This blog is all about my experience to see that much large apple gardens, big hills, beautiful black and white hues of snowy mountains and the most amazing landscape in India as far as I have travelled. It was my dream to see the big red and green apples hanging from the tree.
It was in the end of September we took train from Howrah, India to Kalka, situated in Haryana, India. Once we reach the station Kalka after travelling for 2 days in train another train was waiting for us and it's not a normal train but a toy train with the name Shivalika. As soon as we boarded the train we come in vicinity to the mountains. The speed of the train is not that much good it takes around 3-4 hours to reach Shimla. Tourist normally prefer this train for its amazing way of moving in between the hills and the beautiful landscape you can observe from this train really marvelous. You might miss the opportunity to see all those beauty if you choose to travel by car. Our hotels, Cottages and car was already pre-booked. So we were a bit relieved by not thinking about that.
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Shivalika Toy Train
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Once we reach to Shimla we could feel the cold breeze and the smiling sun over our head I think this combination of atmosphere does not let us feel tired after such a long journey. Since our cab was already booked we took the car and moved to our cottage. The cottage was around 2 and a half hours away from the main city. The main city was in the mid of a lot of hustle and bustle so I think that staying in that cottage was worth it. The people near there and the family of the person who took our booking were very loving and welcoming they literally provided us with home cooked food which helped us in maintaining a good immunity in the sudden weather change within us. We enjoyed that night there.
Next day in the morning we started moving towards Sarahan a small village in HP it took 8 hours to reach there via road from Shimla. There is nothing much to see in Sarahan but a temple i.e. Bhimakali temple. It's a temple dedicated to mother goddess Bhimakali.
The temple is situated about 180 km from Shimla and it is as holy as 51 shakti peeths it relates to the daksha yajna incident, when the ear of Sati, daughter of king Daksha, is said to have fallen down in the ground there, making this a place of worship as a peetha-sthan. We halt that night in sarahan and next day after darshan move towards Sangla. |
Entrance to Bhimakali temple
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Inside of Bhimakali temple
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| Narsimha temple |
Sangla is situated a bit at a higher altitude, it took us around 2 hours to reach there. It's a beautiful town, visiting this place was prohibited since it is close to the Tibetan Border. Spread over an area of over 40kms. It's a magnificent site to behold . Snow clad mountains surround you and you get to see the Kinner kailash peak. It has many big Apple Gardens which adds an extra cream to your coffee. It has another name i.e. the Baspa valley after the name of the Baspa river flowing through this valley. Visit the nearby place Chitkul there, it's the last town of the Indian border after which Tibetan border begins. The temperature of Chitkul is extremely low and there is hardly any availability of the phone connection there. The roads leading to Chitkul is still under construction and so it might take a little bit of an extra time. Apart from that the roads are extremely adventurous with small width and shape of a serpent whose bends are under the umbrella of rocks of the mountains. The fantastic landscape won't let you escape from that place.
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Sangla Surrounded by kailash peak
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Apple Garden
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| Chitkul |
Next day we went to kalpa, it was a 2 and a 1/2 hour drive. It is situated on the old Hindustan Tibet road. Earlier it was the District Headquarter of Kinnaur. It has all the characteristics of a heritage village. Large Apple gardens across the town, great Kailash peak surrounding the monastry and temples for positive vibes and the biggest plus point is it's hustle and bustle free area. There are several places you can visit by staying at kalpa, those are suicide point, Roghi Valley, Apple gardens, temples and monastries. On next day we started to board back to kalka via road by halting at Rampur for a night.
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| Chitkul |
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| Temple in Kalpa |
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| View of Kailash from kalpa |
