Kinnaur: Rampur and Around

A long awaited Kinnaur-Spiti trip was due for a long time ever since I bought Outlook Traveler’s guide for Himachal Pradesh. When I first bought it without more ado I had a bizarre aspiration to travel entire Himachal before resting in peace. I keep bragging this to all the people who would come up and ask me as why did I acquire that hardback. Thus I had this superb opportunity of tripping to hills this month with my mother, was time to explore some new places of which I’ve heard from few associates and comprehended about on web, travel magazines and videos, etc.

I got myself into the scheduling and execution of the trip as I had to persuade that I could take my mother all by myself, some of my cousins were keen to join too but backed off before the beginning of the adventure because of their inevitable obligations. So I did a painstaking study about the place, lodging and routes. The itinerary was organized a week back and I kept a check on it regularly as I didn’t want to let it go down with any sort of misapprehension. The plan was to reach Rampur by bus so we took Volvo at 7:25 PM from Kashmiri Gate ISBT bidding Delhi adios for a week on a voyage to hills and chilliness. FYI Rampur is in Shimla District and is doorway to Kinnaur and Spiti District.

The bus left right on time but quite a lot of things were on my mind already. I was sleep deprived entire way out of excitement and thanks to the bus conductor who played two movies in a row all muted, gratefully my music kept playing in my ears. I played all the tracks which were in connect to hills ( Mohit Chauhan , Songs shot on hills & Pahari Songs).

The bus stopped at the local Dhaba and we had dinner and headed back to the bus and slept for some good time and in no time we reached Queen of the hills Shimla (my birth place) at 4:00 AM. At this hour I couldn’t stay more awake with the beautiful sunrise I took a nap until we reached Rampur but we came to know that the bus was going more further and we were supposed to get down at Jhakri (that’s where my maternal uncle lives) so we extended our ticket fare till Jhakri and reached at about 9:30 to our guest house . My maternal uncle dropped us and told us to get ready to pay our visit to the renowned Bhimakali Temple somewhere in the evening. I was so beat that after a comforting bath and aloo parathas and I dozed off more only to get up at 3:30 PM.

The imposing Bhimakali Temple, Sarahan, Himachal Pradesh, India.

At 4:00 PM we left for Sarahan, the site for this unusual Bhimakali Temple known for its very beautiful wooden engraving architecture and dedicated to mother goddess Bhimakali. On the way I spotted villages and local people and the air got synched into me as if it warmly welcomed us in the heveanly place. 

Exceptional standard of workmanship through the walls of the Temple. 

The temple is one of its kinds and is the only one temple with such outstanding art of woodwork, entrance gates of silver carved at the same time with deities and manuscripts on it. There is a guest house at the temple itself so lot of tourists were coming in with bags to stay at this conspicuous temple so if readers are willing to make a stay at Sarahan, this is the best place to spend the night at mother goddess’s own palace.

The intricate handcrafted silver door handheld at the Temple.

After paying a short visit to the temple we left from Sarahan back to Jhakri but stopped by Jeori, a small town but with a big market site for essentials, for evening tea and snacks, I chose to have a bowl of steaming tomato cream soup and headed back to Jhakri but not before a stopover at the hydroelectricity project site where my uncle works, we were lucky enough to get in there because of him. The entrance was beautifully lighted we made our way by entering into a tunnel a total of about 900 meters long. What a thrilling experience that was! Photography was forbidden. We called it a day and got packed up to leave for Sangla-Rakcham-Chitkul next day as per the itinerary. 

If anybody plans to go (for the knowledge) to Kinnaur there are two ordinary buses other than Volvo that leave for Ramput from Delhi at 6:30 PM & 8:10 PM respectively. Total distance of 509 kms, we completed it in 14 hours stopping by at few places, a little strenuous. Rampur has good amount of guest houses and hotels. Bhimakali Temple is also fine to settle in for a night.