One Friday evening I had asked Tushar, while we were driving around in NOIDA, if he would like to go to Rishikesh in another hour… he almost freaked out and said no…I told him that this is how I would like to travel sometime… just think and go…

And it finally happened this Friday… I just called up Aro to tell him that he should not go to Vaishno Devi as he was planning because it was too crowded there… and he would not be able to manage over the weekend… and I also told him that I wanted to go out too… and then I told him that he could go to somewhere else and take me along… suggested Patni Top, Amritsar and Mcleodganj to him… He was keen on the hills, so we quickly conferenced Sanjit and decided that we were leaving in another 2 hours for Mcleodganj… So we were three people and we thought that a 4th one would not be too bad an idea…

So I talked to a few friends and Gaurav agreed… but we had to delay our plan by a few hours because he was to come only around 2100 hrs…

I went to Dwarka and picked up Aro and Sanjit… also decided that we were driving down in my car… and then moved to NOIDA… I packed my stuff, cleaned the memory card, took out the new lens, checked the batteries and was all set for the trip… Gaurav arrived on time… and we were out by 2130 hrs…

It was for sure a long way ahead… at least 12 hours… and the route I knew was Delhi- Chandigarh – Ropar/Roop Nagar – Kiratpur – Swarghat – Bilaspur – Mandi – Palampur – Gaggal – Dharamshaala – Mcleodganj…

I wanted to drive all this way, but it would have been very very taxing for me, so we decided that Delhi – Chandigarh is something that Aro would take care of and I do the rest…

I drove till Murthal… and we had the lovely paranthas and then I took the back seat… It was kinda strange to sit on the back seat of the car for the FIRST time in 2.5 years / 40000 kms J but it was kinda fun… Aro is a careful driver, however it still did not make me sleep, though I was relaxed and not getting tired… so good music and nice AC… And a decent speed made us reach Chandigarh in about 6 hours… We were there around 0330 hrs… Aro wanted to see where I stay in Chandigarh so we went to my place… Surprised and woke up my flat mate, took a CD, rested for 10 minutes before I took the wheel again for about 30 kms… Somewhere before Ropar I asked Aro to drive coz I was not really feeling like… he obliged not with a lot of happiness though this time and gave up in another 40 odd kms… We took our third stop at this dhaba (roadside restaurant) around 0600 hrs and had two cups of tea each… first time the cameras came out and a few stills were clicked… This is when the destination changed from Dharamshaala to Mandi, because of the distance we still have to cover.

I clicked Radha’s pics and loved them !!! here is one for you too 🙂

And now I took over the steering again… and started the most painful stretch of the drive… The road was good from Kiratpur towards Swarghat-Bilaspur-Mandi was good but there were a million loaded trucks on the way in front of us and coming from the other direction too which ensure that we were not moving at anything more then 20kmph for most part of our journey… Overtaking and zooming past saving ourselves from the traffic used all my driving skills and we finally took another pit-stop around 0900 hrs after we crossed Bilaspur.

This is where we discussed all our options right from what we can do in Mandi, to why we should not be back in Bilaspur, and how far was Shimla and Narkanda was a good place to visit, and why the hell did we even come this far… it was fun looking at the book Tushar had given me about Himachal and going through it to find out where we could go after driving for a good 11 hours J

Finally I put a stop to all the discussions and said that we were going to Dharamshaala and that’s IT. And I also promised that I would do that 170 kms which were left in about 4 hours making us reach the place around 1300 hrs.

Then we thought a li’il and decided that we would stop when the clock strikes 1400 hrs and move to the closest place irrespective of where we were…

We were also told that instead of moving towards Mandi –Palampur, we should proceed towards Hamirpur- Kangra – Gaggal route as it was shorter… We later realised that we had taken a very long route to begin with. There were other routes to Dharamshaala which were at least 70 kms shorter… but then the damage was done already…

We stopped about 28 kms before Mcleodganj for a bath in a river… Yes you read it right… We did jump into a small river and refreshed ourselves with that amazing water… this was a good 45 minutes break that all of us needed badly…

We finally reached Gaggal, after which I was familiar with the route, because I had changed my bus from there the last time I was going to Dharamshaala…

And we were in for a very very unpleasant surprise this time… The Road was not there… and was replaced by pebbles… the road was under construction for over 5 kms and it was nothing but pain to drive on that… uphill on a broken road with a single lane… Not the best things to happen to you and your car EVER…

We finally managed to reach McLeodganj around 1330 hrs… Just on time as I had promised the gang… and were shocked to see the amount of cars and people… too many of them… realised in not much time that it was a bad time of the year to come there… Parked the car about 500 mtrs away from the town entry and walked our way through the cars stuck in a jam towards the town… Managed to find a hotel with some difficulty, had food, relaxed for a while… and moved out to clicked pictures…

Managed to go a graveyard in the St. John’s Church about a km away from Mcleodganj and sit there for a while too… It gave me a different kind of peace, which I am going to talk to about in some other post of mine…

Ate, and walked and clicked that evening… Visit my favourite JJI Café and met Handsome there… he is a 2 month old Pup… lovely fur and beautiful puppy… had some food and shakes and moved out… Finally called it a day with some Pasta salad at an Italian food joint and watching some TV…

The next day started @ 0600 hrs for me and Gaurav and we went out to click… While Gaurav decided to head towards the Church again, I moved towards the Monastery. Took some pictures and then headed back to the hotel where I found Aro and Sanjit still sleeping away to glory… Gaurav also came back and we four finally managed to get out of the hotel by 0900 hrs and this time moved into a French restaurant for breakfast…

Roamed around the place for a couple of hours before we decided to move back at 1230 hrs… Checked out of the hotel and walked back to the car only to discover that were was a jam again… at least 50 cars wanted to move out of the town, and there was a similar number waiting to get inside…And that too on a single lane road!!! Phew!!!

The way I had the parked the car, it was pretty easy to turn it right there and I saved at least 1 hour by avoiding being a part of the traffic towards the town. So we slowly stared moving towards Dharamshaala, before we picked up some decent speed about 2 kms away from the town…

We had realised the correct and the smallest route towards Chandigarh and took that this time to move… 245 kms to Chandigarh from Dharamshaala via Gaggal – Kangra – Chintpurni Devi – Una – Nangal – Kiratpur – Roopnagar

The drive was a mix of good roads (most of the time), road under construction (wet and dusty) and no roads (waiting to be under construction). The first pit stop was somewhere around 1430 hrs on a Dhaba somewhere in Himachal. No idea where we were at that time.

Put a few Scorpios, some Taveras and Qualis’, and a Verna to shame on the hills before I reached the plains… Reached Chandigarh… got a Petrol Refill and handed over the steering to Aro but not for long as he was not comfortable on the road between Chandigarh to Ambala… I took the steering back and drove till Karnal before Aro took over again…

Dropped Aro and Sanjit at the Bus stand where they took at auto for Dwarka and reached home finally at 0300 hrs… A total driving time of about 15 hours this time…

Wonderful trip comes to and end…

And I am already waiting for the next one!!!

Some Important information:

Available Routes:

Delhi – Pathankot – Gaggal – Dharamshaala (My first route)
Delhi – Chandigarh – Ropar – Kiratpur – Bilaspur – Mandi – Palampur – Gaggal – Dharamshaala (Second route; while coming back from the first trip)
Delhi – Chandigarh – Ropar – Kiratpur – Bilaspur – Hamirpur – Kangra – Gaggal – Dharamshaala (Route while going; 2nd time)
Delhi – Chandigarh – Ropar – Kiratpur – Nangal – Una – Chintpurni – Kangra – Gaggal – Dharamshaala (Route While coming back 2nd time)

Total Driving distance:

511 kms (Route 4)
585 kms (Route 3)

Food Variety:
Indian; South Indian; Chinese; Italian; French; Tibetan

Accommodation:
Anything between 350 to 1350 per room on a twin sharing. Not many hotels have fans.

Checkout time:
Strict 1200 hrs

I think this has turned out to be one of the longest travelogues I have written… thanks for reading it till the end…

AND, and do Let me know in case you read this line too !!!

Oh… and the pictures can be found HERE