I remember telling my husband in Khajjiar, ‘I want to elope into the woods’ and he replied, ‘we are married.'

One evening my husband came from office and asked me if I was willing to go on a road trip. I was more than happy to voice my answer and I guess he did understand what I wanted to say and started short-listing the places where we could go. I was eager to see this place in Himachal Pradesh ever since I heard about it from my husband. He asked me once,' Do you want to go to Khajjiar, also known as Switzerland of India”, and I answered," Yes sure.” Today was the day, and so without giving it a second thought, I blurt out Khajjiar and he was more than happy to take me there.

We planned our journey accordingly and booked our hotel. It was going to be our first trip to North after our son’s birth. I packed all the essential stuffs and was loaded with extra luggage. Our plan:

Halt in Chandigarh

Next day early morning off to our destination: Dalhousie

Dalhousie: Did I tell how romantic this word sounds to me? There is something musically attractive about this word. Travelling to Dalhousie means passing through the aromatic land of Punjab (do not mind my fondness for the place). The green luscious fields sowed with seasonal crops, the dancing trees, the gurgling water canals, the tasty breeze and the sight of Gurudwara Sahib in every few minutes, carved precious visuals in my memory cells. It was our luck or as they say, the whole universe was bestowing its blessing on us, either way our journey to Dalhousie was the one we would always cherish.

It was around four when we finally waved goodbye to Pathankot (Punjab) and entered the land of beautiful landscape- Himachal Pradesh. Some three years back we had visited Manali, the upper Himalayas, a place that I dreamt of was right in front of eyes. Therefore, this time we decided to visit the lower Himalayas as well. The vegetation in Himachal Pradesh is pretty much the same. The gigantic deodar trees rolled out all across the landscape making it a visual delight. As we entered the state of miracles, the weather enhanced the already breathtaking beauty of the place. The serpentine turns made us giggle quite often. The clouds started engulfing the peaks and slowly spread its magical arms around the mountains. We were literally driving on the clouds, flying with them, touching them and tasting it. The special treatment given to us by nature magnified our wonderful experience to Dalhousie. As we neared the town, my husband’s excitement level had already crossed the bar, and he was immediately in love with the place.

Kumar Hotel: We entered the town at sun set with thrilled eyes and took a turn to our hotel. As this was a long weekend, it was difficult to get hotels in the town, so we had made a last minute reservation yesterday after hours of scratching our heads into booking a single room. Our hotel was right present across the square but a shocker was yet to come. Before booking we had enquired for the parking details and the hotel staff ensured us with a full parking space, but it turned out be a nightmare to park our car in the narrow streets of the town. Anyhow, we got a place to park and my husband asked me to do the check in formalities. I took the keys and rushed to the room with my son expecting the unexpected. We entered into a simple and clean room. I knew the room was clean and had basic amenities, yet I started my usual ranting which angered my husband and immediately I realized my mistake and zipped my mouth. After taking some rest and covering my son in warm clothes, we headed for dinner. To add cherry to the cake, the weather continued playing it tricks and it started drizzling, enhancing the already astounding weather. Ten steps from our hotel, in the main square of the town is situated a restaurant that reminds me of home. Lalji food corner( don’t mistake it Lalji Resort). This is a simple restaurant that serves home like food and it is because of its toothsome food, we could make two days in a row without any digestive track problems. The square of the town is well equipped with good grocery shops and one of them serves fast food too.

After having our healthy dinner, we simply searched for our bed without knowing to what we would wake the next day.

The next day: My husband opened the balcony door and immediately called me to join him. In my night gown, half-awake, I reached for the balcony only to hold my breath to what I was seeing was real. The scene from our balcony was breathtaking. It was still drizzling and the clouds had stepped on the land of Dalhousie. The trees, roofs of the other hotels, all covered with fogy mist that was pouring continuously and to stir the weather further, the cool air had all the potential to entangle every knot of our body. Imagine how it felt like to escape 46 degrees temperature of Delhi and land in the lap of this beautiful cool place. Therefore, as I mentioned that is was constantly pouring, so we had to delay our plans of visiting Khajjiar, which was one and half a hour away from Dalhousie. We started our day late when the rain somewhat stopped and hopped on our car off for Khajjiar at around 11:30am. More than the place, I was awed by the valley, the mountains, the small streams, the yellow wild flowers spread all over the valley ( I am kind of obsessed with these tiny flowers, and they are one of the reason for my love for hill stations) and the greenery that lead us to the destination. I must say that this route was even more dangerous with narrow road. The charm of the place was at times stolen by the discomfort of the broken road and it continues for a stretch of 4-5 kilometers. We enjoyed our ride to the place and was even more delighted to see the luscious green meadow filled with tourists walking, playing, exploring, eating and lost in the beauty of the place. I too was lost for a moment.

Khajjiar: I could not decide the reason to my happiness, was it because I was finally here or was it because of the smile that it brought on my son’s face. His little angel steps wanted to explore the entire place. I could also see the happiness on my husband’s face. They both were having their time of the day, running around and playing football. There were couples with their toddlers, families that had come for picnic, people posing for photos, paragliding and other sports, vendors selling varied toys and food items and a small lake that looked unattended. I tried to capture every bit of the place that my eyes could unravel. This enormous grassy land was surrounded by densely populated tress and mountains, it gave it a special feel to it. I wanted to run straight into the woods and vanish in the land of unknown further exploring something miraculous (I know it sounds so absurd but there are times when I see such beauty that I want to completely loose myself to its mysterious world). But how long could I linger to this thought when I had a grumbling stomach to feed. It was time to test our taste buds and yes, there are quite a few options. We had our lunch which was not so bad and decided to spend some more time under the sun. The only backdrop to the place was the crowd, I mean it was more commercialized than I had expected it to be but no matter whatever the drawback was, I had a good time with my family. Somewhere around 3:30 when we were simply sitting and enjoying the greenery, a man came with his musical instrument ( I don’t know which instrument) and offered us to sing a song in his language. As soon as he started singing, some kind of magic happened and I was completely lost in the song that described a conversation between a mother and a daughter. The daughter says:

Mai ni meriye Shimle di rahe Chamba kini door,

Shimle nai basna,

Kasauli nai basna,

Chambe main basna zaroor…… ( Song by Saran Das)

The girl says to her mother that she wants to marry and go to Chamba( a district and tourist place close to Dalhousie), she does not want to settle in Shimla nor in Kasauli but she wants to settle in Chamba. The song had a typical vibe to it and we were lost in its melody. My son started dancing and made the moment even merrier. Now it was time to head back and explore the famous Mall Road of Dalhousie. ( I would like to mention that all the hill stations in the country definitely have a street for shopping known as the Mall road). While heading back to Dalhousie, I was once again mesmerized by the beauty of the small wild flowers and insisted my husband to pull over so I could take pictures of the little buddle of yellow smiles those were spread all across the surrounding of the road. After clicking some memorable photos, we again took a break and clicked photos of Dalhousie Public School which is situated on the road to Khajjiar. Perfectly carved landscape of the school would definitely ignite a desire in you to get enrolled in school all over again.

Mall Road of Dalhousie: I have been to the mall road of Manali and my husband has been to few others but I must the say the Mall Road of Dalhousie is definitely and undoubtedly the best among the lot. We immediately loved the vibe of the place. There are benches situated in every ten to fifteen steps for the tourist to sit and enjoy the street food. The shops have good stuffs and are not that crowded. Our taste buds were satisfied by the food. I did some shopping and bought one phulkari (a special embroidered dupatta made in Punjab) and a Kasmiri embroidered dupatta. Then we headed for the Tibetan market that was situated two minutes walk from mall road. I was disappointed with the collection and left the place only to have mouth watery masala maggi with hot tea that gave our evening a perfect end. Then we headed back to our hotel, satisfied and tired.

End of the Journey: We had a plan to go to Chamba the next day but due to some health issues we had to cut our trip short and head back to Chandigarh. I did not have the opportunity to further explore Dalhousie and this left me with two emotions. First one being sad and disheartened and second one, somewhere deep inside I was dancing that I would get a chance again to visit this place and discover it and dive in its memories all over again. And as I mentioned earlier, the universe was with us as the day we left Dalhousie it was sunny, and the weather had become a bit warmer. I said a good bye speech to this land of happiness in my heart and started our journey to Chandigarh.

On our way to Dalhousie

Waterfall- Dalhousie to Khajjiar

The Town

Top view of Tibetan market

Pink, yellow and white

Khajjiar

My bundle of happiness

On the way to Mall Road