Planing a short trip to mountain? Then only Dalhousie and Khajjiar is your destination. The serene blue sky, the sun filtered through clouds, Rain and hails playing hide and seek with the special appearance of snow fall is my way of picturing the perfect mountains tourist spot.

Dalhousie is a popular hill station that was founded by Lord Dalhousie in 1850. Dalhousie is a paradise tucked away in the lap of Himachal Pradesh. Dalhousie has a number mountains and river streams that tourists must visit. Among them, the most famous are Panchpulla, Satdhara Falls and Daikund peak. Apart from this Dalhousie has some rich colonial architecture, the town preserve some beautiful churches.

Khajjiar which is also known as mini Switzerland is situated in Chamba district. This hill station is a place which one must visit atleast once in a lifetime. A small Khajjiar lake, surrounded by Dense deodars, pines and lush green meadows and fresh air will fill your soul with peace and happiness, that you will surely gonna recall its serene beauty for the rest of your life. One can get the panoramic views of the mountains from Khajjiar.

My Experience : Dalhousie and Khajjiar

This was our first trip post marriage, our honeymoon trip. We, me and my husband explored many places and ended up deciding Dalhousie and Khajjiar as we wanted our short trip near to Punjab. Here dalhousie 255 km approx. to ludhaina and khajjiar was 280 km approx. We got our room booked for 4 days 3 Nights in 4 start hotel in dalhousie 1 month in advance to avoid last minute rush for the month of march. We checked the weather online and done our packing accordingly. Weather was showing heavy rainfall for next few days.

Day 1: Ludhiana to Dalhousie

We started our journey early in the morning in our own car. We left around 6.30 am in between we stopped for breakfast on the way for road side dhabba serving a streaming hot tea with masala Maggie. We reached at dalhousie around 1.30 pm. What else can you expect other than cool healthy air, breath taking view, greenery and tiny drops of water in the form of drizzling to make the weather more romantic. It was indeed the perfect welcome in the mountain with your loved ones

We straight went to our hotel to have some rest and ordered our lunch in our room. After taking a short nap, We left to explore local market in the evening. It was cloudy outside so we kept our umbrella with us. As the market was 2km away form our hotel, we preferred to visit it by our car. As we left from hotel heavy rain started in no time along with hailstorm. We decided to park our car as the visibility went completely zero and it was difficult and risky to drive. Luckily we find a decent place for car parking near market, but we couldn’t come out of the car due to heavy hailstorm and it was too cold outside so we chose to wait. After half an hour rainstorm stopped and finally we came out of the car. Most of the shops were closed, we saw a cafe nearby and run towards it. Our shoes got completely drenched by milted ice water on the road. After reaching the cafeteria, we made our-self comfortable with tandoori Chai in “Kulhar” along with some hot spicy snacks in the chilled weather.

For our first diner date we chose the popular restaurant “Cafe Dalhousie” and ordered our diner. Meanwhile we enjoyed the rainfall from window side. Food served by this restaurant was well cooked and delicious. Dim light and old soft evergreen Hindi romantic song made our diner date more memorable.

Day 2: Dalhousie Sightseeing

First day was bit hectic for us and we had very nice sleep in cozy room. Around 4:30 am in the morning we heard some noise. We removed the curtains and saw a mesmerizing view of snow fall from the window. Soon we took our umbrella and mobile (for pictures :p ) and rushed outside to enjoy the SNOWFALL :). We were astonished for a second to see the beauty & chilled breeze. Everything was covered with the white layer of snow. Everyone around there was having good time with their loved ones. Someone was clicking the selfies and other one was capturing the snowfall in their camera. There was another couple who were playing with snowballs. It seems like we are in our fairy-tale dreams. We were lucky enough to enjoy the snowfall as it lasted for 1 hour only. As we were feeling cold, we came back to our room and enjoyed the scene beauty from our rooms glass window with a cup of morning tea.

We were planning to move toward khajjiar but preferred to recheck the weather before leaving. It was showing heavy rainfall in khajjiar for the full day. So we decided to stay back in Dalhousie only. We had our breakfast in the hotel and rushed toward Satdhara Falls.

“Satdhara Falls” is a beautiful place which comes on the way while traveling to panchpula and it is 5 km to Dalhousie. Satdhara means ‘seven springs’ in the Hindi language, This place is famous for photography, waterfall, scenic beauty, tracking and picnics. We enjoyed water springs on the way. After reaching to Satdhara falls we did tracking, made some new friends, enjoyed local snacks and waterfalls. After spending some quality time in Satdhara falls, we move towards Khajjiar road to explore the nature and local area.

Just beyond Dalhousie public school on the Khajjiar Road, there is a small beautifully maintained park named “Bijji Park”. It has some military artillery on display. On one side of the road a full-size fighter jet along with all its ammunition is displayed. Beautiful background of hills covered with snow was making this place worth watching and clicking photos. After spending one hour over there we went to Dalhousie to have our lunch, on the way, it started raining along with heavy hail storm. We parked our car near by and went to a restaurant “Kwality Restaurant” and had our lunch. Our car was fully covered with small sized hails. Somehow we managed to clear the hails from car wind shield and from the road too, to unblock the path for wheels to move. We went back to hotel as local market was almost shut and it wasn’t safe to ramble in such weather.

After coming back to our hotel, we rested for some time. As soon as the weather was clear in the evening, we came outside to have some yummy street food. It was drizzling full time and the road was slippery due to the hails. We enjoyed the local market, done some shopping, had variety of street food, can’t forgot the taste of those soft, creamy and mouth dissolving Momo’s. Finally we had our dinner at nearby south Indian restaurant and came back to our hotel.

Day 3: Dalhousie to Khajjiar

We were about to leave for khajjiar but at hotel reception, we came to know that the road to Khajjiar is blocked due to land sliding. We were disappointed as we didn’t want to miss the opportunity to see “Mini Switzerland” of India.

Then we came to know that there is another long way to Khajjiar through Chamba, although it was very long drive but we enjoyed every second of the journey. As we were going upwards, the road was getting narrowed. There were times when we thought to go back as there was hardly any space left for a car to cross along with landsliding. At once we decided to go back to avoid the risk and then we thought for a minute and finally decided to move ahead. We reached at kajjiar at 1pm.

Kajjiar indeed is a place which everyone must visit at least once. For Khajjiar sightseeing, we had two options, one to hire horse and than exploring Kajjiar through the local guide, another option was to enjoy a long romantic walk on the field with your better half hand in hand. As we were already tired from the journey, we chose second option and had our own version of A Walk To Remember in Kajjiar. It’s a best picnic spot for families. Very peaceful, very clean, full of fresh air, grass all over the field & looked green and shiny. You will get the positive vibes which you can only feel but can’t do the justice to it while describing in words. I would strongly recommend you to visit Khajjiar once.

On the way back from Khajjiar. We went to “Chamera Damn” which is situated at Ravi river. This damn supports the hydroelectricity project in the region. It is located near the town of Dalhousie. Post reaching to chamera damn we enjoyed the water rafting and experienced fresh air.

While coming back to our hotel we had our evening snacks at road side cafeteria. It was the new cafe and they were establishing it but I must say the food is of awesome quality and they had very nice hospitality. Then we spent some time cherishing the natural beauty and closed our day.

Day 4: Dalhousie to Punjab

We waked up bit late in the morning, enjoyed our last breakfast of the trip, packed our bags and spend some time holding each others & looking at the beauty of Dalhousie to capture the mountains, hill views, sun kissed warm winter morning. Finally carrying lots of unforgettable memories in our hearts, we re-looked our room once again and said Good Bye to Dalhousie until we’ll meet again 🙂

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