15th June-19th June
I have visited Dharamshala around 10-12 times now and every time I visit this place I see its different picture. As all my plans are sudden, this time also I booked tickets on Friday morning and by night I was sitting in the bus. I cannot express how badly I was craving for mountains. So after a gap of 1 and a half month (as my last trip was Mumbai) I was going back to Himalayas.
Dharamshala- From Eyes of a Local
I reached Dharamshala where my friend Ashish was waiting for me. I checked-in in Devdar Hotel Resort and from there my journey started- journey from eyes of a local where I visited places which I had not visited earlier.
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| View from Devdar Resort |
PALAMPUR
Ride from Devdar Resort to Palampur is beautiful. Palampur is famous for its beautiful tea gardens and also for Dominos. Well! I tried Dominos for the first time in hills and it was such a great fun.
NEUGAL KHAD (Palampur)
Neugal Khad- It has become my favourite place now. Fresh water, serenity and calmness and with hardly any crowd, this is a prefect place to take that dip in water to detoxify your body, mind and heart.
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| My friend Sanjeev busy in stone balancing |
On the way from Neugal Khad to Dharamshala there comes Guddu Fast Food dhaba where you get amazing Dosa. Imagining Dosa in hills, and my mouth has started watering.
SAVE TIBET FRIENDS CORNER
It is a small beautiful cafe in Dharamshala which offers a spectacular view. This is a perfect place to spend some lone time reading a book and watching the mountains. I had masala chai and their famous delicious egg noodles. I was reading Animal Farm by George Orwell and there comes these lines:
"Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself."
The quote I read in the cafe:
"What we do is a measure of who we are. If we imagine our work as labour, we become labourers. If we imagine our work as art, we become artists. "
TEA GARDENS OF DHARAMSHALA
Travelling in hills is like meditation. We went to tea gardens of Dharamshala and everything was so peaceful there. Peace is in the stillness, I believe- stillness of the mountains, the trees. Peace is in the stillness of mind and heart, when I am not thinking anything, when I am not feeling anything.
LOCAL FOOD
All this while I was exploring different cafes and restaurants of Dharamshala and I missed the most important and delicious gol gappas near Maximus Mall and Khatta Mora. For people who are fond of non-vegetarian food, Meat Chawal and non-veg Khatta Mora are major attractions in Dharamshala where you get full non-veg rice thali for only Rs 100.
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| Virender Sir- In travelling industry he is considered as a senior-experienced person. I had a talk with him and he is so down to earth and young by heart. |
In these 3 days I went to Palampur, Naddi, Jia, Neugal, Mcleodganj. Exploring the unexplored, and exploring like a local was a great and learning experience.
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| Beautiful Landscapes at Jia |
