06.
This was one of the most interesting trips that I have ever made. Generally, before venturing out I do little bit of planning, but for this one, forget the planning, even the place wasn’t decided. Few days back my cousin had a bike accident and had enough staying at one place. Chatting over the phone we instantly decided to head to the hills, but the destination was not decided.Within next half hour I was on a bus to Ambala, and my cousin was on his way in his car from Hissar. It was already 1 by the time I boarded the bus. By the time I reached Ambala it was 5:30pm, and my cousin was there with two of his friends. Without wasting any time further we decided to proceed further and take a halt at Ginani Da Dhaba,Dharampur. (Between all this I forgot to mention the time of the year. It was 31st December). We were little skeptical about the accommodation but then thought ‘what the h#ll’. Once in Dharampur, we had an option of moving towards Kasuali or Shimla, enquired about accommodation, but got to know that since its new year’s eve, all hotels/guesthouses are occupied till Shimla. We didn’t take it too seriously then, but with every kilometer towards Shimla, when we saw more and more people stranded, we understood the gravity of problem. We decided not to proceed towards Shimla but look for a decent place in Solan, since its not a tourist place anyways, finding a hotel won’t be a problem. But to our surprise, every good, bad or ugly place was occupied. Our search took us to Solan’s main market, even there couple of people like us were looking for a place and actually trying to outrun each other. After talking to some locals, a guy agreed to give us shelter and arranged to put four ‘Charpais’ in the balcony, at a charge of Rs.100 in total, that’s Rs.25/head. Yes, it was the cheapest accommodation I have ever had in my life. But let’s not get into details, all I can say thanks to my thick jacked, hooded sweat shirt and woolen gloves, I survived through the night. By 4:30 am I had enough of sleep at that place, got everybody up and we slowly started to make our way out of the town. From Kandaghat, we took a turn towards Chail; it was still dark by the time we reached there. We wanted to take a tea-break but the town was still sleeping, so we carried on to Kufri. That was the first time on this trip that we saw snow. We took a short tea-break before heading to out final destination. We reached Narkanda around 9 am, for a long time it has been an intriguing spot on NH 22, but we were finally there. After having breakfast, we decided to take a stroll towards the ski slopes of Narkanda. We started walking through a narrow lane towards hotel ‘old thorn’. Although there were no signs of snow in the town, but after crossing the little hump, we were surprised to see beautiful landscape. The ski area was of size of a football field covered with tall deodars on all sides partially covered in snow, with 3-4 kids practicing their skiing. It was a beautiful site; we sat there for a while without talking inhaling the environment and silence.
But there was lot more to be explored around, especially Hatu peak and all I knew was that you ascend almost 1000 mtrs in just 8 kms. We were excited about the elevation as none of us had ever been at such a great height (3400mts). Eagerly we enquired about the way ahead and we were back on the road. We left NH 22 and took a state road towards Thanedar. Around 2kms down the road, we saw a very peculiar narrow road going up in the woods, and next to it was a Hatu signboard. We were overwhelmed by the whole sight and we got out of the car to absorb the environs. As we started ascending, we saw quite a few snow patches on and off the road. The vegetation was thick, with deodars appearing out of nowhere and almost touching the sky. After 2kms of driving, we encountered a big snow patch on narrow hill road; without giving it a second thought we parked the car aside and opted for walking. Once around the bend, I just could not explain the sight, all I saw was virgin snow all around, not spoiled in any which way. We got out of the car just to examine the snow stretch, but our examination never came to an end. Slipping and snowball fighting, we walked all the way to Hatu Mata Mandir, around 4 kms. There was a sense of achievement when we actually reached the top, but to our bad luck, the temple doors were locked. We prayed from outside and sat there for a while and enjoyed the views all around. After spending half an hour, we started walking back to the car.
By the time we reached Narkanda it was 2 and we were quite hungry. We hogged on to some alloo parantas before heading back. We couldn’t have stayed there even if wanted to, reason was simple, all hotels were occupied. We started around 3’o clock with a heavy heart, really wanted to stay overnight, but to our luck. So far, it was unusually bright clear sunny day, which soon transformed into a dark, cold rainy day even before we were half way to Shimla. Soon the temperature dipped considerably, phew. At this point everybody was still contained by the beauty of Hatu.
Once, we reached Shimla, tried getting accommodation once again, but as the luck had it, we were soon on our way to Chandigarh. After couple of hours there we were at Chandigarh ISBT. I was heading home to Gurgaon and my brother along with his friends was heading to Patiala for overnight stay. I can still remember that walk to Hatu as the best walk of my life. Never before I had experienced so much in less then 24 hours:-).