Tirthan Valley, Himachal Pradesh

Some trips just don’t seem to get over. Our visit to Tirthan Anglers’ Retreat is like that – we can’t stop talking about that. On the second day of our trip, after a heavy breakfast on the riverside, Dilsher from the resort said our taxi to Jalori Pass was already waiting. He alerted us that it might rain and get cold so we might as well carry some heavy clothes. So we packed jackets, and one of us also picked an umbrella (he wouldn’t have moved without it anyway!). In no time we were on the beautiful roads of Tirthan Valley.

Talking about beautiful roads, the route from Banjar to Jalori Pass was, in one word – breathtaking. The deep valley below had the river dancing by and pine and other trees completely covered the mountain. Unknown flowers – mauve – orange and pink, but very little white, punctuated the flora. The occasional mist, we drove into, made the journey surreal. It seemed that even before reaching Jalori Pass, our day was made!

In about one and a half hours we parked near the Kali temple adjacent to Jalori Pass. From this point, it was a trek up. We picked up our water bottles and jackets and started walking on the hill toward Silosar Lake atop. The climb looked cool but we later realized it wasn’t easy. We had to rest off and on. The sight of clear blue sky through pine trees and the crisp mountain air kept us going.

We saw a beautiful procession at a distance. There were a lot of colourfully decorated big umbrellas and a huge palanquin that were being carried up. We could hear flutes, horns, and drums. A colourful flag was at the forefront. It had Paneur Nag embroidered on it. There was a lot of festivity in the air. This seemed straight from a Discovery channel video.

We stood there mesmerized by the beauty of the land and the magic of the Gods. It was “Devbhumi” Himachal in its full glory.

We were told that the people in the local villages were suffering from a water crisis. Hence, they resorted to divine intervention. They were carrying up the deity Durga from the local village to Sringa Rishi Temple, Selosar Lake for prayers. We just hope this worked out for them.

We followed the procession till the top of a hill. There was a small single-room temple perched here. It looked like a crown on the hill. We could see a lot of the valley from here and it all looked so abstractedly beautifully. The green–yellow–blue scenery was a painting. We had to pinch ourselves to see if we were in real.

On the way down we lost our way – all the sides of the mountain looked identical and we couldn’t identify which side we had come up. There was no soul around for giving us directions and no network that we could call. Suddenly we noticed some petals. These were dropped by the temple procession. We followed the trail left by these petals and flowers and reached where we had parked. So much for divine intervention for us 🙂

There are some basic tea stalls at the bottom of the hill. All this trek up and down – about three hours and left us famished. We pottered into a tea stall and made the most of what the chappie had on offer – biscuits, local cracker called matthi and few rounds of tea. This sustained us on our way back.

Every bit of Himachal is a beauty and we have already written about our enchanting village walk at Sarchi. But, in addition to nature at her best, there are new experiences in every corner as we realized during this trip.

Who would have thought, we from Delhi, would be part of this beautiful temple procession experience at the remote Jalori Pass?